Belize income tax rates

What this value means

CORRECTION — THE WIDELY-CITED BZ$26,000 THRESHOLD IS STALE. It was replaced by BZ$29,000 with effect from 1 January 2025 by the Income and Business Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 40 of 2024, section 4, which repealed and replaced s.16(1)-(3) of Cap. 55. New s.16(2), verbatim: 'Any employed individual who is resident in Belize and whose total income in a basis year from all sources is less than twenty nine thousand dollars shall not be chargeable to tax in that year.' Any source still printing $26,000 is describing pre-2025 law. Act No. 40 of 2024 was read in full from the National Assembly PDF; the $29,000 figure appears three times in s.4 and the commencement is s.34. HOW THE CHARGE ACTUALLY WORKS (the bands array above is a serialisation convenience, not a progressive schedule): - s.6(3): tax on the chargeable income of every employed person is charged at a FLAT 25% ('twenty-five per centum of the chargeable income'). There is one rate, not a ladder. - s.16(2): total income below $29,000 in the basis year → NOT chargeable at all. - s.16(1): where total income from all sources EXCEEDS $29,000, a basic deduction of $20,000 is allowed in computing chargeable income. So an employee on $35,000 has chargeable income of $15,000 and pays 25% of that = $3,750. - s.16(1) proviso — TAPER CREDIT: where total income exceeds $29,000 but does not exceed $32,000, a tax credit equal to $2,250 LESS 75% of the difference between total income and $29,000. This smooths the cliff created by the threshold; it exhausts exactly at $32,000 ($2,250 − 0.75 × $3,000 = $0). A consumer computing Belize PAYE without this proviso will over-tax everyone in the $29,000–$32,000 window. - s.16(3): the Minister may vary these amounts from time to time by Order published in the Gazette, subject to negative resolution — so the threshold can move WITHOUT an amending Act. Watch the Gazette as well as the Acts series. SPECIAL RATES under s.6(3) provisos and s.6(6), not part of the general schedule: 40% on chargeable income from petroleum operations (payable in US$); 3% for an approved Designated Processing Area operator (Cap. 280); and 2% for a qualified retired person who elects under s.6(5) to be taxed in Belize on UK-source pension income, charged on the gross amount above a threshold of £3,500 or its equivalent — an incentive introduced by Act No. 40 of 2024 to attract UK pensioners. Act No. 40 also removed the tax on interest income from time deposits and inserted s.108B, a credit for gifts for sports or educational development capped at the lesser of $30,000 or 1% of tax payable. SCOPE TRAP: this series covers EMPLOYED individuals only. Since basis year 2020 no income tax is charged on any person other than an employed person (s.6(2)) — the self-employed, professionals and companies fall under the gross-receipts business tax in Part XI instead (see the corporate-tax series). Also, s.6(4): an employed person whose trade, business or profession derives its revenue OUTSIDE Belize is not liable for Belize income tax on it. The threshold and rate are in BZD, which is pegged at BZ$2.00 = US$1.00, so BZ$29,000 ≈ US$14,500. No indexation mechanism exists; changes come only by amending Act or Ministerial Order.

Earlier values

Get it programmatically

curl https://latamref.dev/v1/bz/income-tax
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://latamref.dev/v1/bz/income-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/bz/income-tax

Other Belize series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate