Steam prices are set to rise

Steam has announced that a variety of countries will be seeing a price rise due to new tax jurisdictions which are effective non-EU countries such as Australia and Switzerland. An email sent out to Steam partners today confirmed the news and detailed a full list of the countries and price changes. Here’s the full list of countries being affected and when they’re prices will be changing:

March 2017

• Switzerland 8%
• South Korea 10%
• Japan 8%
• New Zealand 15%
• Iceland 24%
• South Africa 14%
• India 15%

April 2017

• Serbia 20%

May 2017

• Taiwan 5%

July 2017

• Australia 10%

It looks as though Iceland and Serbia will be seeing the largest price increases at 24% and 20% respectively. Ten countries are being affected by these new tax jurisdictions and it’s possible that others may be added to the list in the future.

The email states that these tax jurisdiction changes are so that the advertised price on Steam matches how VAT works in the EU. Gamers will pay the price displayed on the store page and the tax will be separated afterwards. It currently looks as though gamers will pay a one time price when they purchase the game as the new taxes will be added onto the final total for the purchase. This hasn’t been confirmed however so it may work differently in reality.

For now, the above countries will be able to purchase games at their current prices until the price update month arrives later this year. It’s still uncertain if other countries will be added to the list in the future but Valve will continue to release updates about the situation as it unfolds later this year.