What is the tax rate for design services?

The tax rate of design services depends on the identity of taxpayers and the specific types of services. The following are the tax rates for design services under different circumstances:

For design services provided by general taxpayers, the VAT rate is usually 6%.

For services provided by small-scale taxpayers, the VAT rate is 3%.

It should be noted that some special types of design services may have different tax rates. For example, engineering design services may be subject to the tax rate of 1 1% or 13%.

Design services include the following:

1. service design: This is a method of designing services to improve the user experience and the efficiency of service providers. Service design takes into account the factors such as ease of use, helpful staff and service speed, so as to improve loyalty, save costs and improve brand reputation. This includes, but is not limited to, user experience design, interaction design and service innovation, and is suitable for many industries such as health care, finance, transportation, hotels, government and so on.

2. Industrial design: Industrial design companies provide innovative design solutions and provide them to customers through electronic documents. The design service process does not involve providing concrete objects, but providing electronic drawings, and customers can process and produce products according to these documents. The specific design work includes product design planning, sketch design, three-dimensional modeling, structural design and supply chain docking service to solve customers' specific problems. 2

3. System design: System design involves realizing users' needs and ideas through reasonable design work, and endowing products with functions. Through full research on products, designers transform the concept of customers into reasonable forms, including product design planning, sketch design, three-dimensional modeling, structural design and supply chain docking services.

To sum up, the VAT rate applicable to general taxpayers providing design services is 6%.

Legal basis:

Measures for the implementation of the pilot reform of business tax to value-added tax

Article 15

VAT rate:

(a) taxpayers engaged in taxable activities, the tax rate is 6%, except as stipulated in items (2), (3) and (4) of this article.

(2) Providing transportation, postal services, basic telecommunications, construction and real estate leasing services, selling real estate and transferring land use rights at the tax rate of 1 1%.

(3) Providing tangible movable property leasing services at the tax rate of 17%.

(4) Cross-border taxable acts of domestic units and individuals, with a tax rate of zero. The specific scope shall be stipulated separately by the Ministry of Finance of People's Republic of China (PRC) and State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China.