Vanuatu corporate tax rate
Standard corporate income tax rate on resident company profits. Vanuatu has none: there is no enacting statute imposing a tax on corporate income, profits, or capital gains.
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Vanuatu Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (VFIPA), the Government of Vanuatu's statutory investment authority — 'Low tax jurisdiction': 'NO INCOME AND CORPORATE TAX', 'Vanuatu has zero corporate tax', with 'no taxes affecting individuals other than import duties'; the page enumerates the taxes that DO exist (VAT 15%, import duties, rent tax on rental income, stamp duty up to 1%) |
| Last verified | 2026-07-23 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
STRUCTURAL NULL, POSITIVELY ESTABLISHED — NOT AN OMISSION. Vanuatu levies NO corporate income tax, at any rate, on any class of company, resident or non-resident. This is asserted directly by the Government's own investment authority (VFIPA, established under the Foreign Investment Act) and is corroborated negatively by the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue itself: DCIR is the revenue authority for the whole country, and the complete list of taxes on its 'Taxes' menu is Rent Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Turnover Tax (repealed). There is no income tax page because there is no income tax administration, no return, no assessment and no rate. There has never been an Income Tax Act in the Laws of the Republic of Vanuatu. WHY THE OBVIOUS SUBSTITUTES ARE NOT A CORPORATE INCOME TAX: (1) THE BUSINESS LICENCE FEE, imposed under the Business Licence Act [CAP 249] and administered by DCIR, is an annual LICENCE FEE payable for the privilege of carrying on a business activity. It is charged by activity category and is a precondition of trading, not a charge on profit. It is assessed whether the business makes a profit or a loss, allows no deduction for expenses, has no tax base of net income, and no loss carry-forward. It is a fee, not an income tax. The one partial exception proves the rule: commercial banks pay a business licence fee calculated on TURNOVER (reduced from 7% to 5% of turnover from 1 January 2020 by the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act No. 2 of 2021) — turnover, i.e. gross receipts, not income. (2) TURNOVER TAX, formerly imposed under s.18A of the Business Licence Act [CAP 249] on Category F4 'Other Professional and Business Services', was a gross-receipts tax and in any event was REPEALED with effect from 1 January 2020 (also by the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act No. 2 of 2021). It no longer exists and was never an income tax. (3) RENT TAX under the Rent Tax Act [CAP 196] is charged at 12.5% on GROSS rental income in six-month periods with no deduction for expenses; it is a schedular transaction tax on one receipt type, applying only where that rent is not already within VAT, and it does not reach business profits, trading income, employment income, dividends, interest, royalties or capital gains. (4) VAT is a consumption tax borne by the final consumer; the registered business is a collector, not a taxpayer of it. Also absent: capital gains tax, dividend/distribution tax, and withholding tax on dividends, interest or royalties. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENTS — NOTES ONLY, NOT SERVED AS FACT: Vanuatu government proposals to introduce an income tax have been raised and dropped more than once, most prominently the 2016–2018 income-tax proposal developed with donor technical assistance, which was withdrawn before enactment; nothing was ever passed. As at 23 July 2026 no Vanuatu implementation of the OECD/G20 Pillar Two GloBE rules, and no domestic minimum top-up tax (QDMTT), could be found in any Vanuatu government source. Vanuatu is not an Inclusive Framework member state with published Pillar Two legislation, and no Council of Ministers decision or Bill to that effect is on the public record; large in-scope multinational groups with Vanuatu operations would instead be exposed to top-up tax collected by OTHER jurisdictions under the IIR/UTPR. Treat any report of a Vanuatu income tax or top-up tax as unconfirmed until an Act appears in the Official Gazette. CROSS-CHECK CAUTION: the VFIPA page cited here states the rent tax rate as 15%; DCIR, which actually administers it, states 12.5% under the Rent Tax Act [CAP 196] (https://customsinlandrevenue.gov.vu/index.php/taxes-and-licensing/taxes/rent-tax). DCIR wins. The VFIPA page is cited here for the income/corporate tax statement only. ACCESS: no Vanuatu government site publishes a consolidated statute database; PacLII (the usual host of the Vanuatu Consolidated Legislation) returns HTTP 403 to automated fetchers, so the absence of an Income Tax Act was established from the revenue authority's own complete tax list plus the Government investment authority's statement rather than from a negative search of a statute index.
Get it programmatically
curl https://ausref.dev/v1/vu/corporate-tax
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://ausref.dev/v1/vu/corporate-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://ausref.dev/provenance/vu/corporate-taxOther Vanuatu series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · income tax rates