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Why This Works Differently Outside Europe
Europe’s tax-free shopping ecosystem, with its shared operators and broadly similar kiosk systems, gives a slightly misleading impression that VAT refunds work roughly the same everywhere. Outside Europe, the reality is far more fragmented, some countries use a genuinely similar kiosk model, others require queueing with an official in person, and a few offer nothing to claim back at all.
The tax itself often has a different name too. Singapore, Australia and Thailand call it GST rather than VAT, and while the underlying idea, reclaiming the consumption tax on goods a tourist is taking home, is the same, the rate, the minimum spend and the paperwork all vary by country far more sharply than they do across the EU’s broadly harmonised system.
A handful of major non-European destinations do run a proper refund scheme, and this guide walks through how each one actually works in practice: Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan, the UAE and Thailand. It also covers the destinations that get asked about just as often, precisely because there is nothing to claim there at all.
As with the European guide, the goal here is the practical detail that tends to get skipped: what actually happens at the counter or kiosk, whether card or bank details are needed, and what to realistically expect to see land back in an account once fees are deducted.
Which Countries Actually Offer This
Coverage outside Europe is patchy, and even where a scheme exists, the mechanics differ significantly by country. The table below is a quick reference for the six destinations covered in detail further down, setting out the minimum spend, tax rate, validation method and refund method for each before the country-by-country detail that follows.
| Country | Minimum Spend | Tax Rate | Validation Method | Refund Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore | S$100 per retailer | GST 9% | Passport-scan kiosk (eTRS), no paper form | Card (~10 days) or cash at the departure counter |
| Australia | AU$300 per retailer | GST 10% | Pre-lodged via the TRS app, checked in person by a Border Force officer | Card, bank transfer or cheque |
| South Korea | 15,000 KRW; over 75,000 KRW needs the customs desk | VAT 10% | Self-service kiosk for smaller claims, customs desk for larger ones | In-store price cut or cash from a kiosk-linked booth |
| Japan | 5,000 JPY per category | Consumption Tax 10% | Point-of-sale today; airport terminal passport scan from November 2026 | Reduced price at the till today; airport refund after November 2026 |
| UAE | AED 250 per transaction | VAT 5% | Passport or GCC ID scan kiosk (Planet) | Cash, card (~9 days) or instant WeChat/Alipay |
| Thailand | 2,000 THB per store per day | VAT 7% | Paper P.P.10 form plus a customs officer inspection | Cash under 30,000 THB; bank draft or card transfer above that |
Rates and minimums shift periodically and are the trickiest detail to keep current, so treat this table as a starting point and confirm the figure for a specific trip before relying on it. Broadly, these fall into three camps: Singapore and the UAE use an unmanned, passport-only kiosk similar to parts of Europe, Australia and larger Korean claims require an in-person check, and Thailand still runs on paper from start to finish.
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Check dealsSingapore: The Passport-Only Kiosk Model
Singapore’s Electronic Tourist Refund Scheme (eTRS) is the closest thing outside Europe to the self-service kiosk model at Changi and other exit points. There is no paper form to keep track of at all, every eligible purchase from a participating retailer is logged electronically against the shopper’s passport at the point of sale.
At the point of purchase, the minimum spend is S$100 (including GST) at a single participating retailer, and up to three same-day receipts from that same store, sharing the same GST registration number, can be combined to reach it. The shopper’s original passport, not a photocopy or a photo of it, has to be shown at the till so the retailer can capture the passport details digitally against that transaction.
At departure, the process is a single scan. A traveller presents their passport at an eTRS kiosk, and the machine automatically retrieves every eligible transaction on file, with nothing to search for or hand over separately.
Which kiosk to use depends on what’s being carried. Anything going into checked luggage needs validating at the kiosks in the departure check-in hall before immigration, since officers there may need to see the goods, while purchases carried through in hand luggage are validated afterwards at kiosks in the departure transit lounge, once through immigration.
Singapore Customs itself does not process the actual payout, a separate operator called Global Tax Free handles the refund once the kiosk step is complete, whether that is a card refund or cash collected elsewhere in the airport.
Cash is paid out at the GST Cash Refund Counter in the departure transit lounge of each terminal, after immigration, so it is not collected at the validation kiosk itself. A card refund typically lands within around ten days of the kiosk approving the claim, credited back to whichever card was registered at the point of purchase.
