Foreign trade bosses, starting from April, an account must be recalculated.
In the past, when many export companies quoted prices, they had a “safety cushion” in mind: export tax rebates.
It doesn’t matter if the order profit is a little thin, tax refunds can make up for it; it doesn’t matter if customers lower prices more aggressively, tax refunds can still make up for it; exchange rates fluctuate, shipping prices rise, and account periods lengthen, as long as tax refunds are there, companies still have some buffer space.
But now, that safety mat is being removed.
According to the “Announcement on Adjusting the Export Tax Refund Policy for Photovoltaic and Other Products” issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation, the export value-added tax rebate for photovoltaic and other products will be canceled from April 1, 2026; for battery products, the export tax rebate rate will be reduced from 9% to 6% from April 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026, and the export value-added tax rebate will be canceled from January 1, 2027.
The announcement also clarified that the applicable tax refund rate shall be based on the export date indicated on the customs declaration form for export goods.
This means that it does not look at the contract signing date, the production completion date, or the customer payment date, but the export date on the customs declaration.
For photovoltaics, batteries, some chemicals, ceramics, glass, e-cigarettes and other related companies, this is not a simple tax rate adjustment, but a reconstruction of the profit model.
When the tax refund is reset to zero, the first thing that will be hit is the income statement of the foreign trade company.
When many people hear “cancellation of export tax rebates,” their first reaction is: Isn’t it just a little less subsidy?
But for foreign trade companies, things are not that simple.
Assume that a company originally exported a batch of goods with a contract value of 1 million yuan, a comprehensive cost of 950,000 yuan, and a book profit of 50,000 yuan.
If it turns out that part of the export tax rebate can still be obtained, corporate profits may still be barely visible.
However, after the tax rebate was cancelled, this part of the money that could have covered costs, offset price reductions, and buffered exchange rate risks was gone.
It used to be that I could still earn 50,000 yuan, but now I may only have 20,000 yuan left, or even directly become a loss.
In particular, industries such as photovoltaics, ceramics, glass, and e-cigarettes are already facing the problems of fierce price competition, strong bargaining power of customers, and rising overseas compliance costs.
Once the tax rebate returns to zero, if the company continues to use the past quotation logic to accept orders, it is easy to have a dangerous result: orders are still growing, but profits are disappearing.
This is why what many foreign trade bosses are most anxious about recently is not whether there is an order, but whether they will make money after taking this order.
More importantly, the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Finance mentioned at the State Council Information Office press conference that adjusting the export tax rebate policy will help guide the rational adjustment of the industrial structure, promote industrial transformation and upgrading, and comprehensively rectify “involution” competition.
The signal behind this sentence is clear: in the future, it will be increasingly difficult to rely on low prices, scale, and tax rebate bonuses to export.
Leading companies are taking three measures to save themselves.
The first move: Recalculate the cost and immediately remove the “tax refund profit” from the quotation.
In the past, when many companies quoted prices, they would include export tax rebates in their profit margins by default.
But now, after the tax rebate is canceled or reduced, the quotation formula must change.
What foreign trade companies should do most now is to divide all orders on hand into three categories, calculate the accounts carefully, and protect the bottom line of profits.
Second move: Structural price increase, don’t do it across the board, and don’t impose it forcefully.
Rather than simply raising prices, leading companies reclassify products based on customer value, product gross profit, order cycle, and account period length.
After the tax rebate is cancelled, the space for low-price competition becomes smaller, while the space for value competition becomes larger.
Whether customers are willing to accept price increases does not depend on how much the cost has increased, but on whether the company has irreplaceable value.
Third move: Adjust product and market structure, and stop relying on a single category to go global.
Reduce reliance on a single product and a single market, establish a product echelon, redo market stratification, and re-evaluate the supply chain layout.
In the second half of foreign trade, the battle is not just about factory quotations, but the resilience of the supply chain.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, don’t be anxious and don’t blindly follow the trend.
The most important thing is to conduct a “profit physical examination” immediately, check all undeclared orders, re-formulate quotation templates, screen customers, check cash flow, and prepare communication skills for price increases.
This round of policy adjustments will reduce the profits of some companies in the short term; in the long term, it will force the industry to shift from low-price competition to high-quality competition.
The return of tax rebates to zero is not the end of foreign trade, but the end of the extensive export model.
For foreign trade bosses, the most important thing now is not to complain about policy changes, but to recalculate the accounts immediately.
Because after the tax rebate is reset to zero, the real test of the company will not be its export capabilities, but its operating capabilities.
