Recently, the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) issued an important statement regarding the adjustment of export tax rebate policies. Since 2024, Chinese photovoltaic (PV) products have faced increasingly intense price competition in international markets, with export prices continuously declining while export volumes continue to rise, showing a typical "high volume, low price" trend. Some enterprises, in addition to competing on low prices, have used export tax rebate amounts as bargaining chips with overseas buyers. As a result, fiscal funds originally intended to offset domestic value-added tax (VAT) burdens have been indirectly transferred to foreign purchasers. In practice, this has turned export tax rebates into implicit subsidies for overseas end markets, reducing domestic companies' profit margins and significantly increasing the risk of anti-subsidy and anti-dumping trade disputes, which negatively affects both the overall interests and international image of China's PV industry.
The CPIA emphasized that appropriately reducing or canceling export tax rebates for PV products can help guide overseas market prices back to rational levels and reduce the trade friction pressure faced by China. At the same time, this adjustment can effectively relieve the national fiscal burden, allowing for a more reasonable and efficient allocation of financial resources. Although adjusting export tax rebates is not the only way to address the structural issues of domestic overcapacity and international price competition, in the long term, it can help curb overly rapid declines in export prices and lower the probability of trade disputes, creating a more stable environment for the sustainable development of the PV industry.
In fact, the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration had already issued a policy in November 2024, reducing the export tax rebate rate for PV wafers, cells, and modules from 13% to 9%, effective December 1, 2024. The latest announcement further clarifies that, starting April 1, 2026, VAT export rebates for PV products will be cancelled. From April 1, 2026, to December 31, 2026, the VAT export rebate rate for PV cells will be reduced from 9% to 6%, and from January 1, 2027, VAT export rebates for cells will be fully cancelled.
For PV products subject to consumption tax, the export consumption tax policy remains unchanged, continuing to apply the current consumption tax refund or exemption policies. The rebate rates apply based on the export date indicated on the customs declaration form.