Isle of Man zero-rates reusable period underwear from 1 January 2024

What changed in detail

The Value Added Tax (Women’s Sanitary Products) Order 2024 (SD 2024/0016) was made by the Treasury on 10 January 2024 and laid before Tynwald on 20 February 2024, under the negative procedure. It came into operation when made, and article 2(2) deems it to have come into operation on 1 January 2024.

Article 3 amends Schedule 9 (zero-rating), Group 20 (women’s sanitary products) of the Value Added Tax Act 1996. It adds a new paragraph (d) at the end of Note (1), which lists what counts as a “women’s sanitary product”. The new paragraph covers reusable underwear that is designed, and marketed, as being primarily for use for absorbing, or otherwise collecting, lochia or menstrual flow.

The result is that reusable period underwear is a women’s sanitary product for Group 20, and its supply is zero-rated alongside the products already listed in Note (1).

A footnote to article 2 explains that the Treasury may make an Order retrospective under section 95(2) of the Act to keep Island law in line with a United Kingdom statutory instrument, and that the corresponding UK order came into force on 1 January 2024.

What it means

The zero rate is permanent and still in force in November 2026. A seller that charged 20% on reusable period underwear in early January 2024, before the Order was made, was entitled to treat those sales as zero-rated from 1 January 2024.

The test is in the product’s design and marketing, not in how a customer uses it. Ordinary underwear does not qualify, and neither does a garment marketed mainly for another purpose with absorbency as a secondary feature. Product listings and descriptions are therefore part of the evidence that a line qualifies.