China slaps 13% tax on condoms and other contraceptives amid falling birth rates: Why Beijing's move has triggered mockery?

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China has imposed a 13% VAT on contraceptives, ending a 30-year exemption, despite a shrinking population and low birth rates. Experts say the tax is symbolic, unlikely to boost births, and may reduce contraceptive access, especially for disadvantaged women.

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China has entered 2026 with a policy move that has confused many and angered others. The government has imposed a 13 per cent value-added tax on condoms and other contraceptives, ending a tax exemption that had been in place for more than 30 years.

From Thursday, products such as condoms, birth control pills, and intrauterine devices are no longer exempt from VAT. The decision comes at a time when China is grappling with a severe demographic slowdown, a shrinking population and record-low birth rates.

For many Chinese citizens, the move feels contradictory. The same state that is urging people to marry and have children is now making contraception more expensive.

From one-child control to pronatal panic

When China introduced VAT in 1993, contraceptives were deliberately kept tax-free. At the time, the country was enforcing its one-child policy with extraordinary force. Birth control was a state priority, often provided free or subsidised.

That era left deep scars. Women were subjected to forced abortions, and children born outside quotas were sometimes denied identity documents, cutting them off from basic rights.

Today, China is facing the opposite problem. Births have collapsed. Deaths have exceeded births for three consecutive years. In 2023, India overtook China as the world’s most populous country.

The Chinese state has since reversed course. It scrapped the one-child rule in 2015 and raised the limit to three children in 2021. It now offers cash incentives, tax benefits, childcare subsidies and longer parental leave to encourage families to have more children.

Yet births keep falling.

What the new VAT law actually changes

The tax on condoms is part of a sweeping VAT law passed in 2024 to standardise China’s tax system. VAT is China’s largest source of tax revenue, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of total collections.

Under the new law, all contraceptive products are taxed at the standard 13 per cent rate. At the same time, services aligned with Beijing’s population goals such as childcare, marriage introduction services and elderly care have been exempted.

In practice, the tax impact is small. Condoms typically cost 40 to 60 yuan. Birth control pills cost between 50 and 130 yuan a month. According to the Guardian, taxing contraceptives is expected to generate about 5 billion yuan annually, insignificant compared to China’s total budget of around 22 trillion yuan.

That is why many experts see the move as symbolic rather than effective.

Why young Chinese are mocking the policy

The policy triggered instant ridicule online. Social media users joked about stockpiling condoms before prices rise.

“I’ll buy a lifetime’s worth of condoms now,” one user wrote.

Another commented, “People can tell the difference between the price of a condom and that of raising a child.”

A third post summed up the mood. “What is wrong with modern society? They are truly going to extreme lengths just to make us have children.”

A Sky News interviewee, Hu Lingling, a mother of a five-year-old, said she had no intention of having another child and would “lead the way in abstinence” as a form of protest. She described the measure as “hilarious, especially compared to forced abortions during the family planning era”.

The real reason Chinese couples are not having children

Experts agree that the cost of contraception is not what is stopping people from having babies.

The YuWa Population Research Institute has repeatedly pointed out that China is among the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child. Education costs are high. Workplace expectations are punishing. Mothers face discrimination and limited support.

A slowing economy and a prolonged property slump have eroded household savings and confidence. For many young adults, starting a family feels financially reckless.

University of Virginia demographer Qian Cai told Sky News the tax would have a “very limited” impact and is “unlikely to influence reproductive decisions, especially when weighed against the far higher costs of raising a child”.

Yi Fuxian from the University of Wisconsin-Madison said taxing contraceptives is “only logical” now that China wants more births, but added that it would not persuade people to have children.

Health experts warn of unintended consequences

The most serious concern is not fertility but public health.

Doctors and researchers warn that higher costs could reduce access to contraception for students and low-income groups. That could lead to more unintended pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted infections.

BBC interviewee Rosy Zhao from Xi’an said people struggling financially might “take a risk” if contraceptives become more expensive.

Qian Cai also warned that higher prices could “reduce access to contraceptives among economically disadvantaged populations,” leading to “higher health-care costs”.

Why women are likely to pay the price

Women are expected to bear the brunt of any reduction in contraceptive access.

Yun Zhou, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, told the Guardian that if contraception becomes harder to access, “the brunt of the negative effects will be borne by women, particularly by disadvantaged women”.

This comes at a time when many young Chinese women already cite unequal childcare burdens, workplace penalties and lack of state support as reasons to delay or reject motherhood altogether.

A policy that misses the bigger picture

China’s leaders are trying to fix a demographic crisis using price signals and tax tweaks. But experts agree that marginal changes in the cost of condoms or pills will not offset the deeper pressures shaping personal choices.

As one Chinese man, Daniel Luo from Henan, told the BBC, “A box of condoms might cost an extra five yuan. Over a year, that’s just a few hundred yuan, completely affordable.”

The real deterrents lie elsewhere. Expensive education. Long work hours. Housing insecurity. Weak social support.

Until those structural problems are addressed, taxing contraceptives is unlikely to boost births. It may only deepen public cynicism and create new health risks in a society already struggling to convince its young people that starting a family is worth the cost.