VAT on Gulf online shopping: rates, codes and refunds

VAT rates and price rules at a glance

Four of the six Gulf countries charge VAT on online orders. The table below shows the standard rate in each country and what the official sources we read say about how prices must be shown to shoppers. We checked every point on 26 October 2026.

Some goods sit outside the standard rate. Oman's Tax Authority, for example, lists exports, 513 essential food items and international transport at 0%, and financial services and residential rent as exempt. For fashion, beauty, home and electronics orders, expect the standard rate.

Why a discount code also shrinks the VAT

VAT is charged on what the seller actually receives from you, not on the crossed-out price. A discount code lowers that amount, so the tax inside your total falls with it.

• UAE: Article 39 of the VAT Decree-Law says the value of a supply is reduced in proportion to any discount. Article 28 of Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017 adds two conditions: you must have received the price cut, and the seller must have funded it. An ordinary store promo code meets both.
• Oman: the Tax Authority's e-commerce guide defines the taxable value as the money payable for the supply, less the tax. If a code lowers what you pay, it lowers the taxable value.
• Saudi Arabia and Bahrain: ZATCA publishes a guideline on business promotions, but we could not open ZATCA's website on 26 October 2026 to re-check its wording, and we found no Bahraini consumer guidance on codes. The arithmetic below follows the same principle.

Where a bank, wallet or card scheme pays for the discount instead of the store, the second UAE condition may not be met. We found no official consumer guidance on how such third-party offers are taxed, so treat the order summary and invoice as your reference.

Worked examples at checkout

When a store shows VAT-inclusive prices, as UAE law requires and Oman's Tax Authority expects, the VAT is a fixed share of whatever you end up paying:

• 5% (UAE, Oman): VAT = total × 5 ÷ 105, the same as total ÷ 21.
• 10% (Bahrain): VAT = total × 10 ÷ 110, the same as total ÷ 11.
• 15% (Saudi Arabia): VAT = total × 15 ÷ 115.

Percentage code in the UAE. A basket of AED 420 including VAT contains AED 20 of VAT. With a 25% code you pay AED 315, of which AED 15 is VAT. You save AED 105 in total, and AED 5 of that is tax you no longer pay.

Fixed-amount code in Saudi Arabia. Here the way the store applies the code matters. Take a basket worth SAR 500 before VAT, or SAR 575 with 15% VAT, and a "SAR 100 off" code:

• Taken off the VAT-inclusive total: you pay SAR 475, which contains about SAR 61.96 of VAT. You save exactly SAR 100.
• Taken off the pre-tax amount, with VAT added afterwards: SAR 400 plus SAR 60 VAT, so you pay SAR 460 and save SAR 115.

A percentage code gives the same result either way. With a fixed-amount code, read the order summary to see which base the store uses. If a code excludes shipping or cash-on-delivery fees, those fees keep their full VAT. Our cash-on-delivery data and free-delivery data show which stores charge them.

Gift cards and vouchers are not always discounts

Paying with a gift card feels like getting a discount, but for VAT it is usually just a way of paying. Article 28 of the UAE's Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017 says the value of a voucher you use does not count as a discount unless the voucher was given to you for nothing. If the seller sold you a voucher for less than its face value, only the difference counts as a discount.

• A AED 100 gift card that you bought for AED 100 and spend on a AED 210 order: the VAT stays at AED 10, because the price is still AED 210.
• A AED 50 welcome voucher the store gave you free: it works like a promo code and lowers the taxable value.
• A AED 100 voucher sold to you for AED 80: AED 20 is treated as the discount.

The same article says an instrument only counts as a voucher if its redeemable money value is known when it is issued, so open-ended "free gift" promises fall outside these rules. We did not find consumer-facing summaries of voucher rules for the other Gulf countries.

"VAT on us" offers, worked out

Around big sale seasons, some stores advertise that they will "pay the VAT" or sell "tax-free". In the VAT countries the sale is still taxable; the store simply lowers its VAT-inclusive price so that the new total equals the old pre-tax price. That is a smaller cut than the headline rate suggests:

• Saudi Arabia: SAR 115 becomes SAR 100, a 13.04% discount rather than 15%.
• Bahrain: BHD 110 becomes BHD 100, a 9.09% discount rather than 10%.
• UAE and Oman: AED 105 becomes AED 100, or OMR 10.500 becomes OMR 10.000, a 4.76% discount rather than 5%.

So a plain 10% code beats a "we pay the VAT" offer in the UAE, Oman and Bahrain, and a 15% code beats it in Saudi Arabia. Your invoice will still show VAT, calculated on the lower amount you paid. In Qatar and Kuwait, where there is no VAT, a "VAT-free" label adds nothing to the deal.

Returns: how the VAT comes back

When you return an item and get your money back, the VAT you paid on it should come back with it. In the UAE, Article 61 of the VAT Decree-Law requires a registered seller to adjust the tax it declared when goods are returned and the payment is refunded in full or in part, and the law treats failure to issue a tax credit note as a violation. In practice:

• A refund should match what you actually paid after the code. If you paid AED 315 for a AED 420 basket, a full return gives back AED 315, not AED 420.
• For a partial return from a discounted basket, a store may spread the code across all items or take it off one item. Check the refund line before you accept it.
• Keep the tax invoice. It shows the VAT on each item and makes any dispute quicker.

Store return windows differ widely; see our returns data for each store's policy.

Orders from abroad: import VAT

A cross-border order can attract VAT at the border instead of at checkout. This is separate from customs duty.

• Saudi Arabia: ZATCA says the 15% rate applies to imports and that personal goods are not exempt except where the VAT law provides. The tax base includes the goods, shipping, insurance, any customs duty and the declaration fees, so VAT applies even to parcels below the SAR 1,000 duty-free limit.
• Oman: the Tax Authority says 5% import VAT is collected by the Directorate General of Customs on the value in the import declaration, is payable by people who are not registered for VAT, and is due even when no customs duty is due.
• Bahrain: Bahrain Customs announced in December 2018 that personal imports and gifts worth less than BHD 300 would be excluded from VAT. That was under the original 5% rate, and we could not confirm whether the exclusion still applies at 10%.
• UAE: we could not confirm from an official source how 5% import VAT is handled on low-value personal parcels.

Some foreign stores collect these amounts at checkout; others leave them to the courier to collect on delivery. Our separate guide on customs duty covers the duty-free limits country by country.

Qatar and Kuwait: no VAT yet

Qatar's General Tax Authority lists five taxes on its website: income tax, capital gains tax, withholding tax, excise tax and the global minimum tax. VAT is not among them, and we found no official start date. For Kuwait we found no VAT in force and no official start date; the Ministry of Finance website did not load for us on 26 October 2026.

• A "tax" line on an order shipped to Qatar or Kuwait from abroad is more likely customs duty or a clearance charge. Read the label before you pay.
• Discount codes in these two countries reduce the price only; there is no VAT effect to work out.
• Treat any message asking for a "VAT fee" on a Qatar or Kuwait delivery with suspicion, and check it with the courier through its official app or website.

We will update this guide if either country publishes an official VAT decision.