VAT Weekly — Jun 22 – Jun 28, 2026

Armenia Proposes VAT Administration Simplifications

The Armenian State Revenue Committee (SRC) has presented a package of legislative amendments intended to simplify tax administration and address practical issues identified during discussions with taxpayers. The proposed measures include several changes affecting VAT administration, VAT registration and the VAT obligations of non-resident suppliers.

Austria1 article

VAT in Austria: Six Month Into 2026 - New VAT Rates From July 1

The first half of 2026 brought several significant VAT developments in Austria. The most notable is the introduction of a new 4.9% VAT rate for specified essential foodstuffs, effective 1 July 2026. Other changes include a 0% VAT rate for feminine hygiene products and contraceptives, new VAT rules for high-value residential lettings, amendments to cash register requirements and revised Intrastat thresholds.

Bahrain1 article

Bahrain's VAT Landscape in 2026: Exemption Fights, a New Parcel Threshold, and a Free Zone Proposal

Bahrain's VAT system — 10% since 2019, raised from an original 5% in 2022 — isn't seeing structural change in 2026, but it is seeing real pressure on its edges: two separate parliamentary fights over who should be exempt, a new threshold that actually took effect, and a proposal to rework how VAT applies to re-export trade.

Bangladesh1 article

VAT in Bangladesh - 6 Months Into 2026. Digitisation, Base Expansion and the IMF.

Bangladesh entered 2026 in a difficult fiscal position. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) had closed FY25 with a record shortfall of approximately Tk 92,625 crore against its revised target, and the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio slid to around 6.5–6.8%, one of the lowest in the world for an economy of comparable size. Against that backdrop, the first half of 2026 has been dominated by three parallel processes: the rapid digitisation of tax administration through the eVAT platform, a major restructuring of the VAT base in the FY2026-27 budget, and a contested renegotiation of the terms of IMF support that placed the uniform 15% VAT reform at the centre of international attention.

Bulgaria1 article

Court Decision·Jun 27

Bulgaria: Court Upholds Denial of Input VAT Deduction Due to Insufficient Evidence of Supplies

The Bulgarian Supreme Administrative Court has upheld a tax assessment denying a taxpayer’s right to deduct input VAT in relation to invoices issued for advertising and construction services.

Egypt1 article

Egypt Approves 2026 VAT Amendments Covering Medical Devices, Transit Services and Refund Rules

Egypt’s House of Representatives has approved amendments to the Value Added Tax (VAT) Law (Law No. 67 of 2016), introducing changes affecting healthcare, transit trade, VAT refunds and the treatment of certain goods and services.

Gibraltar1 article

Gibraltar’s VAT-Free Era Is Ending — But VAT Isn’t Arriving

Gibraltar’s indirect tax system is undergoing its biggest transformation in decades. The change is not the result of a domestic tax reform programme, but of the post-Brexit treaty negotiated between the UK, Gibraltar, Spain and the European Union.

Ireland2 articles

Tax Authority Practice·Jun 27

Irish Fiscal Advisory Council Examines Multinationals’ Contribution to Tax Revenues in Ireland

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has published a new analysis examining Ireland’s growing reliance on foreign-owned multinationals for tax revenues. While broader than VAT alone, the report highlights that multinational firms in the manufacturing, technology and financial services sectors contributed more than €13 billion in VAT and payroll taxes in 2024, accounting for almost one-fifth of all VAT and payroll tax receipts.

Ireland: Farm Equipment Installed in Existing Buildings Does Not Qualify for Flat-Rate VAT Refund

The Irish Tax Appeals Commission has held that a flat-rate farmer is not entitled to a VAT refund for equipment installed in an existing farm building where the works do not involve the construction, extension, alteration or reconstruction of the building itself.

Italy1 article

Italy's VAT Act Rewrite Enters Its Final Preparation Year

Six months into 2026, Italy is preparing for the most significant restructuring of its VAT framework in more than fifty years. A new Consolidated VAT Code will replace the patchwork of legislation that has governed Italian VAT since the 1970s, but most of its substantive provisions do not take effect until January 2027. The first half of 2026 has therefore become a transition year: businesses are adapting to the new framework while tax authorities continue tightening fiscal controls, expanding digital reporting, and aligning domestic rules with broader EU reforms.

