China will impose a 13% value-added tax on condoms and other contraceptives starting January 1, 2026, ending a decades-long tax exemption in line with Beijing’s aggressive push to reverse plummeting birth rates and encourage larger families. The move, quietly inserted into the updated VAT law, removes contraceptives from the exempt category they have occupied since the late 1980s—a period when the Communist Party was still enforcing the brutal one-child policy with forced abortions and massive fines.

While state media has downplayed the change, it exploded on Chinese social media, where users mocked the government’s logic with memes and sarcasm: “Raising a child costs millions, but a 13% tax on condoms will definitely make us have more babies.” Others called it “the most ruthless birth control policy ever” in a country that once sterilised millions against their will.

Public health experts are far less amused. They warn that even a modest price hike could sharply reduce condom use among lower-income and younger groups, driving up unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted infections. China already records 9–10 million abortions annually (the last official figure before data stopped being published in 2022) and saw syphilis cases rise to 670,000 and gonorrhoea to over 100,000 in 2024, with HIV infections topping 1.4 million.

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Demographers say the tax will do almost nothing to lift fertility. “The cost of a condom is trivial compared to the hundreds of thousands of yuan needed to raise a child to university age,” said University of Virginia researcher Qian Cai. “Couples who have decided against children won’t change their minds over a few extra yuan.” Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison called the move “logical but symbolic”, noting it simply returns contraceptives to normal commodity status after decades of state-driven population control.

Women’s rights advocates see darker undertones. “First they forced abortions and IUDs on us, now they tax our protection—it’s still about disciplining women’s bodies and sexuality,” said Zou Xuan, a 32-year-old teacher from Jiangxi province. Many young women online have declared they will “lead the way in abstinence” as a protest.

Condom use in China is already low—only 9% of couples rely on them, compared with 44% using IUDs and 30% choosing female sterilisation—making any price sensitivity particularly risky for STI prevention. With births falling to just 9.5 million in 2024 (down from 14.7 million in 2019) and deaths now outpacing births for the third straight year, Beijing’s latest attempt to engineer demographic reversal through fiscal nudges has instead spotlighted the deep distrust many young Chinese feel toward official family-planning policies.

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