The rate
The standard rate in Zambia is 16%. Some goods and services carry reduced or zero rates and others are exempt. The difference matters: zero-rated sales still let you reclaim the tax on your purchases, exempt sales do not.
Who must register
Register for VAT once the value of taxable supplies exceeds, or is likely to exceed, K800,000 in an accounting year. The 2026 budget did not change this. Voluntary registration is open to a supplier with annual turnover above K400,000 but below the statutory threshold; a voluntary registration must be renewed every twelve months, with written notice to the Commissioner-General thirty days before it expires, and a supplier who does not give that notice is deregistered and the liability becomes payable at once. A business making only zero-rated supplies can ask the Commissioner-General to waive registration. Turnover tax, not VAT, is the regime for small businesses: annual turnover of K5,000,000 or less.
How to register
Register for VAT online through the ZRA web portal, portal.zra.org.zm. ZRA's VAT Guide (2023, section 2.9) states there is no fee for registration, and a VAT account and a tax registration certificate are issued. The certificate must be displayed prominently at every place of business.
One registration is allowed per business; branches may register separately only if they account independently, and group registration is not allowed. A registered supplier must keep records for six years.
Filing and paying
Registered and filed with Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA).
The standard tax period is one calendar month, and a return is due for every period whether or not there was any trade. A return with fewer than ten transactions may be lodged manually within 5 days after the end of the month. A return with ten or more transactions must be lodged electronically within 18 days after the end of the month — so the January return is due 18 February. Payment for electronic submissions is due on the same 18th. File through the tax portal at portal.zra.org.zm: sign in with TPIN and password plus a one-time password sent to your email and phone, select Returns, File a return, pick Value Added Tax and the period, answer the questions that decide which schedules populate, then check Schedules A, B and C and confirm the payable or repayable figure in Schedule D. A VAT return cannot be amended through the portal — you must write to ZRA to ask for an amendment. Voluntary registrants and seasonal farmers may apply for quarterly non-standard periods (January–March, April–June, July–September, October–December).
Penalties for getting it wrong
Late return: 1,000 penalty units per day or 0.5% of the tax due, whichever is greater, for each day the return is late. Late payment: 0.5% of the tax payable for each day it is unpaid, plus interest at the Bank of Zambia discount rate plus 2%. Late registration: 10,000 penalty units for each tax period you stayed unregistered after crossing the threshold, plus an assessment on the sales made in that period, and no input tax is allowed for it. Failing to issue a tax invoice from an approved system: 300,000 penalty units. Separately, input tax cannot be claimed at all more than ninety days after the date of the invoice — a January invoice is claimable on the January and February returns and is dead by the March one.