If your property management system still computes 16% on every room night, every GST return you have filed since July 2025 is wrong — and the underpaid 1% has been compounding with penalties ever since. The Maldives raised its Tourism Goods and Services Tax from 16% to 17% on 1 July 2025, doubled the nightly Green Tax six months earlier, and from 1 October 2026 it starts taxing the foreign travel agents and booking platforms that send you guests. For a guesthouse or small tour operator, that is three separate tax changes landing in less than two years, each with its own return, its own deadline, and its own way of punishing sloppy books.
This guide walks through what changed, which rate and return apply to you, and the bookkeeping system that keeps you current with the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA).
What Changed: Three Tax Hikes in 21 Months
It helps to see the sequence, because each change hits a different line of your books.
1. Green Tax doubled on 1 January 2025
The flat daily Green Tax charged per tourist per night doubled: USD 12 per day at resorts, hotels, tourist vessels, and larger guesthouses, up from USD 6 — and USD 6 per day at hotels and guesthouses on inhabited islands with 50 or fewer rooms, up from USD 3. Maldivians, resident permit holders, and children under 2 are exempt. You collect it from the guest and remit it to MIRA; it is never your revenue.
2. TGST rose from 16% to 17% on 1 July 2025
The Seventh Amendment to the Goods and Services Tax Act (Law No. 10/2011), ratified in November 2024, raised the tourism-sector GST rate to 17%. It applies to accommodation, restaurant meals, spa treatments, diving and water-sports excursions, transfers, and travel agency services — essentially everything a tourist buys from you. Note this is the second hike in recent years: the rate jumped from 12% to 16% in January 2023, so the tax on a tourist dollar has risen by nearly half in about two and a half years.
3. Foreign sellers get pulled into TGST on 1 October 2026
The Eighth Amendment, ratified 31 August 2026, extends the 17% TGST to offshore booking platforms, foreign tour operators, and overseas travel agents selling Maldives tourism products — even with no office or staff in the country. They must register with MIRA regardless of turnover and account for tax on a margin-based value for new bookings made on or after 1 October. This one reaches you even though you are local, as explained below.
Context for the stakes: the Maldives welcomed a record 2.05 million visitors in 2024 and 2.25 million in 2025, up 9.8%. More arrivals mean more TGST collected per property — and bigger assessments when the books are wrong.
Which Rate and Return Apply to You?
Maldives GST has two sectors, two rates, and two return forms. Getting the sector wrong is the single most common classification error small operators make.
- Tourism sector — 17%, return form MIRA 206. Licensed tourism establishments: resorts, hotels, guesthouses, safari vessels, dive centers, and travel agencies. Suppliers of tourism goods and services must register for GST even if their turnover is below the MVR 1 million threshold (about USD 64,850) that applies to everyone else.
- General sector — 8%, return form MIRA 205. Ordinary Maldivian businesses, which register once taxable supplies exceed MVR 1 million in the past 12 months (or are expected to in the next 12), or if they import goods.
If you run a guesthouse, confirm which registration MIRA has you under and file the matching form — do not assume. And if you sell both tourism services and general goods (a gift shop selling to locals alongside tourist excursions, for example), the two streams are taxed at different rates and must be tracked separately in your chart of accounts from day one.
Build the Bookkeeping System MIRA Expects
Keep TGST out of your revenue
The 17% you add to a guest's bill is a liability you hold briefly on MIRA's behalf, not income. Book every sale as revenue at the tax-exclusive amount plus a credit to a TGST-payable account. Operators who book the tax-inclusive total as revenue overstate turnover — which distorts profit, misstates any financing application, and makes reconciling the MIRA 206 return a forensic exercise every month.
Track Green Tax per occupied night, not per booking
Green Tax accrues per tourist per day of stay, with exemptions for locals, residents, and infants. That means the liability ties to your occupancy records, not your reservation system: a no-show owes no Green Tax, while an extra unregistered occupant does. Reconcile the monthly MIRA 501 Green Tax return against actual occupied bed-nights (split by exempt vs. taxable guests) before filing. If your property software cannot produce that split, fix the software before peak season, not during it.
