Steam has just announced that they will be including a sales tax in store prices across 10 different countries. These changes are being made to work with new tax jurisdictions that are being applied to the sale of digital goods and services. These new laws have just come into effect and Steam will be raising their prices as a result.
An email was sent out to Steam partners today detailing the changes which will come into effect throughout the year. According to that email, the company will be adding regional based sales taxes to all purchases within the affected regions. The email has confirmed the following countries will be affected by the new tax jurisdictions later this year:
March 2017
- Switzerland 8%
- South Korea 10%
- Japan 8%
- New Zealand 15%
- Iceland 24%
- South Africa 14%
- India 15%
April 2017
- Serbia 20%
May 2017
- Taiwan 5%
July 2017
- Australia 10%
The countries with the biggest price increases will be Iceland and Serbia which are seeing rises of 24% and 20% respectively. According to the email, the tax amounts will be included in the advertising price of Steam games. So it looks as though the Steam prices will be rising for these regions in accordance to the new sales tax.
However, the email states that “the customer will pay the displayed price on the storefront, and the tax will be separated out afterwards”. This suggests that the tax may be added on to the game once it’s been added to the cart. Hopefully Valve will clear this up soon but for now it looks as though the store page prices will be raised to accommodate the new sales tax.
While Valve has only listed 10 countries so far, it’s possible that other regions will affected by this new sales tax. This new sales tax seems to only be effecting countries outside of the EU and North America however.
We will continue to update you while this situation evolves throughout the year.
