The World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA) welcomes the Maldives Government’s bill to repeal the 17% Goods and Services Tax (GST) imposed on overseas travel advisors, tour operators and booking platforms from 1 October 2026. The move follows weeks of sustained representations from travel associations worldwide, including WTAAA and its members.
Submitted to the Maldivian parliament on 19 October, the bill would take overseas travel businesses out of the scope of the tax, refund GST collected since 1 October and release those businesses from any further obligations for that period. The repeal takes effect once the bill is passed, ratified, and published in the Government Gazette.
Otto de Vries, Executive Director of WTAAA, commented:
“This is the right decision, and we commend the Maldives Government for listening. Our members never disputed the Maldives’ right to tax tourism within its borders. What they could not accept was a model that asked businesses around the world to register, file and remit a foreign tax under their own banking, tax, consumer and privacy laws.”
Introduced under the Eighth Amendment to the GST Act, the regime required overseas travel businesses with no presence in the Maldives to register with the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA), and to account for and remit GST on the value of their services. There was no registration threshold, so an advisor making a single Maldives booking was caught in the same way as a global booking platform, and one booking could trigger separate registrations for several businesses in the supply chain.
A coordinated global response
On 18 September, WTAAA joined the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), the Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) and the European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Associations (ECTAA) in a joint letter to the Maldives Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Mohamed Ameen. The associations asked, at a minimum, for a postponement, protection for existing bookings, and confirmation that disclosed agents selling on behalf of a tour operator would not have to register.
On 23 September, WTAAA member, the Association of Southern African Travel Advisors (ASATA), lodged a formal objection with MIRA, setting out why the regime could not operate alongside South African exchange-control, tax, consumer-protection and data-privacy law.
WTAAA remains ready to work with the Ministry of Tourism and MIRA until the repeal bill is passed. Until then, travel advisors and operators may wish to keep track of documentation relating to any payments made since 1 October.
“Travel advisors have spent years building demand for the Maldives, and they want to keep selling it. We urge the Maldivian authorities to gazette the bill without delay, and MIRA to make refunds quick and simple for every business that paid in good faith,” de Vries added.
