Guyana zero-rates local furniture, jewellery and security equipment and exempts some vehicles from VAT from 16 February 2026
- Jurisdiction
- Guyana
- Tax
- VAT
- Change type
- Rate change
- Status
- In force
- Impact
- FYI
- Announced
- 17 February 2026
- Effective
- 16 February 2026
- Instrument
- GY-ACT-3-2026
- Authority
- Guyana Revenue Authority
- Verified
- Fetched from official source · high confidence
Guyanese makers and sellers of local furniture and jewellery, suppliers of all-terrain vehicles, fire-safety and security equipment, and vehicle and outboard-engine dealers and importers.
No action — monitoring only.
The Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Act 2026 (Act No. 3 of 2026, assented 17 February 2026 and published in the Extraordinary Gazette that day) amended the Value-Added Tax Act Cap. 81:05 with effect from 16 February 2026. Schedule I (zero-rated): locally produced furniture and jewellery; all-terrain vehicles (the industry-use restriction in paragraph 10 was removed); and a substituted paragraph 19 covering fire extinguishers, smoke alarms and security equipment including security cameras and alarm systems (fire extinguishers and smoke alarms were already zero-rated by Act No. 2 of 2024). Schedule II (exempt): double-cab pickups not exceeding 2,500cc, new vehicles less than 4 years old not exceeding 1,500cc, and hybrid vehicles not exceeding 2,000cc; the exempt outboard-engine limit was raised from 75hp to 150hp.
What changed in detail
The Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Act 2026 (Act No. 3 of 2026) was assented to on 17 February 2026 and published in the Official Gazette (Extraordinary) that day. Section 4 amends Schedules I and II of the Value-Added Tax Act, Cap. 81:05. The VAT changes apply from 16 February 2026, as the Guyana Revenue Authority’s notice of 16 March 2026 confirms.
Schedule I (zero-rated):
- Paragraph 5: new sub-paragraphs (d) a supply of locally produced furniture and (e) a supply of locally produced jewellery.
- Paragraph 10: the words “for use in the mining, forestry, agriculture and manufacturing industries and by Toshaos from Amerindian communities” are deleted. GRA describes the effect as zero-rating all-terrain vehicles for all supplies, without exception.
- Paragraph 19: replaced. It now zero-rates (a) fire extinguishers and smoke alarms and (b) security equipment including security cameras and alarm systems.
Schedule II (exempt):
- Paragraph 4: new sub-paragraphs (n) double cab pickups not exceeding 2,500 cc, (o) new vehicles less than 4 years old not exceeding 1,500 cc, and (p) hybrid vehicles not exceeding 2,000 cc.
- Paragraph 7(b): the outboard-engine limit rises from 75 hp to 150 hp.
The same Act also changed income tax, corporation tax and property tax. Those changes are outside this record.
What it means
The changes are in force. The vehicle items are exemptions, not zero rates. A dealer selling these cars charges no VAT but cannot recover the input VAT attributable to them, so dealers need to apportion input VAT. Paragraph 19 is easy to misread. GRA’s notice lists fire extinguishers and smoke alarms as newly zero-rated, but the Act replaces an existing paragraph 19 instead of adding one. Security equipment is the addition. Before treating a fire-safety item as newly zero-rated, check how the earlier paragraph 19 treated it. These measures sit alongside the January 2025 zero rates in gy-vat-zero-rate-generators-agri-2025, which this Act leaves untouched.
Proof
New Vehicles (less than 4 years old), not exceeding 1500cc.
Source snapshot of the official page. Open full size ↗(o) a supply of new vehicles (less than 4 years old), not exceeding 1,500 cc;
Source snapshot of the official page. Open full size ↗Archived from the official distribution · Official Gazette (Extraordinary) of Guyana, 17 February 2026, Legal Supplement A: Act No. 3 of 2026, the Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Act 2026 · officialegazette.gov.gy