Lebanon VAT is an 11% tax on most supplies of goods and services, administered by the Ministry of Finance's VAT Directorate. A business must register once its taxable turnover reaches LBP 5 billion over one to four consecutive quarters, importers and exporters must register whatever their turnover, and registered businesses file a declaration and pay every quarter, now within one month of the quarter's end under the 2026 Budget Law. This guide covers the operational side: who registers, what goes on an invoice when you price in dollars, how a quarter's return is built, the separate monthly stamp-duty declaration, and what happens when you are late. It is a practical guide, not tax advice, and several details below change by ministerial decision, so confirm anything you file with your accountant.
If you are still choosing a system or setting up two-currency books, start with our guides to accounting software for Lebanese businesses and running your books in USD and LBP. This post assumes those basics and goes into VAT itself.
What is the VAT rate in Lebanon in 2026?
The standard rate in force is 11%. In February 2026 the Cabinet approved a proposal to raise it to 12% to help fund public-sector pay increases. That change needs a law passed by Parliament to take effect, and as of mid-September 2026 we have found no record of it being enacted. Charge 11% until a law raising the rate is published and your accountant confirms the effective date.
| Item | Status in September 2026 |
|---|---|
| Standard VAT rate | 11%, in force |
| Proposed 12% rate | Cabinet-approved February 2026, not enacted by Parliament |
| Zero rate | Exports of goods and services, export-related services, international transport |
| Exempt | Banking, financial services and insurance, among other categories listed in the VAT law |
Who has to register for VAT in Lebanon?
The 2024 Budget Law raised the mandatory registration threshold from LBP 100 million to LBP 5 billion, measured over a period of one to four consecutive quarters, applicable from 2024. Businesses whose turnover sat between LBP 100 million and LBP 5 billion in 2020 to 2023 stopped being obliged to register and could request deregistration.
Threshold: LBP 5 billion of taxable turnover over one to four consecutive quarters. At the official rate of 89,500 LBP per USD that is about USD 55,900. A service business billing USD 5,000 a month crosses it in under a year.
| Who | Registration position |
|---|---|
| Turnover of LBP 5 billion or more over 1 to 4 consecutive quarters | Mandatory |
| Importers of goods or services | Mandatory, whatever the turnover |
| Exporters of goods or services | Mandatory, whatever the turnover |
| Turnover below LBP 5 billion, no imports or exports | Not obliged; optional registration is possible in some cases (see below) |
Should you register voluntarily?
The VAT law has long allowed optional registration below the mandatory threshold, and the rules for who qualifies were affected by the 2024 change. Check eligibility with the VAT Directorate or your accountant before applying. The trade-off is simple to state:
- For registering: you can deduct the VAT you pay on purchases, and business customers who are themselves registered often prefer suppliers who issue proper VAT invoices.
- Against registering: 11% is added to prices for customers who cannot recover it (consumers, small unregistered businesses), and you take on quarterly declarations and the record-keeping that goes with them.
A business selling mainly to registered companies with meaningful VAT on its costs usually benefits. A freelancer selling to individuals usually does not.
What about exporters of services?
A Lebanese designer, developer or agency billing clients abroad is an exporter of services, which means registration is required regardless of turnover. The good news is that exports are zero-rated: you charge 0% to the foreign client and can still deduct input VAT on your local costs. Many small service exporters miss the registration obligation because they assume zero-rated means out of scope. It does not.
What must a Lebanese VAT invoice show?
Once registered, every taxable sale needs an invoice that lets the Ministry, and your customer, see the tax. Practitioner guidance on Ministry requirements consistently lists these elements, and they are the minimum you should expect an auditor to look for:
| Element | Practical notes |
|---|---|
| Supplier name and Ministry of Finance registration number | The VAT number, exactly as on your registration certificate |
| Invoice date | The date of the sale, used to pick the rate and the quarter |
| Sequential invoice number | Gaps and duplicates are an audit trigger |
| Description of goods or services | Arabic or bilingual Arabic/English descriptions are common; confirm language requirements with your accountant |
| Taxable amount | Before VAT |
| VAT rate and VAT amount | 11%, 0% for zero-rated lines, shown per line or per rate |
| Customer name and registration number | Where the customer is a registered business that will deduct the VAT |
| Total including VAT |
How do you invoice in USD and show VAT in LBP?