Because everything is tied to the passport used at checkout, it is worth double-checking the same passport is presented at both the till and the kiosk, since a mismatch is one of the more common reasons a claim doesn’t show up automatically.
Australia: Pre-Lodge Online, Then Queue With the Goods
Australia’s Tourist Refund Scheme (TRS) works the opposite way round to Singapore’s. Most of the process happens online before ever reaching the airport, and the airport step itself is a face-to-face check rather than an unmanned kiosk.
The minimum spend is AU$300 at a single retailer, invoices can be combined to reach it, for goods bought within 60 days of departure. Ahead of the flight, travellers use the TRS app or the My TRS Claim portal to enter the goods and invoices and choose a refund method, generating a QR code for the airport.
Exactly where that check happens varies by airport, but at Sydney, for example, the TRS office sits airside to the right of the Heinemann Duty Free store, reachable only after clearing security and passport control. Anyone claiming on an oversized or checked item needs an earlier stop too, at the ABF Client Services Counter in the landside arrivals hall, to have those goods inspected before check-in rather than at the airside office.
At the airport, a Border Force officer checks the QR code, the passport, the original invoices and the goods themselves in person, so travellers need to arrive with time to spare and the purchases accessible rather than packed away.
Travellers are advised to reach the airside TRS office at least 30 minutes before their scheduled departure, with extra time built in during busy periods since the in-person check can move slowly. Having the TRS app’s QR code ready, rather than searching for invoices on the spot, is what actually speeds the queue along.
The maths is simple: divide the total price by 11 to get the GST portion. Refunds land by card, bank transfer or cheque, and it is worth avoiding a rewards credit card for the refund method, since points can be lost on a refunded transaction.
South Korea: Refund Size Decides the Route
South Korea splits its process by how much is actually being claimed back, rather than using one system for everyone. Smaller purchases at certified retailers can be refunded instantly in-store, either as a reduced price at checkout or cash from the store’s own desk.
Anyone claiming on a single receipt over roughly 75,000 KRW has to visit the customs desk in the departure hall before checking in, since an officer may want to see the actual goods and stamp the paperwork before the suitcase disappears onto the belt. Packing that item into checked luggage first is one of the easiest ways to lose the claim entirely, because the goods have to be produced on request.
Everything under that threshold is simpler. After clearing security, self-service kiosks near Gate 28 at Incheon’s Terminal 1, or the gates around 249 to 253 at Terminal 2, handle a straightforward passport and receipt scan, with cash collected from a nearby disbursement booth once the kiosk approves it.
Several familiar operators handle the payouts. Global Tax Free, Global Blue and Easy Tax Refund all run schemes in Korea, so a traveller may recognise the branding from purchases made elsewhere in the world.
After the operator’s service fee, the actual amount recovered typically works out around 4 to 7 percent of the purchase price, a useful reality check against the headline 10 percent VAT rate.
Japan: A System About to Change
Japan currently works differently to almost everywhere else covered here. Many tourists get the tax exemption directly at the till rather than claiming anything back later, a passport shown at a certified store is often enough to buy at the pre-tax price on the spot, no airport step required at all.
Certain categories come with an extra condition today. Consumable items, such as food, drinks and cosmetics, have to leave the store in a special sealed, tamper-evident bag, and opening it before departure technically voids the exemption even though it is rarely checked in practice.
A minimum of 5,000 JPY applies per category, general items and consumables cannot be combined to reach it, and the goods are still checked by customs on departure to confirm they are actually being exported, so it is not entirely paperwork-free even under the current system.
That system is changing. From November 2026, Japan is moving to a refund model much closer to Europe’s: pay full price in-store, then claim the refund back at an airport counter before departure, with receipts and the goods themselves needed as proof.
Once the new system takes effect, the actual airport step happens at tax-free procedure terminals in the international departure lobby, and it has to be done before checking in luggage rather than at the boarding gate. A passport scan there returns one of two results, a green screen means the refund is approved with no further check, while a red screen sends the traveller to a customs officer for an inspection of the goods before the refund is confirmed.
The claim has to be made within 90 days of the purchase date, and at several of the country’s busiest airports, including Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka, New Chitose and Naha, travellers will be able to complete the passport-scan step in advance through Visit Japan Web rather than queuing at the terminal itself.
Anyone travelling to Japan either side of that date should double-check which system is actually in place at the time, since the practical steps, and what needs keeping hold of, differ significantly between the two.
