SANGSAD BHABAN, June 11, 2026 (BSS) - Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury has proposed a wide range of tax reductions, exemptions and concessions in the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget aimed at strengthening the ICT products ecosystem, expanding digital inclusion and boosting local manufacturing of technology goods, including computers, mobile phones and semiconductor-related components.

The budget extends income tax exemptions previously limited to IT freelancing to all categories of freelancing income, while also making all income from content creation fully tax-free to support the digital economy.

While unveiling the maiden national budget of BNP government at the Jatiya Sangsad, Finance Minister in his budget speech today proposed a zero percent turnover tax rate for startups, innovative ventures and technology-based ICT businesses.

To reduce costs of ICT hardware, Advance Income Tax (AIT) on the import of computer printers, portable automatic data processing machines, flash memory devices and computer monitors has been cut from 5 percent to 2 percent.

AIT on 22 raw materials used in local mobile phone manufacturing has also been reduced to 1 percent.

The finance minister has proposed full withdrawal of import duty, regulatory duty, supplementary duty and VAT on laptops, desktop computers, computer printers and computer monitors.

For solid state drives (SSDs), the 5 percent import duty will remain, but regulatory duty, supplementary duty and VAT have been withdrawn.

Import duty on point of sales (POS) machines has been reduced from 10 percent to 5 percent, while advance tax of 7.5 percent has been withdrawn.

In the semiconductor sector, raw materials for chip design, testing and packaging will face only 1 percent import duty until June 30, 2031, with exemption from regulatory duty, supplementary duty, VAT and advance tax to support export-oriented growth.

Duty exemptions on raw materials and components for computers and digital devices have been extended until June 30, 2030.

Conditional VAT exemptions for local manufacturing of mobile phones, computers, laptops and printers have also been extended until June 30, 2030.

On telecom reforms, the government has withdrawn Tk 300 SIM card tax to make mobile services more affordable.

The 20 percent withholding tax on revenue sharing, license fees and other charges received by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has been removed, while the withholding tax rate on mobile network services has been reduced from 12 percent to 10 percent.