Most Lebanese B2B prices are set in fresh dollars, but the declaration is made in Lebanese pounds. The VAT law deals with this through the LBP counter-value of a foreign-currency price. In April 2023 a decree amended Article 18 of the VAT law so that foreign-currency prices were converted at the Sayrafa platform rate until a unified exchange rate was set. Sayrafa has since been phased out, and the 2024 Budget Law adopted 89,500 LBP per USD as the rate for fiscal purposes, which is also the official Banque du Liban rate. In practice, that means a USD invoice shows the VAT converted into LBP at 89,500. Confirm the rate to apply with your accountant if the official rate moves.
The clean way to do it is to show the USD figures, the rate, and the LBP equivalents on the same document, so the invoice itself proves the numbers you later declare.
Worked example. A Beirut agency, VAT-registered, bills a local company for a website project.
| Line | USD | Rate | LBP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website design and build | 4,000.00 | 89,500 | 358,000,000 |
| VAT at 11% | 440.00 | 89,500 | 39,380,000 |
| Total payable | 4,440.00 | 89,500 | 397,380,000 |
Check it: 4,000 × 11% = 440, and 440 × 89,500 = 39,380,000. The LBP VAT also equals 358,000,000 × 11%. The figure that goes into your output VAT for the quarter is LBP 39,380,000, whatever currency the customer eventually pays in.
How does quarterly VAT filing work?
Registered businesses file a periodic VAT declaration each quarter. The 2026 Budget Law (Article 51) moved the deadline from 20 days to one month after the end of the quarter, with payment due by the same date.
Deadline: declaration and payment within one month of the quarter's end. For calendar quarters that means the end of April, July, October and January.
| Quarter | Period | Declaration and payment due |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 1 January to 31 March | By 30 April |
| Q2 | 1 April to 30 June | By 31 July |
| Q3 | 1 July to 30 September | By 31 October |
| Q4 | 1 October to 31 December | By 31 January |
The Ministry does extend deadlines by decision from time to time (in May 2025, for example, it pushed two quarters' declarations to 20 June 2025), but plan on the statutory date and treat an extension as a bonus.
Building the quarter's figures
The declaration is output VAT on your sales minus the input VAT you are allowed to deduct on purchases. Using the agency above, a quarter might look like this:
| Item | USD | LBP at 89,500 |
|---|---|---|
| Sales, net of VAT | 30,000.00 | 2,685,000,000 |
| Output VAT at 11% | 3,300.00 | 295,350,000 |
| Deductible purchases, net of VAT | 8,000.00 | 716,000,000 |
| Deductible input VAT at 11% | 880.00 | 78,760,000 |
| Internet and electricity bills, net of VAT | 1,000.00 | 89,500,000 |
| VAT on those bills (not deductible from 2026) | 110.00 | 9,845,000 |
| Net VAT payable | 2,420.00 | 216,590,000 |
The arithmetic: 295,350,000 − 78,760,000 = 216,590,000, which is USD 2,420 at 89,500. The utility bill VAT is excluded because of the next point.
What input VAT can no longer be deducted?
The 2026 Budget Law narrowed deductions. Summaries of the law from Lebanese tax firms report that:
- VAT on utilities, telecommunications, internet and fuel expenses is no longer deductible;
- deductible VAT on passenger vehicles is capped at a vehicle value of USD 30,000.
Non-deductible VAT is a cost, so it should be booked into the expense itself, not left sitting in a VAT receivable account that will never be recovered. If your bookkeeping still treats every purchase invoice's VAT as recoverable, your 2026 declarations will overstate input VAT.
What is the monthly stamp-duty declaration?
Stamp duty is a separate tax from VAT, and it has its own calendar. Lebanese fiscal stamp duty applies to invoices, receipts, and debit and credit notes, as well as a proportional 0.4% on contracts and deeds. Taxpayers who issue invoices and receipts subject to stamp duty pay the fixed fiscal stamp monthly and submit an electronic declaration to the Ministry of Finance.
