Historic UK VAT Rates

I happened to need to know the historic VAT rates for the UK since the 1980s to ensure normalised data in 30 years of invoices I’ve been processing for a customer. The figures were quite hard to pin down so I thought I’d publish them here:

Standard UK VAT Rate from 1979 to 1991

• 18/06/1979 to 18/03/1991 – 15 %

Standard UK VAT Rate from 1991 to 2008

• 19/03/1991 to 30/11/2008 – 17.5 %

Standard UK VAT Rate from 2008 to 2009

• 01/12/2008 to 31/12/2009 – 15 %

Standard UK VAT Rate from 2010 to 2011

• 01/01/2010 to 03/01/2011 – 17.5 %

Standard UK VAT Rate from 2011 to Present

• 04/01/2011 to Present – 20 %

I hope this is a little easier to find for people.

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Sources:

1979 Rate Increase

VAT Rate Tables