The Maldives President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has ratified the 7th Amendment to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act (Act No. 10/2011).
The Amendment to the bill was passed in the 44th sitting of the 20th Parliament on October 31, 2024.
As per the amendment, and its subsequent revisions to the GST Act, the Tourism Goods and Services Tax (TGST) collected from tourism-related services from January 01, 2023 will remain at 16% until June 30, 2025. Following this period, as stipulated under Section 15(b)(6) of the GST Act, the TGST rate will increase to 17% effective July 01, 2025.
Earlier, shops operating exclusively for employees in the tourism industry were exempted from being classified as tourism goods or services. But the recent change has broadened the scope of the exception to include employee-only cafe’s as well.