VAT Refunds for Travellers: Verified Rules by Country
The minimum spend, the VAT rate, the export deadline and where to get the form validated — for the jurisdictions whose rules have actually been checked against the authority that runs the scheme.
Scope: twelve jurisdictions, 11 of which operate a traveller refund scheme. Countries whose rules could not be verified against the administering authority are excluded rather than published unchecked. No refund-operator fee percentage appears anywhere on these pages: no sourced figure exists for one.
The guides
Minimum Spend by Country
The threshold in every verified jurisdiction, and the unit each one counts — per invoice, per receipt, per shop, or across three days.
France vs Italy vs Spain
Three schemes side by side: which is easiest, which yields most, and the two-queue trap at Madrid.
UK & Northern Ireland
Great Britain abolished the scheme in 2021. Northern Ireland still runs it, with no minimum.
Japan
The exemption is applied at the till, not refunded at the airport — and the rules change on 1 November 2026.
How this dataset is maintained
A figure may only change on evidence from the authority that administers the scheme — a finance ministry, customs administration or national tax agency. Refund-operator material is treated as commercial and self-interested, and is never a basis for a number. Where no authoritative source could be obtained, the jurisdiction is left out of these pages entirely rather than published with a guess attached. The whole dataset, including source URLs and the date each entry was verified, is published at /data/vat-refund.json.
Related tools
VAT Refund Calculator
The VAT inside any price, the minimum check, and your operator's fee if you enter it.
Take-Home Salary Calculator
Net pay after income tax and social charges, with US state and city tax modelled.
How many countries does this cover?
Twelve jurisdictions, of which 11 operate a traveller refund scheme. These are the entries whose rules have been checked against the tax or customs authority that administers the scheme. Other countries are deliberately excluded rather than published unverified.
Where do the figures come from?
Each rate, minimum and deadline links to the authority that runs that scheme — a finance ministry, a customs administration, or a national tax agency. The full dataset is published at /data/vat-refund.json.
Why is there no refund-operator fee here?
Because no sourced figure exists for it. Operators charge a handling fee plus a currency-conversion margin, and cash at the airport normally costs more than a refund to your card, but the share is set by the operator rather than the country. The calculator lets you enter whatever rate your operator's terms quote.
How these figures are verified. Every VAT rate, minimum spend and deadline used across these pages comes from vat-refund.json in this repository, and all 12 jurisdictions in that file carry the same verification stamp: 2026-07-31, checked against the authority that administers each scheme, with the source URL stored alongside the figure. 11 of the 12 have a traveller refund available. The source dataset holds 27 further jurisdictions that do not carry both a verification stamp and an authority source URL; those are deliberately excluded rather than published unverified. Refund-operator handling fees and FX margins are also absent, because no sourced figure for them exists — which means a real refund lands lower than the headline VAT rate implies. Scheme rules change by legislation, so re-check anything you are relying on against the linked authority before you travel.