Jamaica VAT rate
Jamaica has no VAT; the equivalent broad-based consumption tax is the General Consumption Tax levied under the General Consumption Tax Act (1991) and administered by Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ). This series carries the standard rate applied to standard-rated supplies of goods and services.
| Current value | 15 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2020-04-01 |
| Official source | Jamaica Information Service (Government of Jamaica) — 'Gov't Announces $18 Billion In Tax Cuts', 2020/21 Budget: 'Reduction of the General Consumption Tax (GCT) rate from 16.5 per cent to 15 per cent', effective 1 April 2020; corroborated by the Ministry of Finance & the Public Service Revenue Measures FY2026/27 (tabled 12 February 2026), which raises the tourism GCT rate 'to 15 per cent' — i.e. to the standard rate — effective 1 April 2027 |
| Last verified | 2026-07-23 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
CORRECTION MADE: Tax Administration Jamaica's own public GCT page (https://www.jamaicatax.gov.jm/general-consumption-tax1/) is STALE — it still states the standard rate as 'sixteen and one-half percent (16.5%)'. That was the pre-2020 rate. The rate was cut to 15% effective 1 April 2020 in the 2020/21 Budget (announced revenue cost ~$13.96bn). The 15% figure is confirmed independently by the Ministry of Finance's FY2026/27 revenue measures, where the tourism-sector GCT rate is to be raised from 10% 'to 15 per cent' effective 1 April 2027 — a measure that only makes sense against a 15% standard rate. Do not serve 16.5%. OTHER GCT RATES (unchanged as of confirmation): 10% on specified tourism activities (rising to 15% on 1 April 2027); 25% on telephone services, telephone instruments and phone cards; zero-rated and exempt categories under the Act's schedules. FY2026/27 measures also extend GCT to imported digital services and intangibles (~$300m in Q4 FY2026/27, ~$4.2bn from FY2027/28). ACCESS PROBLEM: the statutory text at Laws of Jamaica (https://laws.moj.gov.jm/legislation/statutes/G/The%20General%20Consumption%20Tax%20Act.pdf, 4.1MB) is an image-only scanned PDF (CCITT fax-encoded) and is not machine-readable — the rate could not be quoted from the section text itself; the same is true of most laws.moj.gov.jm statute PDFs. Do not point an automated source-watcher at the Laws of Jamaica PDF or at the TAJ GCT page.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2012-06-01 | 16.5 | Jamaica Information Service — the 16.5% standard GCT rate in |
Get it programmatically
curl https://latamref.dev/v1/jm/vat
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://latamref.dev/v1/jm/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/jm/vatOther Jamaica series: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates