# Saudi Arabia triples VAT from 5 to 15 percent

Date: 2020

## The fact

On 1 July 2020 Saudi Arabia raised VAT from 5 to 15 percent during the COVID oil-price crash.

## Context

Fiscal hole after oil and pandemic. He owned Vision fiscalisation. ZATCA collected. Households paid at checkout.

The 2018 5 percent introduction is a different date. Aramco IPO is a different file.

The Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia chairs the Council of Ministers and, in practice, the Public Investment Fund and Vision 2030 delivery. The King remains head of state. Royal decrees, cabinet decisions, and PIF board papers are the instruments. He does not write a UN resolution, an ODNI assessment, or a US CAATSA designation.

## Evidence and sources

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [household purchasing power](/drivers/household-purchasing-power) and fiscal sustainability: a completed tax hike is mixed. Primary sign here is worsening household purchasing power, with a separate improving FDI on fiscal sustainability.

## What is established and what is not

Established: a 1 July 2020 VAT hike to 15 percent, independently reported.

Not established: a unique later poverty coefficient from that day, or that the 2018 5 percent rate never existed.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

He owned Vision fiscalisation. ZATCA collected.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Saudi Arabia triples VAT from 5 to 15 percent, not a later speech about Saudi Arabia triples VAT from 5 to 15 percent.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Saudi Arabia triples VAT from 5 to 15 percent on 2020-07-01 is not a licence to treat every later Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor decree exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Saudi Arabia triples VAT from 5 to 15 percent into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to Cabinet hiked VAT. He owned Vision fiscalisation. ZATCA collected. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series. The King, cabinet, PIF, Aramco, and foreign counterparties share specific files. Allegation is not a completed judgment. An intelligence assessment is not a criminal conviction.

## People

- Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud: https://factrail.ai/people/mohammed-bin-salman

## Drivers

- Household Purchasing Power: https://factrail.ai/drivers/household-purchasing-power
- Fiscal-Policy Sustainability: https://factrail.ai/drivers/fiscal-policy-sustainability

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-saudi-tax-idUSKBN22C2Q5
- https://zatca.gov.sa/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/sa-vat-hike-2020