Mauritania requires non-resident digital-service suppliers and platforms to register for VAT

What changed in detail

Mauritania’s Loi de Finances Rectificative pour l’année 2026, promulgated 10 August 2026, adds a new paragraph 5 to Tax Code Article 221 and a new Article 221-bis. Non-resident suppliers of digital services, and non-resident digital platforms designated as liable parties under Article 221-bis, must register with the Mauritanian tax administration under Article L.4, file the returns the Tax Code requires, and keep records of transactions carried out in Mauritania. A digital platform becomes liable for VAT on its own intermediation commission in every case, and becomes the sole party liable for VAT on the underlying transaction where it meets certain conditions — for example, collecting payment from the final customer or setting the transaction’s essential terms. Non-resident suppliers and platforms fall under a simplified registration, filing and payment regime, with implementing detail to be fixed by ministerial order (arrêté).

What it means

The place-of-supply test driving this is “used or exploited in Mauritania” — broader than a simple customer-location test, and broader than the residence-based tests common elsewhere. A supplier with no Mauritanian-located customer can still be in scope if the service is used or exploited there. Platforms carry a double exposure: VAT on their own commission always, and VAT on the underlying transaction itself where they control payment collection or the transaction’s terms — so a marketplace’s liability position can change transaction by transaction depending on who is actually setting those terms.