The UAE: Same Technology as Europe, Different Rules
The UAE’s VAT refund scheme is operated by Planet, the same company behind a share of Europe’s tax-free shopping, so the underlying technology will look familiar to anyone who has used it in France or elsewhere. The minimum spend is AED 250 per transaction.
At the till, the retailer attaches a Planet tax free tag to the back of the tax invoice, or sends a link to the Shopper Portal by SMS for anyone who would rather manage the claim digitally, with the invoice name matched against the passport or GCC ID used to buy the goods. That validation then has to happen within 90 days of the purchase date, comfortably inside the length of most holidays.
Validation happens at self-service kiosks at airports, seaports and land borders, or at kiosks in malls and hotels for anyone departing within 24 hours, with a manned desk available for departures inside six hours. The process is a passport or GCC ID scan, and takes a few minutes either way.
Refund options include cash on the spot at a currency exchange desk after immigration, capped at AED 35,000, a card refund within roughly nine days, or an instant payout through WeChat or Alipay for travellers using those wallets.
The deductions are worth knowing upfront: a 13 percent commission plus a flat AED 3.60 fee per transaction applies whichever refund method is chosen, so the headline 5 percent VAT rate nets less than it first appears.
Thailand: The Most Paper-Heavy Process
Thailand’s system is the least digitised of the destinations covered here, and still runs almost entirely on paper. At the point of purchase, a shopper needs to ask for a P.P.10 form and the original tax invoice on the same day as the sale, with a passport shown at the till.
The minimum spend is 2,000 THB per store per day, and unlike some other countries, this cannot be built up by combining separate small purchases from different retailers. Before checking in for a flight, the completed form, invoices and the goods themselves need to be shown to a customs officer for inspection.
At Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi, that customs desk sits landside on the fourth floor departures hall, near check-in Row Q opposite Row W, and it genuinely has to be done before joining a check-in queue since the officer needs to see the goods themselves. Other Thai airports run the same before-check-in inspection step from a differently positioned counter, so it is worth locating it on arrival rather than assuming it sits near the gate.
Higher-value luxury items, jewellery, gold and watches worth more than 10,000 THB, come with an extra step: those goods must be hand-carried through and shown again at the dedicated VAT refund office after immigration, rather than checked in.
That VAT refund office is also where every claim, not just the luxury-item ones, gets its final paperwork lodged. At Suvarnabhumi it sits airside in Concourse D near Gates D5 to D8, clearly signed, and it is also possible to drop completed documents into a box outside it if the counter itself is closed.
Payouts under 30,000 THB can be taken in cash, by bank draft or card transfer; anything larger is restricted to a bank draft or card transfer only, with banking and postal fees deducted from whatever is owed.
A modest administrative charge applies on top of that, typically around 100 THB per form plus roughly 0.5 percent on a non-cash payout, so a small claim can end up barely worth the paperwork once every deduction is added up.
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Check transfersWhat Actually Happens at the Airport
The common thread across most of these systems, Singapore and the UAE especially, is that no card or bank details are entered at the kiosk itself. The refund method is chosen earlier, in the app, at the till, or on a form, and the kiosk or counter’s job is purely to validate the claim.
Where an in-person check is involved, Australia and the larger Korean or Thai claims, an officer typically wants to see the actual goods alongside the passport, invoices and form, so packing purchases into checked luggage before that step is a common way to lose a claim entirely.
A successful validation rarely means money in hand there and then. Cash is sometimes available immediately at a separate collection point, but a card, bank transfer or app payout is the more common outcome, landing anywhere from a single business day to a couple of weeks later depending on the country and method.
Keeping hold of receipts, forms and boarding passes until the refund has actually arrived is worth doing everywhere on this list, not just where it is explicitly required, since a queried or missing refund is far easier to sort out with the paperwork still in hand.
Where There’s Nothing to Claim
New Zealand runs no tourist GST refund scheme at all, despite sitting right next to Australia’s Tourist Refund Scheme. GST is already built into the price shown on the shelf, and there is no mechanism for a visitor to reclaim it on the way out, a genuinely common source of confusion for anyone assuming the two countries work the same way.
The United States and Canada are similar, neither operates a national sales tax refund scheme for international visitors. A small number of individual US states have run their own limited tourist refund programmes in the past, but nothing exists at a federal level, and none should be assumed to apply without checking locally first.
Hong Kong is a similar case for a different reason, the territory has never actually implemented a general sales tax or GST, after a proposed 5 percent GST was dropped in 2006 following strong public opposition. There is simply no consumption tax built into retail prices there to begin with, so there is nothing for a visitor to reclaim, unlike Singapore just a short flight away.
For anyone planning a trip across several destinations, it is worth treating a refund as the exception outside Europe and a handful of Asian and Gulf countries, rather than assuming every stop on a wider itinerary works the same way.
What You Actually Get Back
The headline tax rate is rarely what ends up back in an account, the same story as Europe, just with different numbers behind it. The UAE’s 13 percent commission plus its flat AED 3.60 fee take a real bite out of a 5 percent VAT rate that was never large to begin with.
South Korea’s roughly 4 to 7 percent net recovery, against a 10 percent VAT rate, sits in a similar range to what a traditional European operator returns, while Australia’s one-eleventh calculation is one of the more transparent methods on this list, with no percentage-based commission built in at all.
Thailand deducts banking and postal charges from the refund rather than a flat commission, which can make a small claim barely worth the paperwork, while Singapore and Japan’s numbers depend heavily on which operator or retailer is involved, since neither publishes one universal net-recovery figure.
As with Europe, the practical takeaway is the same: a real saving is genuinely there to be had on a significant purchase, but treating a refund as a rough percentage rather than the full advertised tax rate avoids disappointment at the other end.
Rupert’s Handy Travel Tips
Claiming back tax outside Europe? Rupert has a few tips that can save both time and money:
- Check which system applies before you travel: some countries use a kiosk, others need an in-person queue, and Japan’s process changes in November 2026.
- Match the passport at checkout and at the kiosk: a mismatch is one of the most common reasons a Singapore or UAE claim doesn’t show up automatically.
- Keep goods accessible, not checked in: an in-person check, common in Australia, Korea and Thailand, often wants to see the actual purchases.
- Don’t assume New Zealand works like Australia: there’s no GST refund scheme there at all, despite the neighbours running one.
- Budget for real deductions, not the headline rate: the UAE’s fees and Thailand’s banking charges both take a noticeable bite.
- Hold onto every receipt and form until the refund lands: it’s the easiest way to sort out a delayed or missing payout.
Want to meet the reindeer behind our travel tips? Find out more in our page Who is Rupert?.
Frequently Asked Questions About Claiming Back Tax Outside Europe
Which non-European countries offer a VAT or GST refund for tourists?
Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan, the UAE and Thailand all run schemes, though the mechanics differ significantly between them.
Does New Zealand offer a GST refund for tourists?
No. Despite sitting next to Australia’s Tourist Refund Scheme, New Zealand has no equivalent, and GST is simply built into the shelf price.
Is Singapore’s refund process similar to Europe’s kiosk system?
Yes. Its Electronic Tourist Refund Scheme is one of the closest matches, a passport-only kiosk scan with no paper form involved.
Do I need to queue with an official at the airport?
It depends on the country. Australia and larger Korean or Thai claims require an in-person check with the goods; Singapore and the UAE are unmanned kiosk-only.
Is Japan’s tax-free shopping changing?
Yes. From November 2026, Japan moves from a point-of-sale exemption to a claimed-refund model much closer to Europe’s.
How much VAT or GST do I actually get back outside Europe?
It varies widely by country and deduction structure, roughly 4 to 7 percent net in South Korea, against a more transparent one-eleventh calculation in Australia.
Does the UAE use the same operator as parts of Europe?
Yes. Planet operates the UAE’s kiosks, the same company behind a share of European tax-free shopping.
Further Reading & Related Guides
Shopping in Europe instead, or planning a multi-region trip? Our Claiming Back VAT in Europe guide covers Global Blue, Planet and the newer digital-first refund apps in full, with the same practical detail on kiosks, minimum spends and what actually lands back in an account.
Heading to Singapore for the shopping itself? Our Best Things to Do in Singapore guide covers Marina Bay, Sentosa and the rest of the city beyond the eTRS kiosk, while our Singapore Travel Guide covers the transport, apps and local tips worth knowing before landing.
Visiting Japan either side of the November 2026 refund change? Our Japan Rail Pass Guide covers whether the pass is worth it for getting around once the shopping is done.
Budgeting for a trip further north instead? Our Norway on a Budget guide covers VAT refund thresholds alongside DNT cabins, AutoPASS and free wild camping.
