Barbados VAT rate
Value added tax standard rate under section 7(2) of the Value Added Tax Act, Cap. 87, administered by the Barbados Revenue Authority. Changed only by Act of Parliament (or by the limited ministerial order powers in the Act).
| Current value | 17.5 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2010-12-01 |
| Official source | Value Added Tax Act, Cap. 87, section 7(2) — 'The tax imposed by subsection (1) on a taxable supply of goods or services by a registrant is equal to 17.5 percent of the value of the supply' (BRA consolidated text of the Act and the VAT Regulations 1996, updated June 2016); corroborated by the BRA's Value Added Tax (VAT) Rates page |
| Last verified | 2026-07-23 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
STANDARD RATE ONLY = 17.5% (s.7(2) on domestic supplies; s.7(3) applies the same 17.5% to imports). The rate rose from 15% to 17.5% at the end of 2010 and has not moved since. NON-STANDARD RATES — recorded here, deliberately NOT served as the headline: (a) ACCOMMODATION / DIRECT TOURISM SERVICES 10% since 1 Jan 2020. This is the trap. The BRA's public 'VAT Rates' page (https://bra.gov.bb/Popular-Topics/Value-Added-Tax/VAT-Rates) still displays 7.5% for 'Accommodation (Direct Tourism Services)' and labels its table as current 'from January 1, 2016 to Present day' — that page is STALE. The statute was changed by the Tourism Levy Act, 2019-57 (assented 27 Dec 2019, commencement 1 Jan 2020), whose Sixth Schedule deletes VAT Act s.7(11) and substitutes: 'With effect from the 1st day of January, 2020 the tax imposed by subsection (1) on the supply of accommodation in a guest house, hotel, inn, apartment or any other similar place; or for a direct tourism service shall be 10 percent of the value of the supply' (https://bra.gov.bb/attachment?file=Attachments/Tourism+Levy+Act,+2019-57_2.pdf&name=Tourism+Levy+Act,+2019-57). The same Act's Fifth Schedule had first restated s.7(11) at 7.5% including 'direct tourism service', then the Sixth Schedule raised it to 10% — hence the widespread 7.5%/10% confusion. Serve 10% only if a tourism-rate series is added; the standard rate is unaffected either way. (b) MOBILE SERVICES (voice, data, text messaging) 22% since 1 Jan 2016 (s.7(13)). (c) DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY — a temporary 7.5% rate on the first 250 kWh per month (17.5% above that) was enacted by the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, 2023-6, deemed effective 1 Aug 2022, expiring 30 Sep 2023 subject to ministerial extension orders, which have been issued repeatedly; treat as a concession, not the standard rate. (d) Zero-rated supplies (First Schedule, s.8) and exempt supplies (Second Schedule, s.10). Registration threshold: BBD 200,000 of annual taxable turnover (BRA). CAUTION: the barbadoslawcourts.gov.bb consolidated Cap. 87 PDF is the L.R.O. 2007 revision and still carries pre-2010 rates — do not source the rate from it.
Get it programmatically
curl https://latamref.dev/v1/bb/vat
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://latamref.dev/v1/bb/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/bb/vatOther Barbados series: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates