Mauritius taxes residents on worldwide income and non-residents on Mauritius-source income only. Mauritius operates a self-assessment system, with the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) conducting post-filing review. In a genuinely current development, the MRA extended the Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax (DMTT) return and payment deadline to 30 June 2026 (announced 24 April 2026), a Pillar Two-related filing relevant to in-scope multinational groups.
The Mauritian tax year runs 1 July to 30 June.
Mauritius's headline corporate income tax (CIT) rate is 15% (3% for export goods companies).
The headline personal income tax (PIT) rate is 20%.
The standard VAT/GST (or equivalent consumption tax) rate is 15%.
Under Section 73 of Mauritius's Income Tax Act, an individual is resident if: domiciled in Mauritius (unless their permanent place of abode is elsewhere); present in Mauritius 183 days or more (aggregate) in an income year; or present in Mauritius, across that income year and the two preceding income years, for an aggregate of 270 days or more. The Mauritian tax year runs July 1 to June 30. A company is resident if incorporated in Mauritius or has its central management and control there - notably, a Mauritius-incorporated company with central management and control outside Mauritius is treated as non-resident. Individual and corporate taxation differ materially: resident individuals are taxed on Mauritius-source income plus foreign income only when remitted to Mauritius (a remittance-basis system, not worldwide taxation); resident corporations are taxed on worldwide income with foreign tax credit/treaty relief available. Non-residents (individual or corporate) are taxed only on Mauritius-source income.
A non-Mauritian entity has a Mauritius permanent establishment through a fixed place of business or a dependent agent habitually concluding contracts in Mauritius on the entity's behalf, following the OECD Model Treaty definition as applied under Mauritian domestic law and any applicable tax treaty.
Mauritius has a genuine CFC regime that applies to corporate taxpayers only, not individuals. A CFC is a non-resident company (or a foreign PE of a Mauritian resident) in which a Mauritian resident company, alone or with associated enterprises, holds more than 50% of total participation rights directly and indirectly. Where the CFC's undistributed income arises from "non-genuine arrangements" put in place for the essential purpose of obtaining a tax advantage, that income is imputed to the Mauritian resident shareholder. Safe harbors exclude the rules where: accounting profits are below EUR 750,000 and non-trading income below EUR 75,000; accounting profits are less than 10% of operating costs; or the CFC's home-country tax rate exceeds 50% of the Mauritius rate.
Mauritius has no thin capitalization rules or fixed debt-to-equity ratio. However, the Income Tax Act separately allows the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) to disallow and recharacterize as a dividend any interest paid on debentures issued to shareholders, and to disallow interest deductions where the interest is payable to a non-resident not chargeable to Mauritius tax on that interest.
Mauritius does not use an elective check-the-box classification system; entity classification generally follows the entity's actual legal characteristics. The Mauritius Supreme Court ruled in October 2025 (Mauritius Revenue Authority v. Assessment Review Committee) rejecting a substance-over-form challenge to an inter-group leasing arrangement - a real, current judicial development on the boundary between legitimate structuring and abuse. Mauritius does not have a comprehensive ATAD2-style anti-hybrid regime.
No foreign bank account or foreign financial asset reporting regime exists requiring residents to separately disclose foreign accounts; foreign income is reported through the standard annual tax return.
Mauritius operates an 80% partial exemption regime (codified in the Income Tax Act 1995, introduced by the Finance Act 2018, effective January 1, 2019) rather than a full participation exemption: qualifying foreign-source dividends (where not tax-deductible in the source country), foreign-source interest, foreign permanent establishment income, and certain other specified income streams are 80% exempt, producing an effective rate of around 3% on qualifying income. Eligibility requires the company to carry out its core income-generating activities in Mauritius, employ an adequate number of suitably qualified staff, and incur minimum expenditure proportionate to its activity level. The exemption on collective investment scheme interest was separately increased from 80% to 95% effective July 1, 2024.
Mauritius has a real foreign tax credit regime available to both individuals and companies for foreign tax paid on foreign-source income also taxed in Mauritius, capped at the Mauritian tax otherwise due on that income, including deemed foreign tax credit provisions historically relevant to Mauritius's Global Business structures.
Per the Mauritius Revenue Authority's own published list, Mauritius has concluded 45 tax treaties. Of these, 7 await ratification (Gabon, Comoros Islands, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Russia, Angola), 7 await signature (Botswana [New], Curacao, Czech Republic, Gibraltar, Guyana, Malawi, the Gambia), and 19 more are under negotiation (including Canada, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Tanzania). Mauritius has indicated 23 of its in-force treaties will be covered by the BEPS Multilateral Instrument, with a commitment to bilaterally revise the remaining 19 for BEPS minimum-standard compliance.