How Much GST/VAT Flows Through Invoices [2026 Data]

Australia’s net GST cash collections reached $90.2 billion in the 2024-25 financial year, up 6.2% from the year before, according to the Australian Taxation Office’s GST Administration Annual Performance Report 2024-25. Every dollar of it traces back to a GST tax invoice. Scale that pattern across the UK, the EU, and more than 170 other countries running a VAT or GST system, and invoicing turns out to be the paperwork underneath one of the largest revenue streams any government collects.

How much GST does Australia collect through invoices each year?

Australia’s net GST cash collections, the figure left after refunds, came to $90.2 billion in FY2024-25, according to the ATO’s GST Administration Annual Performance Report 2024-25. That total includes $5.6 billion collected by the Department of Home Affairs on imported goods, and it landed 6.2%, or $5.3 billion, above the prior year’s outcome. The ATO also reports a second figure, net GST accrued on a tax liability method, which came to $93.4 billion for the same period, reflecting GST owed on transactions rather than cash actually banked. Both numbers depend entirely on the tax invoices businesses issue and retain: an ATO-compliant tax invoice is the document a purchaser needs to claim an input tax credit, and it is the primary evidence the ATO uses to reconcile what was collected against what should have been collected.

Figure 1: Australia’s net GST cash collections for the 2024-25 financial year, all traceable to GST tax invoices. Source: Australian Taxation Office, GST Administration Annual Performance Report 2024-25.

How much does the UK collect through VAT?

UK net VAT revenue rose 7.9%, or £13.0 billion, in the 2024-25 financial year, according to HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025. Working from that stated increase, net VAT revenue landed at roughly £178 billion, up from about £165.5 billion the year before. Gross VAT revenue, the figure before refunds are subtracted, is considerably larger still, since HMRC also processes well over £100 billion in VAT repayments to businesses each year. A UK business only needs to register for VAT once its taxable turnover passes £90,000 in a rolling 12-month period, and every registered business is required to issue a VAT invoice showing the VAT charged, its own VAT registration number, and the applicable rate, the same document HMRC audits when it checks a return.

How much VAT flows through the EU’s invoicing system?

Across the EU’s 27 member states, VAT revenue equaled about 15.5% of total government tax revenue and around 7.1% of GDP in 2024, according to Eurostat’s tax revenue statistics. That single tax category outweighs every other tax on production and imports combined; the European Commission’s own figures show VAT accounted for roughly 55% of all taxes on production and imports collected across the bloc that year. Standard VAT rates vary by member state, from 17% in Luxembourg to 27% in Hungary, and average 21.9% across the EU as a whole, according to the Tax Foundation’s 2026 VAT rate compilation. Every one of those transactions runs through the EU’s reverse-charge and VIES cross-border invoicing rules, which is why the bloc’s e-invoicing mandates, including France’s and Germany’s rollouts landing in 2026 and 2027, target the invoice itself as the compliance checkpoint.

Figure 2: Standard GST/VAT rates range from 5% (Canada’s federal rate) to nearly 22% (EU average). Sources: national tax authorities; Tax Foundation, 2026 VAT Rates in Europe.

How does GST/VAT compare across the rest of the world?

Outside Australia, the UK, and the EU, most major economies run some version of the same mechanism at a different rate. New Zealand charges 15% GST with a NZD 60,000 registration threshold. Singapore’s GST reached 9% after its most recent increase, taking effect 1 January 2024, with registration required above SGD 1 million in taxable turnover. South Africa applies a 15% VAT rate, registering suppliers above ZAR 1 million. Canada layers a 5% federal GST with either a provincial sales tax or a combined Harmonized Sales Tax reaching 15% in the Maritime provinces, and requires registration once a small supplier passes CAD 30,000 in revenue. India runs the largest GST system by transaction volume: gross collections hit an all-time high of INR 22.08 lakh crore in FY2024-25, up 9.4% year over year from INR 20.18 lakh crore the year before, according to Indian government GST data, spread across multiple rate slabs of 5%, 12%, 18%, and 28% rather than one flat rate.

Figure 3: India’s gross GST collections have grown every year since the tax was introduced, reaching an all-time high in FY2024-25. Source: Government of India GST collection data, compiled via Press Information Bureau releases.

Country/Bloc	Tax	Standard rate	Registration threshold
Australia	GST	10%	AUD 75,000
United Kingdom	VAT	20%	GBP 90,000
European Union (average)	VAT	21.9%	Varies by member state
Canada	GST/HST	5% federal, up to 15% combined	CAD 30,000
New Zealand	GST	15%	NZD 60,000
Singapore	GST	9%	SGD 1,000,000
South Africa	VAT	15%	ZAR 1,000,000
India	GST	5% / 12% / 18% / 28% slabs	Varies by state and turnover

Table 1: Standard GST/VAT rates and small-business registration thresholds by country, 2026. Sources: national tax authorities, compiled 2026.

Why doesn’t the United States use a national GST or VAT?

