Egypt's 14% VAT on Restaurant Bills: How to Calculate It Correctly

Egypt's standard VAT rate, where a typical service charge sits next to it, and the exact order a restaurant bill needs to add them in — plus what has to print on the receipt itself.

2026-09-166 min read

A restaurant bill in Egypt usually carries two extra lines beyond the food itself: a service charge and VAT. Most of the confusion at the till comes from treating them as the same thing, or adding them in the wrong order.

The rate, and why this isn’t the last word on it

Egypt’s standard VAT rate has stood at 14% since the last nationwide increase, and it applies to most goods and services, restaurant sales included. Rates and the specific treatment for a given business category can change, and the exact category a particular restaurant falls under is a registration detail, not a blog fact. Confirm the current rate and your restaurant’s own tax category with your accountant or through the Egyptian Tax Authority directly before you configure anything.

Two different lines, two different owners

A service charge is not a tax. It is revenue for the restaurant — usually shared out to staff — calculated as a percentage of the item total, and it needs its own line on the bill. Many restaurants in Egypt apply something in the range of 10–12%, but that figure is a common business practice, not a fixed legal number; set whatever your restaurant has actually decided, not a number you saw somewhere else. VAT, in contrast, goes to the state at the rate your registration applies.

The order the calculation runs in

A sensible and common order:

Sum of items
minus any discount
= the base
plus service charge (a percentage of the base)
plus VAT
= amount due

Whether VAT is calculated on the base alone or on the base plus the service charge is a real decision with a real answer for your registration — it is not something a cashier should be guessing differently each day. Decide it once with your accountant, then fix it in the POS so every receipt calculates it the same way.

What has to be on the receipt

At minimum, a compliant receipt needs the business name and branch address, the tax registration number, a sequential invoice number with no gaps, the date and time, the itemized list with quantities and prices, any discount applied, the service charge as its own line, VAT as its own line with the rate shown, and the total with payment method. Skipping any of these does not save paper — it creates a problem the first time someone actually checks the books.

Branches can differ

A restaurant with more than one branch may find the tax treatment or the applicable details are not identical across branches. A system that forces one rate onto the whole business turns every difference into a manual monthly correction. GoSufra sets VAT per branch, calculates the service charge separately from tax, and prints the tax registration number on every receipt — and because every sale writes its own double-entry record automatically, the monthly VAT summary and the sales-and-purchases breakdown becomes a report you open rather than one you assemble.

Before the month closes

Match the VAT total in your reports against the total in your books.
Review voided and refunded receipts and how they were treated for tax.
Check that the invoice number sequence has no unexplained gaps.
Prepare the itemized sales-and-purchases breakdown, not just the totals.
Confirm any rate change with your accountant before it goes live in the system, not after.

Getting the receipt right doesn’t protect you from tax. It protects you from spending three days a month rebuilding what should have been recorded correctly the first time.