The EU does not set a single VAT rate; instead, the EU VAT Directive (2006/112/EC, as amended) requires every member state's standard VAT rate to be at least 15%, with no fixed ceiling (Hungary's 27% is currently the EU's highest, Luxembourg's 17% the lowest). Reduced rates of at least 5% are permitted for a defined list of goods and services. Beyond VAT, EU membership brings the Parent-Subsidiary Directive and Interest and Royalties Directive (eliminating withholding tax on qualifying intra-group payments), the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD, covering CFC rules, interest limitation, and exit taxation), and mandatory participation in DAC (Directive on Administrative Cooperation) automatic information exchange - the EU's implementation of the OECD Common Reporting Standard. All 27 EU member states appear as individual entries in the main country directory with their own headline rates.
CARICOM's 15 full members (including Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago) operate the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) framework, which covers a Common External Tariff on goods from outside the bloc and free movement provisions for goods, services, capital, and certain categories of labor between members - but CARICOM does not harmonize member states' domestic VAT/GST or income tax rates, which remain fully independent (see each country's own directory page for its actual rates). The often-referenced "Caribbean dollar" is not a shared CARICOM currency; most Eastern Caribbean CARICOM members instead share the separate Eastern Caribbean dollar (XCD) through the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, a narrower monetary arrangement than CARICOM itself.
The CIS is a looser economic and political association of several former Soviet republics, historically including Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, with Turkmenistan as an associate member; Ukraine and Georgia have withdrawn or ceased active participation at different points, and CIS membership has continued to shift in the 2020s. The CIS free trade area reduces tariffs between participating members but, like CARICOM, does not harmonize domestic tax rates - each member's corporate, personal, and VAT rates remain independently set (see each country's directory page). Several CIS members separately participate in the more integrated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU - Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia), which does include a genuine customs union with a common external tariff. Given how frequently CIS membership status changes, confirm current participation directly via a primary source before relying on it for planning.
USMCA, which replaced NAFTA in July 2020, is a free trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Like the other blocs above, it governs tariffs, rules of origin, and market access - not domestic income tax or VAT/GST rates, which each of the three countries sets entirely independently (see the United States, Mexico, and Canada in the main directory for their respective rates).
The six GCC states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman) operate under the 2016 GCC Unified VAT Agreement, which established a common VAT framework with a 5% floor rate rather than a single harmonized rate. Amendments approved in May 2026 let member states set VAT above that 5% floor unilaterally: Saudi Arabia has moved to 15%, Bahrain to 10%, while the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar remain at the original 5% (Kuwait and Qatar have not yet fully implemented VAT domestically despite being parties to the framework agreement). The GCC also operates a customs union with a common external tariff, and the 2026 amendments included new cross-border VAT and information-sharing rules among member states. See each member's own directory page for its current implemented rate.
WAEMU's 8 members (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo) share the CFA franc (XOF, pegged to the euro) and operate under Council-of-Ministers directives that harmonize the corporate income tax and VAT bases across the bloc, not merely a common external tariff. Member states retain the ability to set their own specific rates within the harmonized base, so headline corporate and VAT rates still vary somewhat by country - see each member's own directory page for its current rate. The bloc's directives are the underlying reason several WAEMU members' pages on this site describe structurally similar corporate tax and VAT frameworks despite being independent sovereign states.
CEMAC's 6 members (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon) share the CFA franc (XAF, also pegged to the euro, but a separate currency from WAEMU's XOF despite the shared name) and, like WAEMU, operate under bloc-wide directives harmonizing tax bases rather than only a common external tariff. CEMAC-wide rules also impose specific compliance conditions on cross-border interest payments to non-CEMAC residents, referenced on this site's Republic of Congo page. Member states retain the ability to set their own specific rates within the harmonized base - see each member's own directory page for its current rate.
The EAEU (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan) is a more integrated bloc than the broader CIS described above: it operates a genuine customs union with a common external tariff, plus destination-based VAT rules for cross-border e-commerce between member states, with a new e-commerce customs regime taking effect in July 2026. Unlike CARICOM or USMCA, the EAEU's common external tariff and VAT-collection coordination represent real, substantive fiscal harmonization beyond tariff-only trade liberalization - though member states' own domestic corporate and personal income tax rates remain independently set. See each member's own directory page for its current rates.
SACU (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Namibia) is the world's oldest customs union, dating to 1910 and restructured under the 2002 SACU Agreement. Members apply a common external tariff and pool all customs, excise, and additional duties collected in the common customs area into a shared Common Revenue Pool, administered on a transitional basis by South Africa and distributed among members under a revenue-sharing formula (Part Seven of the SACU Agreement) with customs, excise, and development components. This revenue share is a genuinely significant part of government revenue for the smaller members - exceeding half of total government revenue in some years for Lesotho and Eswatini. SACU does not harmonize members' domestic corporate, personal, or VAT rates, which remain independently set - see each member's own directory page for its current rates.
CRS, FATCA, the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance, and the OECD's BEPS Pillar Two global minimum tax are multilateral cooperation frameworks rather than regional trade blocs, so they are not detailed on this page; see the Global Tax Transparency page for how those frameworks work and which jurisdictions participate.
This page is a high-level orientation to the largest blocs with genuine tax substance, not a comprehensive registry of every regional trade agreement, customs union, or economic community in the world. ASEAN, Mercosur, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) are real, active blocs, but are tariff and market-access agreements without the kind of domestic tax-base harmonization the GCC, WAEMU, CEMAC, EAEU, and SACU entries above involve - member states set their own corporate, personal, and VAT rates entirely independently under all three, the same way USMCA members do. Dozens of further bilateral and plurilateral FTAs are also not detailed here. Adding full bilateral tax-treaty and totalization-agreement mapping for every jurisdiction in the main directory is a substantially larger undertaking than what's built so far - flagged honestly rather than represented as complete.