Run tourism taxes in US dollars
GST on tourism-sector activities must be paid in US dollars, and Green Tax is likewise remitted in USD through MIRAconnect. If your operating currency is rufiyaa, maintain a USD tax-payable ledger, convert at a documented consistent rate, and reconcile the FX difference monthly. Do not let dollar liabilities sit unconverted in a rufiyaa account where exchange drift silently creates shortfalls.
Claim the input tax you are already owed
Registered businesses can offset GST paid on business purchases against the GST collected — the dive compressor, the kitchen refit, the laundry contract. Every supplier invoice with GST needs to be captured, which means a standing habit: photograph or file every receipt the day it arrives, and code it to the right input-tax account. Small operators routinely leave this money behind simply because invoices live in a shoebox until filing week.
Handle the 10% service charge as payroll, not profit
Resort and hotel bills in the Maldives carry a mandatory 10% service charge that must be distributed to staff. Book it as a payroll-related liability when collected and clear it through the payroll run — never absorb it into general revenue. MIRA and labor enforcement both look here, so the distribution trail should reconcile to the payslips.
Book OTA business gross, then record the commission
When a booking platform sends you a guest, your TGST liability is on the value of the supply you made, not the net payout that lands in your account after the platform takes its cut. Record the gross sale and the commission as separate lines. Net-only booking understates both revenue and tax collected — exactly the mismatch a MIRA desk audit is designed to catch.
The 1 October 2026 Deadline That Affects You Too
Even though the Eighth Amendment targets foreign sellers, it creates work for local operators:
- MIRA already asked about your foreign partners. Under its information-gathering powers, MIRA instructed local tourism businesses to submit details of the foreign tour operators, online travel agencies, and bed banks they deal with. If you have not filed that information, do it now — it is how MIRA builds its register of who must comply.
- Expect repricing conversations. Foreign operators must absorb or pass on 17% on their margin for new bookings from 1 October, with restrictions on claiming input tax. Renegotiate net-rate contracts with eyes open: know your own per-guest margin so you can tell a fair pass-through from margin-shifting onto you.
- Keep packages itemized. Where a sale mixes Maldives and non-Maldives components, only the Maldives portion falls in scope. Itemized invoices today are the evidence that protects your pricing tomorrow.
Five Mistakes That Trigger Penalties
- Still charging 16%. Audit your PMS, booking engine, restaurant POS, and invoice templates — every system that computes tax needs the 17% rate for supplies from 1 July 2025 onward. MIRA published transitional guidance for straddling bookings; apply it rather than guessing.
- Skipping nil returns. Once registered, you must file a GST return every taxable period even with no activity. A quiet month is still a filing month.
- Missing the 28th. GST returns and payment are due by the 28th day of the month following the taxable period (next working day if it falls on a weekend or public holiday). Late filing draws MVR 50 per day plus 0.5% of the amount due; late payment adds 0.05% per day. Put every 28th on the calendar now.
- Misapplying Green Tax exemptions. Charging exempt guests inflates bills and complaints; failing to charge taxable ones leaves you paying out of pocket. Train front-desk staff on the three exemption categories and require ID notes on exempt stays.
- Commingling the two GST rates. If any part of your business falls under the 8% general rate, separate revenue accounts per rate are mandatory — a single blended revenue line cannot produce either return correctly.
Your Monthly Compliance Calendar
- Daily: Capture every purchase invoice for input tax; log occupied bed-nights by guest category.
- Weekly: Reconcile OTA payouts to gross bookings and commissions; review the TGST-payable balance against cash set aside.
- By the 28th: File and pay the GST return (MIRA 206 for tourism) in USD via MIRAconnect, and file and pay the Green Tax return (MIRA 501), also in USD.
- Quarterly: Verify your MIRA registration details, review foreign-partner contracts against the Eighth Amendment margin rules, and confirm your systems still compute 17% after any software update.
Keep Your Tourist Taxes Organized From Day One
As the Maldives layers a 17% TGST, a doubled Green Tax, and a brand-new foreign-seller regime on top of record visitor numbers, the operators who thrive will be the ones whose books produce the right return on the 28th without a scramble. Beancount.io provides plain-text accounting that gives you complete transparency and control over your financial data — no black boxes, no vendor lock-in. Get started for free and see why developers and finance professionals are switching to plain-text accounting.