Among the world’s largest economies, the United States is the outlier: it has never adopted a federal VAT or GST, and taxes consumption instead through state and local general sales taxes layered on top of each other. The population-weighted average combined state and local sales tax rate reached 7.53% as of mid-2026, according to the Tax Foundation, well below the rates most VAT/GST countries charge, but the US system applies at the point of retail sale rather than at every stage of a supply chain the way a true VAT does. That structural difference means invoices matter less for US sales-tax compliance than they do for GST/VAT credit claims elsewhere: a US business generally cannot recover sales tax paid on its own purchases the way an Australian or UK business reclaims GST or VAT through an invoice-backed input credit.

Figure 4: The US relies on a combined state and local sales tax averaging 7.53%, roughly a third of the typical VAT/GST rate charged elsewhere. Source: Tax Foundation, State and Local Sales Tax Rates, midyear 2026.

Why does virtually all of this revenue trace back to an invoice?

VAT and GST are, by design, multi-stage taxes: each business in a supply chain charges the tax on its sales and reclaims the tax it paid on its own purchases, and the invoice is the only document that proves either side of that exchange happened. That is why VAT/GST generates 20.8% of total tax revenue across OECD countries on average, more than any other single tax, according to the OECD’s Consumption Tax Trends 2024 report, and why more than 170 countries have built their tax base around it. It is also why government e-invoicing mandates, from Belgium’s Peppol requirement to Poland’s KSeF rollout, target the invoice format itself rather than the return: control the invoice, and the tax due on it becomes far harder to misreport. A tax-compliant invoice generated the same way every time removes the single biggest source of error in that chain.

Figure 5: VAT and GST outweigh every other single tax category across OECD countries. Source: OECD, Consumption Tax Trends 2024 (2022 data).

Figure 6: UK net VAT revenue grew 7.9% year over year in 2024-25. Source: HMRC, Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025.

Data point	Figure	Source
Australia net GST cash collections, FY2024-25	$90.2 billion	Australian Taxation Office
UK net VAT revenue, 2024-25	Approx. £178 billion	HMRC
VAT/GST share of OECD tax revenue	20.8%	OECD
India gross GST collections, FY2024-25	INR 22.08 lakh crore	Government of India GST data

Table 2: The headline GST/VAT collection figures referenced throughout this piece.

The Bottom Line

GST and VAT are not abstract line items on a government budget; they are the sum of individual, invoice-backed transactions, tracked one tax invoice at a time. Australia’s $90.2 billion in net GST cash collections, the UK’s roughly £178 billion in net VAT revenue, and India’s record INR 22.08 lakh crore in GST collections are each built from millions of invoices that had to state the right rate, the right registration number, and the right amount, or the credit chain breaks. That is also why VAT/GST, at 20.8% of average OECD tax revenue, is a bigger single line item than any other tax most governments collect. A business that generates every invoice from a consistent, compliant template is not just getting paid faster; it is producing the exact document its tax authority will eventually check. For the fuller picture of what is riding on getting an invoice right in the first place, see Late Payment Statistics 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much GST does Australia collect through invoices each year? Australia’s net GST cash collections reached $90.2 billion in the 2024-25 financial year, up 6.2% ($5.3 billion) from the year before, according to the Australian Taxation Office’s GST Administration Annual Performance Report 2024-25. Every dollar of that total is tied to a GST-compliant tax invoice.

How much VAT does the UK collect each year? UK net VAT revenue rose 7.9%, up £13.0 billion, in the 2024-25 financial year, taking the total to roughly £178 billion, according to HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025. The prior year’s net VAT revenue was about £165.5 billion.

Does the United States have a national GST or VAT? No. The United States is the only major economy without a national goods and services tax or value-added tax. Instead, it relies on state and local general sales taxes, which average a combined 7.53% nationwide as of mid-2026, according to the Tax Foundation, and vary by state and even by city or county.

How big a share of government tax revenue does VAT/GST represent worldwide? VAT and GST generated 20.8% of total tax revenue across OECD member countries on average, more than any other single tax category, according to the OECD’s Consumption Tax Trends 2024 report. More than 170 countries now operate some form of VAT or GST system.

Sources and References

1. Australian Taxation Office: GST Administration Annual Performance Report 2024-25, net GST cash collections.
2. HMRC: Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025, Financial Review, UK net VAT revenue growth.
3. GOV.UK, UK VAT registration threshold.
4. Eurostat: Tax revenue statistics, EU VAT revenue as a share of GDP and total tax revenue.
5. Tax Foundation: 2026 VAT Rates in Europe, EU member-state standard VAT rates.
6. OECD: Consumption Tax Trends 2024, VAT/GST share of OECD tax revenue and average standard rates.
7. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, GST collection figures for FY2024-25.
8. Indian GST Network, GST rate slab structure.
9. Tax Foundation: State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2026, US average combined sales tax rate.
10. Inland Revenue New Zealand, NZ GST rate and registration threshold.
11. Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Singapore GST rate and registration threshold.
12. South African Revenue Service, South Africa VAT rate and registration threshold.
13. Canada Revenue Agency, GST/HST rates and small-supplier threshold.

Note: All figures verified as of September 2026.