Netflix and other streaming subscriptions could cost more with tax announced in Budget

"Net­flix and chill" or would it soon be "Net­flix and bill"?

Con­sumers could face high­er bills for stream­ing sub­scrip­tions and oth­er on­line ser­vices fol­low­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo’s an­nounce­ment in to­day’s 2026/2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to ap­ply Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) to dig­i­tal and re­mote ser­vices sup­plied by non-res­i­dent com­pa­nies.

The mea­sure, sched­uled to take ef­fect on March 1, 2027, is in­tend­ed to bring for­eign dig­i­tal ser­vice providers with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tax frame­work, ex­tend­ing the reach of VAT to ser­vices sup­plied from over­seas.