Japan2 articles

Special Report·Jun 22

Why Japan's Zero Food Tax Pledge Became a 1% Compromise

Japan's prime minister campaigned on scrapping the consumption tax on food entirely. A year into the fight, the number on the table is 1%, not zero, paired with cash handouts to cover the difference.

Japan’s Consumption Tax in 2026: E-Commerce Reform Takes Shape While Food Tax Cuts Remain Under Debate

Six months into 2026, the most significant change to Japan’s consumption tax system is not the highly publicized debate over food-tax relief. Instead, it is a structural reform that brings low-value cross-border e-commerce more fully into Japan’s tax net and shifts collection responsibility toward foreign sellers and digital platforms. Alongside that reform, Japan is overhauling its tax-free shopping system for tourists and continuing to debate a temporary reduction in the reduced consumption tax rate on food. Of the three developments, only the e-commerce reform is already fixed in law with a clear implementation timetable.

Mauritius1 article

Mauritius Budget 2026–27: Comprehensive VAT Reform Package

The proposed reforms represent one of the most comprehensive packages of VAT amendments introduced in recent Mauritian budgets. They combine technical refinements to the treatment of financial services with a modernised framework for cross-border digital supplies, targeted reliefs for priority sectors including renewable energy, tourism and sport, and a number of administrative simplification measures intended to reduce compliance burdens while protecting the VAT base.

Monaco1 article

Monaco’s VAT in 2026: Preparing for France’s E-Invoicing Reform

Monaco’s VAT system has seen few substantive changes of its own during the first half of 2026. Unlike a number of other European microstates, the Principality does not operate an independent VAT policy framework and therefore has no separate rate changes, exemption reforms, or VAT incentives to report. Instead, the main development affecting businesses this year is France’s e-invoicing reform, which begins taking effect from September 2026 and extends to many Monegasque businesses because of Monaco’s longstanding VAT integration with France.

Oman1 article

Oman's VAT System in 2026: Fawtara Goes Live, a Tourist Refund Scheme in the Works, and a 50-Year Incentive Bet

Oman's VAT system, in place since April 2021, picked up its most significant change yet in 2026: a national e-invoicing mandate that, unlike its Gulf neighbors, brings every type of transaction into scope at once. Around that central development sit a tourist VAT refund scheme still being finalized, a tax authority reporting genuinely strong revenue growth while ruling out any rate change, and a 50-year tax incentive bet on a new international financial hub.

Qatar1 article

Qatar's Tax System in 2026: E-Invoicing Approved, VAT Signaled, Sugar Tax Locked In

Qatar still doesn't have VAT. It signed the GCC's VAT framework agreement back in 2018, the same year as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both of which now operate VAT regimes — Saudi Arabia's standard rate has since climbed to 15%. Qatar's has slipped past every prior timeline. But 2026 is the year that changed shape: Qatar approved its first real piece of digital tax infrastructure, its finance minister signaled VAT is coming "very soon," and a genuinely new excise tax already has a hard effective date.

Saudi Arabia2 articles

Compliance Update·Jun 27

Reminder: Saudi Arabia’s ZATCA Wave 24 E-Invoicing Deadline Approaches on 30 June 2026

Saudi Arabia’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) has set 30 June 2026 as the integration deadline for Wave 24 of Phase 2 of the country’s e-invoicing programme. Taxpayers resident in Saudi Arabia whose VAT-taxable revenues exceeded SAR 375,000 in 2022, 2023 or 2024 are required to integrate their e-invoicing solutions with the Fatoora platform by that date.

