Starting Jan. 1, China will impose a 13% value-added tax (VAT) on contraceptives while exempting childcare services from the same tax—a move authorities say is part of a broader push to boost births as the country faces a sustained population decline, according to The Associated Press.
Announced late last year, the tax overhaul removes exemptions that had been in place since 1994, when China was still enforcing its [one-child policy].
Alongside the new tax on contraceptives such as condoms and birth control pills, the [government] is exempting childcare, marriage-related services and elderly care from VAT, the BBC reported.
Beijing has been urging young people to marry and have children as it grapples with an aging population and sluggish economy. Official data shows China’s population has shrunk for three straight years, with about 9.54 million babies born in 2024.
That figure is roughly half the number of births recorded a decade earlier—when China began easing family-size limits—according to national statistics cited by the BBC and AP.
China’s population pressures have been building for years: Births fell from about 14.7 million in 2019 to roughly 9.5 million in 2024. In 2023, India officially overtook China as the world’s most populous country.
The new contraceptive tax has drawn ridicule and concern in China. On social media, some users joked about stockpiling condoms before prices rise, while others argued the cost of contraception is trivial compared to raising a child, the BBC noted.
“I have one child, and I don’t want any more,” Daniel Luo, a 36-year-old Henan province resident, told the BBC. He said the price increase wouldn’t change his family plans, comparing it to small subway fare hikes that don’t alter daily behavior.
Others worry the policy could have unintended consequences. Rosy Zhao, who lives in the central city of Xi’an, told the BBC [the tax] could lead students or financially strained people to take risks—an outcome she called the policy’s most dangerous potential effect.
Health experts echoed those concerns in AP interviews, warning higher prices could reduce contraceptive access and fuel more unintended pregnancies and [sexually transmitted infections]. In 2024, China recorded over 670,000 syphilis cases and more than 100,000 gonorrhea cases, per data from the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration.
China also reports some of the world’s highest abortion numbers: Between 2014 and 2021, authorities logged 9 million to 10 million annual abortions, according to the National Health Commission. China stopped publishing abortion data in 2022.
Demographers and policy analysts remain skeptical that taxing contraceptives will meaningfully raise birth rates. Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told the BBC the idea that higher condom prices would influence fertility decisions amounts to overthinking the policy.
[VAT] revenue—which totaled nearly $1 trillion last year—accounts for about 40% of China’s tax collection, per BBC-cited figures.
Henrietta Levin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) described the move as symbolic, reflecting Beijing’s attempt to lift what she called “strikingly low” fertility rates. She also cautioned that many incentives and subsidies depend on heavily indebted provincial governments, raising questions about whether they can fund the measures adequately.
Public health experts interviewed by the AP said the policy could disproportionately harm women, who shoulder most birth control responsibility in China. A 2022 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation study found condoms are used by about 9% of couples, while 44.2% rely on intrauterine devices, 30.5% on female sterilization, and 4.7% on male sterilization.
Some women say the tax revives resentment over the government’s long history of meddling in reproductive choices. From roughly 1980 to 2015, the Communist Party enforced a one-child policy via fines, penalties and—sometimes—forced abortions, the AP reported. Children born outside the policy were sometimes denied household registration, effectively making them non-citizens.
“It is a disciplinary tactic, a management of women’s bodies and my sexual desire,” Zou Xuan, a 32-year-old Jiangxi province teacher, told the AP.
Concerns about further state intrusion have also emerged recently. The BBC reported that [women] have received calls from local officials asking about menstrual cycles and pregnancy plans. A Yunnan province health bureau said the information was needed to identify expectant mothers—a move critics say risks alienating the very families Beijing hopes to encourage.
Levin warned such approaches could erode public trust. She told the BBC: “The [Communist] Party can’t help but insert itself into every decision that it cares about. So, it ends up being its own worst enemy in some ways.”
While the government is adjusting policies once used to limit population growth, experts caution that reversing decades-long demographic trends will be far harder than raising checkout-counter prices—especially after years of policies that shaped whether families could have children.