Latvia enacts EU reduced VAT agreement on e-books and news 1 January 2022
The Baltic state of Latvia’s Parliament has agreed to cut the Value Added Tax rate on income from electronic books, newspapers and journals to 5% from the rate of 21%. This harmonises it with the rate on printed equivalents. The reduction will apply to on-off payments or subscriptions to:
- e-books
- digital newspapers and portals
- online magazines and periodicals
This will harmonise electronic versions to printed books, colour/painting books, brochures, maps and, newspapers and similar periodicals which will move from today’s reduced 12% rate to the lower 5%.
The current VAT rate in Latvia is 21%. Many essential services were reduced to 5% VAT during the COVID-19 pandemic until 2023.
The 27 member states of the EU agreed in October 2018 to allow e-books, online newspapers and journals to enjoy the same reduced VAT rates as their printed equivalents. Under the rules of the EU VAT Directive, this was only allowed if the goods or services supply was listed in Annex III of the directive.
Most states have now implemented this tax subsidy for electronic print. Register for our FREE global VAT and GST news updates.
