China’s new “condom tax” draws skepticism and worries over health risks

China will soon start collecting a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and products for the first time in over three decades, a move aligned with Beijing’s effort to get families to have more children after decades of limiting most to one child.

“Contraceptive drugs and products” will not be tax-exempt as of Jan. 1, according to the country’s newest value-added tax law. Products such as condoms will be subject to the usual 13% value-added tax imposed on most products.

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While state-run news outlets have not widely highlighted the change, it has been trending on Chinese social media, drawing ridicule among people who joked they’d have to be fools not to know that raising a child is more expensive than using condoms, even if they are taxed.

More seriously, experts are raising concerns over potential increases in unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases due to higher costs for contraceptives. The ruling Communist Party’s past “one-child” policy was enforced from about 1980 until 2015 with huge fines and other penalties, and sometimes with forced abortions. In some cases, children born over the limit were deprived of an identification number, effectively making them non-citizens.

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The government raised the birth limit to two children in 2015. As China’s population began to peak and then fall, it was lifted to three children in 2021. Contraception has been actively encouraged and easily accessed, even for free.

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