Democratic Republic of the Congo VAT rate
Taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, taux normal — the standard rate under Article 35 of Ordonnance-Loi n° 10/001 du 20 août 2010 portant institution de la Taxe sur la Valeur Ajoutée, as amended. Administered by the Direction Générale des Impôts (DGI) on domestic supplies and by the Direction Générale des Douanes et Accises (DGDA) on imports.
| Current value | 16 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2012-01-01 |
| Official source | Code des Impôts (édition 2023), Livre I, IIIème Partie, Section 2 « Du taux d'imposition », Article 35 de l'Ordonnance-Loi n° 10/001 du 20 août 2010 (modifié par la L.F. n° 21/029 du 31 décembre 2021 et la L.F. n° 22/071 du 28 décembre 2022) : « taux normal : 16% applicable à toutes les opérations imposables à l'exclusion des opérations soumises au taux réduit ou au taux zéro » — publié par la Direction Générale des Impôts |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Article 35 sets three rates: NORMAL 16%; REDUCED 8%, applicable to a closed list of 24 tariff positions (fresh/chilled/frozen beef, pork, poultry and edible offal; frozen tilapia and horse mackerel; dried and salted fish; husked, milled and broken rice; solid cane/beet sugar; infant milk preparations and other milk preparations; concentrated or sweetened milk and cream; bottled table water; iodised salt; household soap in bars/cakes; matches) and to the sale of domestic air tickets; ZERO 0% on exports and assimilated operations. The 8% reduced rate is the 2021/2022 Loi de finances layer — the 16% normal rate itself has not moved. EFFECTIVE DATE: Article 78 of the ordonnance-loi provides that it 'entre en vigueur endéans dix-huit mois à dater de sa signature' (signed 20 Aug 2010), and the execution texts (Décret n° 011/42 du 22 novembre 2011 plus arrêtés interministériels of 19, 23 and 28 December 2011) are all dated to take effect at the start of 2012, when TVA replaced the impôt sur le chiffre d'affaires (ICA); 2012-01-01 is therefore the start date used here and is inferred from those execution texts rather than from a single dated commencement clause. REGISTRATION THRESHOLD: annual turnover (net of VAT) of 80,000,000 CDF or more (Art. 14 OL 10/001; confirmed on the DGI's own TVA page, https://dgi.gouv.cd/taxe-sur-la-valeur-ajoutee-tva/), except members of the liberal professions who are liable regardless of turnover. Public-law bodies are outside the scope for their administrative, social, educational, cultural and sporting activities where non-taxation does not distort competition. Withholding: mining companies withhold VAT at source for public establishments and state-owned enterprises (Art. 53 al. 2, added by L.F. n° 17/005). Sectoral suspension: Décret n° 22/31 du 15 octobre 2022 (as amended by Décret n° 23/16 du 15 avril 2023) suspends VAT collection on certain cement and real-estate goods. WATCH: Loi de finances n° 25/060 du 29 décembre 2025 pour l'exercice 2026 amended provisions of OL 10/001 (per the DGI's own account of the 20 January 2026 briefing, https://dgi.gouv.cd/participation-de-la-dgi-a-la-seance-dechanges-consacree-aux-innovations-apportees-par-la-loi-des-finances-n-25-060-du-29-decembre-2025-pour-lexercice-2026/); the DGI has NOT published a consolidated post-LF-2026 Code des Impôts — the edition on its site is still the 2023 one — so the amendments could not be read directly. Nothing in the DGI's live TVA material indicates a change to the 16% headline. ACCESS: the DGI's PDFs are linked from dgi.gouv.cd as https://dgi.webmodev.com/... URLs whose TLS handshake fails from outside the DRC (TLSV1_ALERT_INTERNAL_ERROR); every file is also served from https://dgi.gouv.cd/wp-content/uploads/... with the same path — use the dgi.gouv.cd form. journalofficiel.cd returned HTTP 503 throughout.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/cd/vat
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/cd/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/cd/vatOther Democratic Republic of the Congo series: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates