"Fixed place of business": the test that decides whether the Maldives GST rules apply to you

Direct answer

The whole regime turns on whether you have a fixed place of business in the Maldives. Until 21 September 2026 the phrase was undefined. The 32nd amendment to the GST Regulation now defines it as a place that is not used solely for auxiliary or preparatory activities, has a sufficient degree of permanence, and has an adequate structure of human and technical resources. It also makes the test use-based: having such a place does not help you if you do not supply through it.

Why this is the question that matters

Act s.15(a)(6) catches an inbound tourism product, and agency or booking services relating to one, supplied by a person who does not have a fixed place of business in the Maldives. Everything else (registration without a threshold, the margin formula, USD filing, the input tax denial) follows from being inside that description.

So the phrase does a great deal of work. Until the 32nd amendment to the GST Regulation was gazetted on 21 September 2026, it was not defined anywhere. It is now.

The definition

For the purposes of the Act and this Regulation, "fixed place of business" means a place that is not used solely for carrying on auxiliary or preparatory activities and that has a sufficient degree of permanence, and has an adequate structure consisting of human resources and technical resources to the extent required to supply the goods and services supplied from that place.

2026/R-82, new GST Regulation art. 105-3(a) (CST Advisory's translation of the Dhivehi text; the instrument was published in Dhivehi only)

It is a three-part test, and all three parts must be satisfied:

Practitioners will recognise the shape of this. It reads like the fixed establishment concept used in VAT systems elsewhere, combining the auxiliary/preparatory carve-out familiar from permanent establishment analysis with a resources-and-permanence test. It is not identical to either, and the Maldives wording is what governs.

The part most people will miss: it is use-based

A second paragraph does something the definition alone does not:

Where a person does not supply an inbound tourism product, or an agency service or booking service relating to such a product, through its fixed place of business in the Maldives, that person shall, for the purpose of section 15(a)(6) of the Act, be regarded as a person that does not have a fixed place of business in the Maldives.

2026/R-82, new GST Regulation art. 105-3(b) (CST Advisory's translation)

The word doing the work is through.

So the question is not simply "do I have a place in the Maldives?" It is "do I make these supplies through it?" A tour operator with a genuine Maldives office that nonetheless contracts, prices and sells its packages from its head office abroad is treated as having no fixed place of business in the Maldives for this purpose, and is inside the regime.

And a third rule closes the gap from the other direction

Even where a person does have a Maldives fixed place of business, if it supplies the inbound tourism product or related agency or booking services from its head office outside the Maldives, or another office or fixed place of business outside the Maldives, that supply is treated as a service supplied in the Maldives (2026/R-82, new reg. art. 104(b)).

Together, art. 105-3(b) and art. 104(b) mean a Maldives presence does not provide a route out of the regime if the relevant activity is actually run from abroad. Structuring around a nominal local office is unlikely to work.

A related point on who counts as "not registered"

Act s.5-2(b) deems certain services to be supplied in the Maldives where the recipient is not a registered person. The 32nd amendment clarifies that for that purpose, "a person who is not a registered person" includes persons who are registered, or required to be registered, but have no fixed place of business in the Maldives (2026/R-82, new reg. art. 104(a); CST Advisory's translation).

The effect is that a non-resident intermediary's own Maldives GST registration does not break the chain. A supply to it can still be a supply made in the Maldives.

An open question you should know about

Some published commentary argues that because Act s.5-2(b) is limited to unregistered recipients, sales to a Maldives-registered business fall outside the offshore supplier regime altogether.

We do not think that is safe to rely on. Act s.13(c)(8) and s.15(a)(6) make a non-resident's supply of an inbound tourism product a taxable tourism supply without that qualifier, and MIRA's guide states that inbound tourism products supplied "to end consumers or to other suppliers of ITPs" are covered (Guide §3).

Treat business-to-business as unresolved pending a ruling or further regulation, and do not build a position on the narrower reading.

What to do with this

If you have any Maldives footprint (an office, staff, a representative arrangement, a related local company) the analysis is genuinely fact-specific:

1. Identify the place. What exists in the Maldives, and under whose legal entity?
2. Test it against art. 105-3(a). Permanence, resources, and whether it is doing more than auxiliary or preparatory work.
3. Ask what is supplied through it. Contracting, pricing, sales and fulfilment: where do they actually happen?
4. Test art. 104(b) from the other direction. Is any part of this supplied from a head office abroad?

Conclusions here drive registration, valuation and input tax all at once, so it is worth getting a documented position rather than an assumption.

Are you sure you are outside the regime? If you have any Maldives presence, the answer is fact-specific and the consequences run across registration, valuation and input tax. We will review your position and document it.

Request a position review →