Fiji introduces a 5% Tourism Services Tax from 1 September 2026

What changed in detail

Fiji’s 2026-2027 National Budget introduced a Tourism Services Tax (TST) charged at 5%. The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service’s Summary of Revenue Policies for the budget states the rate, the FJD 2 million turnover threshold and the 1 September 2026 commencement date.

Three features distinguish it from a VAT rate change:

• It is a separate tax, not a variation of VAT. Affected operators charge both.
• It must be shown separately on invoices and receipts.
• It bites on the booking date. FRCS has said that bookings made before 1 September 2026 are not subject to the tax even where the services are supplied afterwards.

The measure is framed as running for a twelve-month period.

What it means

The part most likely to break systems is that this is a second tax on the same transaction rather than a new rate on an existing one. Property management, booking and point-of-sale stacks frequently model a single indirect tax per line, and a 5% charge that must appear as its own line beside VAT does not fit that shape without configuration.

The booking-date trigger is the second trap, because it inverts the usual instinct. Time of supply for most consumption taxes follows delivery or invoicing; here the test is when the booking was made, so a stay in December booked in August is outside the charge while the same stay booked in October is inside it. Systems need to retain and reason about the booking date, not just the stay date.

Fiji had no entry in this feed before this change, so the country baseline was reviewed at the same time: the VAT standard rate is 12.5%, reduced from 15% on 1 August 2025.