Meta introduces a new tax starting July 1: Who will pay up to 5% extra

Another storm is brewing in the affiliate market — Meta has begun mass-sending notifications regarding the implementation of an additional service fee (DST — Digital Services Tax). The new rules come into effect as early as July 1, 2026, and will affect several European countries and Turkey. 

Zuckerberg no longer wants to pay European taxes out of his own pocket and is shifting these costs onto the shoulders of media buyers. The markup amount is tied to the GEO where your ad account is registered or where the ultimate payer is located. 

• Austria and Turkey — 5%

• Spain, Italy, and France — 3%

• United Kingdom — 2%.

If your accounts spend budget through agency accounts or logs from these countries, the final expenditure will increase automatically, eating into net ROI at scale. 

Who is hit hardest and how to prepare

The new update will hit e-commerce and gambling the hardest, where the profit margins of campaign setups already frequently balance on the edge due to expensive consumables and moderation storms. There is very little time left until July 1, so you need to act fast: 

• Recalculate CPA / CPL. For those working on a CPA model, you need to update your KPIs. You will have to artificially lower the target cost per lead in your campaign settings and tracker by 2-5%, depending on the GEO. 

• Update automated rule limits. Ad algorithms and third-party services only see the base cost per action, without factoring in the new tax. If you do not manually lower the shutdown threshold for negative ad sets, automated rules will not stop budget bleed in time.

• Move campaigns to other BMs and cards. The new fee depends on the advertiser's legal address. To minimize losses, start shifting campaigns to agency accounts or create Business Managers in countries where this tax does not apply yet.

• Increase card limits and balances. Since the card charge amount will now be higher than the actual ad budget, standard limits might not suffice. Ensure your payment methods always have an adequate cushion of funds and increased transaction limits. Otherwise, accounts will start dropping off in mass due to Risk Payment issues and catching bans over a simple lack of a couple of dollars to cover the hidden tax.

You need to act right now. Review your funnels for Europe and Turkey, tighten up your analytics, and factor the new expenses into your budget.