Iraq VAT rate
Standard VAT rate. STRUCTURAL NULL — Iraq has NO value-added tax. It levies a narrow, itemised SALES TAX on selected services and goods instead, plus customs duties and excises. There is no broad-based consumption tax, no input-tax credit mechanism, no VAT registration threshold and no VAT law.
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Federal Budget Law No. (13) of 2023, Article 20(First) — the operative sales-tax provision, extending 'the sales tax provisions stipulated in the dissolved Revolutionary Command Council Resolution No. (36) of 1997' to restaurants and hotels up to second class in addition to excellent- and first-class establishments; published in al-Waqai al-Iraqiya (the Iraqi Gazette) No. 4726 of 26 June 2023. Iraq's statute book contains this itemised sales tax and no VAT law. |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
NO VAT IS IN FORCE IN IRAQ as of 24 Jul 2026, so there is no standard rate to serve — hence value: null. This is positively established, not assumed: (1) Iraq's operative consumption-tax provision is an ITEMISED SALES TAX carried in the annual/multi-year federal budget laws, not a VAT — Article 20(First) of Federal Budget Law No. 13 of 2023 (Iraqi Gazette No. 4726, 26 Jun 2023, verified from the gazette PDF) extends the sales tax of dissolved-RCC Resolution No. 36 of 1997 to second-class restaurants and hotels; (2) CPA Order No. 49 (Tax Strategy of 2004), Section 8(4), lists the taxes that survived the 2003-04 suspension and they are individually named — 'Excellent and first class hotel and restaurant tax in accordance with Resolution Number 36 of 1997', real-property transfer tax (Resolution 120 of 2002), car sale fee (Resolution 80 of 1998) and petrol excise duties — with no general consumption tax among them; (3) the IMF's 2024 Iraq Selected Issues paper 'A Roadmap for Raising Non-Oil Revenues' (IMF Country Report 24/129) recommends that the authorities 'move towards adopting the value added tax' over the medium term, which only makes sense if none exists. THE SELECTIVE SALES TAXES ACTUALLY LEVIED (documented here, NOT served as a VAT rate): 20% on mobile-phone top-up and internet services; 10% on services supplied by hotels and restaurants (originally excellent and first class under RCC Resolution 36 of 1997, extended to second class by Art. 20(1) of Law 13 of 2023); 15% on car imports and airline ticket sales; and very high duties on tobacco and alcohol. The General Commission of Taxes defines 'sales tax' by reference to Article 18(First) of Federal Budget Law No. 1 of 2019 (mobile top-up and internet 20%, hotel and restaurant services 10%). Note that the 15% car levy descends from the 'car sale fee' of RCC Resolution No. 80 of 1998 and is legally a FEE, not part of the sales tax. DO NOT SERVE ANY OF THESE AS A 'STANDARD VAT RATE'. TRAP — FABRICATED FIGURE IN CIRCULATION: at least one tax-rate aggregator (taxratesbycountry.com) publishes a '20% standard VAT rate' for Iraq and attributes VAT to 'Law No. 113 of 1982'. Law 113 of 1982 is the INCOME TAX law and contains no VAT; the 20% figure is the telecoms sales tax mislabelled. This claim must never be re-cited. WATCH ITEM (DO NOT SERVE AS FACT): the Council of Ministers adopted a 2026 revenue package reported to adjust fees on communications cards, internet services and medicines, and an MP has publicly challenged it as unconstitutional taxation outside a law; no VAT bill had been enacted at confirmation. ACCESS NOTE: the General Commission of Taxes site (tax.mof.gov.iq, 109.230.113.113) refused connection on both HTTP and HTTPS from this location (ECONNREFUSED / curl timeout) throughout the check, so the GCT's own pages could not be read directly; the gazette texts at moj.gov.iq were used instead and are fetchable.
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/iq/vat
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/iq/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/iq/vatOther Iraq series: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates