Export tax rebates are the core profit support policy for my country’s foreign trade enterprises. They are also an important macro tool for adjusting the industrial structure of foreign trade and responding to changes in the international trade market.
In April 2026, a new round of new export tax rebate policies was officially implemented. Combined with multiple factors such as the upgrade of compliance reviews across the entire platform, intensified international trade frictions, and intensified involution of the foreign trade industry, the export tax rebate industry has ushered in structural changes.
Many foreign trade companies are facing a new situation in which tax refund bonuses have shrunk, compliance thresholds have increased, declarations have become more difficult, and industry differentiation has intensified.
1. The overall development status of the export tax rebate industry in 2026
Industry survey data shows that the scale of my country’s export tax rebates has remained stable at the trillion level in recent years. The total export tax rebates in 2025 will be approximately 1.9 trillion yuan, becoming the core financial support to ensure the normal operation of tens of thousands of foreign trade companies.
After years of iteration, the export tax rebate industry has transformed from a traditional basic fiscal and taxation policy into a core tool for accurately regulating industrial upgrading, optimizing foreign trade structure, and avoiding trade risks. It has overall presented four core characteristics of “stable total volume, structural differentiation, strict compliance, and digital upgrades.”
From the overall perspective, the current export tax rebate no longer implements a unified inclusive policy, and completely bid farewell to the “one size fits all” tax rebate model.
The industry has completed refined stratification based on industry level, product added value, and energy consumption attributes. High-end industries continue to enjoy policy dividends, while traditional mid- and low-end industries’ tax rebate dividends continue to shrink, and backward production capacity gradually withdraws from tax rebate coverage.
At the same time, the digital transformation of the entire industry is accelerating. In 2026, the government will fully implement the digital declaration and intelligent verification system for export tax rebates. The traditional manual declaration and offline verification modes will be gradually phased out. While the declaration efficiency has been greatly improved, the audit standards for data compliance and document matching have become more stringent.
From an enterprise level, leading high-end manufacturing and high-tech foreign trade companies have strong ability to adapt to the new policies, and the flow of tax rebate funds is stable; while a large number of small and medium-sized traditional foreign trade companies and processing trade companies are facing greater pressure. Most small and medium-sized practitioners have reported that the business model that relied on tax rebate subsidies to maintain profits in the past is no longer sustainable, and the Matthew Effect in the industry has gradually become apparent.
2. Structural adjustment of the core policy of export tax rebate in 2026
The new export tax rebate policy in 2026 is the most powerful structural adjustment in recent years. The core logic has shifted from “generally beneficial subsidies for foreign trade exports” to supporting high-end industries, eliminating backward production capacity, standardizing industry competition, and avoiding trade frictions. A number of new regulations directly reshape the industry’s profit logic, and the core adjustments are concentrated in three major dimensions.
The first is the precise reduction and cancellation of tax refund rates for key industries.
Starting from April 1, 2026, export tax rebates for photovoltaic products will be officially cancelled; battery products will be subject to a step-by-step reduction. The tax rebate rate will be reduced from 9% to 6% from April to December 2026, and the tax rebate will be completely canceled from January 1, 2027.
This adjustment covers 249 export products, mainly targeting mature industries that already occupy a global dominant position and suffer from low-price involution. The cancellation of tax rebates will force the transformation and upgrading of the industry.
The second is to establish a hierarchical and differentiated tax rebate system.
The New Deal divides export products into three levels based on industrial attributes: high-end manufacturing products such as high-end equipment, biomedicine, and high-tech maintain a top tax rebate rate of 13%; the tax rebate rate for traditional labor-intensive products such as textiles and furniture is fine-tuned to 10%; the tax rebate rate for high-energy-consuming, high-pollution, resource-based low value-added products is reduced to 6%, forming a precise regulatory pattern of “high-end support, mid-end stability maintenance, and low-end suppression.”
Finally, there is a comprehensive upgrade of compliance audits and digital supervision.
In 2026, the entire platform will strengthen export tax rebate document verification, fund traceability, and trade authenticity verification to eliminate false trade, document inconsistencies, illegal arbitrage, and other behaviors.
At the same time, the intelligent declaration system has been fully popularized to realize automatic comparison of tax refund data and intelligent risk warning, greatly reducing the operating space for violations and significantly raising the compliance threshold.
3. In-depth dismantling of the core pain points of the current export tax rebate industry
With policy adjustments and regulatory upgrades, the original development shortcomings of the export tax rebate industry have been fully exposed. Superimposed on changes in the market environment, corporate operations and industry development are facing multiple core pain points, which are also the core difficulties in the transformation of current foreign trade companies.
1. The traditional corporate profit model has completely failed.
A large number of mid- to low-end processing trade companies have long relied on export tax rebate dividends to maintain profits. Their bargaining power is weak and the added value of their products is low.
Industry data shows that the core profit source of most traditional OEM foreign trade companies is tax rebate subsidies. After the tax rebate bonus shrank under the New Deal, companies directly fell into the dilemma of “stable sales and plummeting profits.” The gross profit margin of some low-end OEM companies even approached zero.
At the same time, the previous model of companies converting tax rebate dividends into low-price competitive advantages has completely ended, and the industry chaos caused by low-price involution has been contained, but it has also caused companies that lack core competitiveness to lose their living space.
2. Compliance risks have increased significantly, and the fault tolerance rate is extremely low.
After 315 in 2026, the audit standards for the entire platform will be upgraded, and export tax rebates will become a key area of foreign trade supervision.
Currently, the tax department has extreme matching requirements for customs declarations, VAT invoices, exchange receipts, and logistics documents. Small document errors, data inconsistencies, and irregular processes will trigger tax refund warnings, leading to tax refund delays, temporary withholdings, and even tax recoveries.
Small and medium-sized foreign trade companies generally lack professional finance and taxation teams and are unfamiliar with the new policy details and digital declaration rules, making compliance operations more difficult.
3. The risk of international trade friction has intensified.
For a long time, some industries have relied on export tax rebates to subsidize low-price exports, which can easily trigger overseas anti-dumping and countervailing investigations.
Taking the photovoltaic and battery industries as an example, domestic companies have used tax rebate bonuses to drive down export prices and have fallen into the involution dilemma of “volume increases, prices fall, and profits are meager”. This not only results in the loss of profits in the domestic industry, but also frequently encounters overseas trade barriers.
The New Deal’s cancellation of tax rebates for mature industries is essentially to avoid trade risks, but in the short term it will directly impact the overseas price advantages of relevant companies.
4. Poor industry information leads to lagging in adaptation.
Most small and medium-sized foreign trade companies do not have a thorough understanding of the grading standards, product classification, and declaration details of the new export tax rebate policy. There are problems such as incorrect classification of product HS codes, improper operation of the tax rebate process, and underutilization of preferential policies.
Some companies that meet the conditions for high-end tax rebate support miss out on dividends due to irregular operations, while low-end companies fail to adjust their business strategies in a timely manner and continue to face rising cost pressures.
4. The profound impact of the export tax rebate policy adjustment on the entire industry chain
The 2026 export tax rebate structural adjustment is not a single fiscal and taxation policy change, but a reshaping of the entire foreign trade industry chain, from upstream production, midstream trade to downstream overseas layout, it will have a profound impact and accelerate the survival of the fittest in the industry.
In the mature new energy industry chain, policy adjustments will directly end the low-price involution and chaos in the industry.
Photovoltaic, energy storage battery and other industries have occupied more than 70% of the global market share, and the industry has prominent problems of overcapacity and vicious competition.
After the tax rebate was cancelled, the industry completely bid farewell to the “survival by subsidies” model, forcing companies to abandon low-price strategies and turn to technology research and development, product upgrades, and brand overseas, accelerating the elimination of backward and inefficient production capacity, and promoting the industry’s transformation from “scale expansion” to “quality and profitability.”
In the traditional foreign trade industry chain, industry differentiation continues to accelerate.
Traditional enterprises with independent brands and high value-added products can rely on stable product competitiveness to offset the cost pressure of tax rebate reductions by optimizing their product structures. However, small, medium and micro enterprises that are pure OEMs, have no core technologies, and have no brand advantages have completely lost their cost advantages, their market survival space continues to be squeezed, and the pace of industry clearing is accelerating.
In the high-end manufacturing industry chain, policy dividends continue to be released.
High-tech industries such as biomedicine, high-end equipment, and precision electronics continue to enjoy maximum tax rebate support, and policy guidance clearly encourages high-end industries to go overseas.
With the support of tax rebate funds, companies can increase investment in overseas market layout and technology research and development, further enhance the global competitiveness of my country’s high-end foreign trade products, and optimize the overall foreign trade export structure.
V. Prediction of the future development trend of the export tax refund industry in 2026-2027
Based on the current policy orientation, regulatory rules and industry status quo, the export tax refund industry will continue to develop in the direction of precision, compliance, digitalization and high-end in the future, inclusive policies will gradually withdraw, and structural regulation will become the norm.
First, differentiated tax refund regulation will continue to deepen.
In the future, the export tax rebate policy will be completely tied to the industrial upgrading strategy, continue to reduce the tax rebate dividends of the two high-tech, one-investment and low-value-added industries, focus on supporting high-tech, high-end manufacturing, green and low-carbon industries, continue to optimize the foreign trade industrial structure through tax leverage, and promote the high-quality development of the foreign trade economy.
Second, digital compliance supervision has become the industry standard.
The entire process of digitalization and intelligent verification will be fully popularized, and the entire chain of tax refund declaration, review, traceability, and risk control will be online, and the accuracy of supervision will continue to improve.
In the future, the compliance capabilities of enterprises will become their core competitiveness, and refined financial and taxation management, standardized document operations, and normalized risk self-examination will become essential capabilities for foreign trade enterprises.
Third, industry competition has completely shifted to a competition of core strengths.
The extensive development model that relies on policy subsidies and low-price involution has completely ended. In the future, the core of competition among foreign trade companies will focus on product technology, brand value, supply chain capabilities, and overseas channel resources. The overall profitability quality of the industry will continue to improve, and disorderly competition will gradually be eliminated.
Fourth, trade risk prevention and control are deeply tied to tax refund policies.
In order to cope with the complex international trade environment, the export tax rebate policy will continue to adapt to international trade rules, avoid trade frictions such as anti-dumping investigations through policy adjustments, and help the foreign trade industry build a healthy and sustainable overseas ecosystem.
6. Industry Summary and Enterprise Adaptation Suggestions
Overall, the implementation of the new export tax rebate policy in 2026 marks the official completion of the transformation of my country’s foreign trade tax rebate policy from “inclusive coverage” to “structural regulation”. In the short term, some traditional foreign trade companies will face the pressure of rising costs and shrinking profits, but in the long term, it can effectively purify the industry environment, promote industrial upgrading, avoid trade risks, and lay the foundation for the high-quality development of the foreign trade industry.
For foreign trade companies, the current core response direction is clear: low-end processing and serious involution business segments need to be optimized and adjusted in time to eliminate inefficient production capacity; proactively sort out product HS codes and adapt to the latest tax rebate grading policies to maximize compliance dividends; build a complete financial and tax compliance system to adapt to digital regulatory requirements and avoid tax rebate risks; focus on product upgrades and brand building, get rid of dependence on tax rebate subsidies, and build independent core competitiveness.
Is your foreign trade industry affected by this new export tax rebate policy?
What difficulties are you currently encountering in tax refund declaration, compliance operations, and business adjustments?
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