ausrefCountriesVanuatu › Withholding tax rates

Vanuatu Withholding tax rates

Vanuatu Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.

Vanuatu levies NO income tax of any kind - no personal or corporate income tax, and therefore no withholding tax on dividends, interest or royalties paid to non-residents. This record serves the absence: every rate is 0 because no head of charge exists. Revenue is raised instead through VAT (15%), import and excise duties, rent tax, turnover-based licence fees and other charges administered by the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue (DCIR).

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Current valuestructured — see the API
In force from
Official sourceVanuatu Department of Customs and Inland Revenue (vanuatucustoms.gov.vu) - the taxes DCIR administers are listed as VAT (introduced 1998 'at the rate of 12.5% on the supply of most goods and services under the VAT Act No. 12 of 1998', since raised to 15%), Rent Tax, Turnover Tax, excise, import/export duties and licensing; NO income tax act exists in Vanuatu law and no income-tax head appears anywhere in DCIR's tax list
Last verified2026-08-10
Verificationsecondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access).
This is an ABSENCE record: no statute can be quoted imposing a zero rate, because no income-tax statute exists at all. The evidence is (1) the DCIR's own enumeration of every tax it administers - VAT, rent tax, turnover tax, duties, licences - with no income or withholding tax among them, and (2) the consistent position of professional summaries that Vanuatu imposes no personal or corporate income tax, no capital gains tax and no withholding tax. A 2017 government proposal to introduce income tax was not enacted. Re-verify only if Vanuatu enacts an income tax.
Provenancesource fingerprint

What this value means

THERE IS NO WITHHOLDING TAX AT ALL, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL AND EVERY RATE BELOW IS 0. Vanuatu has never enacted an income tax: no personal income tax, no corporate income tax, no capital gains tax, and consequently no withholding tax on any payment - dividend, interest, royalty, service fee or otherwise - to residents or non-residents. The 0 entries below exist so that callers asking for a specific payment type get an answer with a citation for the absence rather than a gap. THE DOMESTIC-BEFORE-TREATY CAVEAT IS MOOT BUT STATED FOR SYMMETRY: rates in this dataset are domestic statutory rates before treaty relief; Vanuatu has no double-tax agreements to modify them and nothing to relieve. Do not confuse the absence of income tax with the absence of all tax: VAT at 15%, import duties, excise, rent tax on Vanuatu-situated property rentals, business licence fees and a turnover tax regime all exist and are actively collected by DCIR.

Get it programmatically

curl https://ausref.dev/v1/vu/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://ausref.dev/v1/vu/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://ausref.dev/provenance/vu/withholding-tax

Other Vanuatu series: RBV Rate (Reserve Bank of Vanuatu policy interest rate) · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage rate (hourly) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Statutory interest on debts and judgments · Personal income tax brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions

The same figure elsewhere: Australia · Fiji · New Zealand · Papua New Guinea · Samoa · all 8