Denmark is to stop charging VAT on books in an attempt to get more people reading.
At 25%, the country’s tax rate on books is the highest in the world, a policy the government believes is contributing to a growing “reading crisis”.
The culture minister, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, announced on Wednesday that the government would propose in its budget bill that the tax on books be removed.
The move is expected to cost 330m kroner (£38m) a year.
“This is something that I, as minister of culture, have worked for, because I believe that we must put everything at stake if we are to end the reading crisis that has unfortunately been spreading in recent years,” Engel-Schmidt told the Ritzau news agency .
“I am incredibly proud. It is not every day that one succeeds in convincing colleagues that such massive money should be spent on investing in the consumption and culture of the Danes.”
Other Nordic countries also charge a standard rate of 25% VAT, but it does not apply to books. VAT on books in Finland is 14%, in Sweden 6% and in Norway zero.
Sweden reduced its VAT on books in 2001, resulting in a rise in book sales, but analysis found they were bought by existing readers.
“It is also about getting literature out there,” said Engel-Schmidt. “That is why we have already allocated money for strengthened cooperation between the country’s public libraries and schools, so that more children can be introduced to good literature.”
A total of 8.3m books were sold in shops and online in Denmark in 2023, according to the national statistics office. The country’s population is just over 6 million.
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The most popular genre was books for the very young, picture books and activity books and the second-most popular was crime, thrillers and suspense novels.
If prices do not fall as a result of the measure, Engel-Schmidt said he would reconsider whether it was the right course of action.
“I will of course monitor how prices develop. If it turns out that abolishing VAT only means that publishers’ profits grow and prices do not fall, then we must consider whether it was the right thing to do,” he said.