Deadline: the stamp-duty declaration (form G20) and payment are due within 15 days after the end of each month. Electronic submission has been mandatory since 1 August 2025.
| Obligation | Frequency | Due |
|---|---|---|
| VAT declaration and payment | Quarterly | One month after quarter end |
| Stamp-duty declaration (G20) for invoices, receipts, debit and credit notes | Monthly | 15 days after month end |
The fixed stamp amounts per document have been changed by successive budget laws, so check the current schedule with your accountant rather than relying on an old template. What matters operationally is that you can produce, every month, a complete list of the invoices, receipts and notes you issued. That is trivial if every document lives in one numbered sequence in software, and painful if some receipts were written by hand.
What are the penalties for late registration, filing or payment?
Lebanon's penalties are set in the Tax Procedures Law and have been amended repeatedly, most recently for late payment rates and minimum fines by Articles 74 and 77 of the 2024 Budget Law. We could not confirm the current figures from a primary source, so treat the following as orientation only:
- Late payment of VAT has historically carried a monthly penalty on the unpaid tax (1.5% per month for VAT and withholding taxes under the older rules), and the 2024 Budget Law changed these rates.
- Late or missing declarations attract penalties calculated on the tax due, with minimum fines that vary by type of taxpayer.
- Failure to register when required exposes you to assessment of the VAT you should have charged, plus penalties, with no ability to collect that VAT from past customers.
The Ministry regularly issues decisions granting reductions on penalties for taxpayers who settle within a window, as it did several times in 2025. Your accountant will know the current rates and whether a reduction window is open.
How long do you need to keep VAT records?
Keep accounting books and supporting documents for ten years, which is how long PwC reports records must be retained under Lebanon's statute of limitations. For VAT that means:
- Every sales invoice and credit note, in unbroken numerical order.
- Every purchase invoice you deducted input VAT on.
- Import documents showing VAT paid at customs.
- Proof that zero-rated sales were genuinely exported (contracts, foreign client details, payment records).
- The exchange rate used for each foreign-currency transaction.
- Copies of each quarterly declaration, stamp-duty declaration and payment receipt.
From the platform: Staks records every invoice, expense and payment in its own currency with the exchange rate for that transaction, so a USD invoice keeps its 89,500 rate alongside the amounts. VAT is applied on invoice lines, and the double-entry ledger (Growth plan and up) posts everything into your organisation's base currency, USD or LBP, which is where your quarterly output and input VAT totals come from. Staks does not file declarations with the Ministry of Finance; it gives your accountant clean figures to file from.
Frequently asked questions
Is the VAT rate in Lebanon 11% or 12% in 2026?
11%. The Cabinet approved a rise to 12% in February 2026, but it only takes effect once Parliament passes it into law, and as of September 2026 that had not happened.
Do I need to register for VAT if I only invoice clients outside Lebanon?
Very likely yes. Exporters of goods or services must register regardless of turnover. Your exports are zero-rated, so you charge no VAT to the foreign client, but you still file quarterly and can deduct input VAT on local costs.
Can I issue VAT invoices in US dollars?
Yes, pricing in USD is normal. The VAT has to be declared in LBP, so show the rate and the LBP counter-value of the VAT on the invoice, currently at 89,500 LBP per USD, and keep that figure consistent with your declaration.
When is the Q3 2026 VAT declaration due?
Under the 2026 Budget Law's one-month rule, the declaration and payment for July to September 2026 are due by 31 October 2026, unless the Ministry announces an extension.
Is stamp duty the same thing as VAT?
No. Stamp duty is a separate tax on documents such as invoices, receipts and contracts, with its own monthly electronic declaration due 15 days after each month ends. A VAT-registered business usually deals with both.
Related reading
- Accounting software for Lebanese businesses (2026)
- Running your books in USD and LBP
- How to track business expenses without a bookkeeper
- Quote, proforma or invoice: what to send and when
VAT in Lebanon is manageable when every invoice carries its rate and every purchase is entered as it arrives. Staks keeps USD and LBP on each transaction, and on the Growth plan (USD 49 a month) posts them to one double-entry ledger. Start a 14-day free trial.