China to Tax Condoms and Contraceptives as It Grapples With Plunging Birth Rate

Beijing ends a decades-long tax break on contraception while subsidizing matchmakers, as births plunge and the population rapidly ages.

A woman browses items for sale beside a shelf of condoms (R) at a supermarket in Beijing on April 24, 2013. Wang Zhao /AFP via Getty Images

China will start taxing condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as it searches for ways to lift one of the world’s lowest birth rates.

Under a revised Value-Added Tax (VAT) Law passed at the end of 2024, condoms and oral contraceptives will lose their tax-exempt status and be subject to up to 13 percent VAT starting Jan. 1, 2026.