Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean. The government of Mauritius introduced value-added tax in 1998 to replace sales tax. Value-added tax (VAT) is a consumption tax which is levied on the value added at each stage of production. VAT is chargeable on all taxable supplies of goods and services made in Mauritius at a rate of 15%.
A Finance Act 2025 was debated in the Mauritius National Assembly and gazetted on 9 August 2025 (Act 18 of 2025). The Act amended the Value Added Tax Act to introduce VAT on digital or electronic services provided by a foreign supplier to a person in Mauritius.
The foreign supplier in required to consider a person as being in Mauritius if any two of the following conditions are non-contradictory and supports the conclusion:
The foreign supplier is required to appoint a tax representative in Mauritius if the value of the supplied services is likely to exceed MUR 3,000,000 (approximately USD 66,000).
The Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation started a public consultation on a Child Online Safety Draft Report on 15 April 2025. One of the challenges identified in the draft report was the lack of local representation for social media platforms. Social media platforms usually offer services such as subscriptions. One potential effect of the new law is that a social media platform generating approximately USD 66,000 in revenue from customers in Mauritius would either have to appoint a representative or stop serving the local market.
One of the assumptions in Mauritius is that there is a significant hurdle to identify a user if he/she is using a foreign service, e.g. a VPN service. A secondary effect of the tax representative requirement is that it could reduce the hurdle.
The approach to require a tax representative has already been adopted in Albania and Kenya. It would be interesting to assess the secondary effects of requiring foreign suppliers to add a value-added tax to their service charge.
The article was updated on 16 August 2025. The value of the supplied services is MUR 3,000,000 instead of MUR 6,000,000.
1. "THE FINANCE ACT 2025", Government Gazette of Mauritius No. 66 of 9 August 2025
2.
"Proposal to address the need for child online protection on social media", Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mauritius, January 2025