Policy Development·Jun 25

Saudi Arabia's VAT System in 2026: E-Invoicing's Final Wave, a New GCC Framework, and Platform Liability

Saudi Arabia's VAT system has spent 2026 maturing on four fronts at once: its years-long e-invoicing rollout is reaching the smallest businesses in the country, the regional VAT treaty underlying the entire Gulf has just been amended for the first time in a decade, digital platforms picked up direct VAT liability they didn't have before, and a coordinated GCC-wide sugar tax replaced the old flat-rate model. None of these started this year, but several of them are landing right now.

Tanzania1 article

Tanzania Passed 2026 Finance Bill: VAT Update

Parliament passed the 2026/27 Budget on 23 June 2026 (385–8 votes) and adopted the Finance Bill clause-by-clause in the same sitting, taking effect 1 July 2026.

United Arab Emirates1 article

UAE VAT in 2026: E-Invoicing, Stronger Compliance Rules, and a Shift Toward Real-Time Enforcement

The UAE's VAT system, now eight years old, moved on five distinct fronts in 2026: a major e-invoicing mandate built on a genuinely different technical model than its Gulf neighbors, a set of VAT law amendments that tighten refund timelines and shift evidentiary burden onto buyers, a quietly retroactive correction to how tolls and parking are taxed, an expanded refund scheme for citizens building homes, and a narrower anti-fraud measure on scrap metal.

Albania1

VAT Developments in Albania - 6 Months Into 2026

Armenia1

Armenia Proposes VAT Administration Simplifications

Austria1

VAT in Austria: Six Month Into 2026 - New VAT Rates From July 1

Bahrain1

Bahrain's VAT Landscape in 2026: Exemption Fights, a New Parcel Threshold, and a Free Zone Proposal

Bangladesh1

VAT in Bangladesh - 6 Months Into 2026. Digitisation, Base Expansion and the IMF.

Bulgaria1

Court Decision·Jun 27

Bulgaria: Court Upholds Denial of Input VAT Deduction Due to Insufficient Evidence of Supplies

The Bulgarian Supreme Administrative Court has upheld a tax assessment denying a taxpayer’s right to deduct input VAT in relation to invoices issued for advertising and construction services.

Egypt1

Egypt Approves 2026 VAT Amendments Covering Medical Devices, Transit Services and Refund Rules

Gibraltar1

Gibraltar’s VAT-Free Era Is Ending — But VAT Isn’t Arriving

Ireland2

Tax Authority Practice·Jun 27

Irish Fiscal Advisory Council Examines Multinationals’ Contribution to Tax Revenues in Ireland

Ireland: Farm Equipment Installed in Existing Buildings Does Not Qualify for Flat-Rate VAT Refund

Italy1

Italy's VAT Act Rewrite Enters Its Final Preparation Year

Japan2

Special Report·Jun 22

Why Japan's Zero Food Tax Pledge Became a 1% Compromise

Japan's prime minister campaigned on scrapping the consumption tax on food entirely. A year into the fight, the number on the table is 1%, not zero, paired with cash handouts to cover the difference.

Japan’s Consumption Tax in 2026: E-Commerce Reform Takes Shape While Food Tax Cuts Remain Under Debate

Mauritius1

Mauritius Budget 2026–27: Comprehensive VAT Reform Package

Monaco1

Monaco’s VAT in 2026: Preparing for France’s E-Invoicing Reform

Oman1

Oman's VAT System in 2026: Fawtara Goes Live, a Tourist Refund Scheme in the Works, and a 50-Year Incentive Bet

Qatar1

Qatar's Tax System in 2026: E-Invoicing Approved, VAT Signaled, Sugar Tax Locked In

Saudi Arabia2

Compliance Update·Jun 27

Reminder: Saudi Arabia’s ZATCA Wave 24 E-Invoicing Deadline Approaches on 30 June 2026

Policy Development·Jun 25

Saudi Arabia's VAT System in 2026: E-Invoicing's Final Wave, a New GCC Framework, and Platform Liability

Tanzania1

Tanzania Passed 2026 Finance Bill: VAT Update

Parliament passed the 2026/27 Budget on 23 June 2026 (385–8 votes) and adopted the Finance Bill clause-by-clause in the same sitting, taking effect 1 July 2026.

United Arab Emirates1