Long gone are the days when China had a one child policy for its citizens, apparently. Now, they need their people to get busy, literally.
Get busy in the bedroom! China slaps new taxes on condoms, birth control https://t.co/6kr7dTdryE pic.twitter.com/TtRjrJnMoU
— New York Post (@nypost) December 13, 2025
It’s a taxing time for sweethearts in China.
After a 30-year exemption, the country is slapping a 13% sales tax on condoms, birth control pills and devices, hoping to boost its declining birth rates and offset the long-term impact of an aging population and declining workforce.
And with contraception more expensive under the new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2026, officials are hoping other financial incentives help usher in a baby boom.
So, it's going to get a whole lot more expensive to not have babies in China with these new taxes.
Changes include making childcare services, elder care institutions and disability service providers tax exempt; offering extended maternity leave, which varies across the country but has gone from 128 days to 158 days in big cities like Beijing, along with a proposed 30-day paid paternity leave.
On Jan. 1, 2025, each family became eligible to receive a cash allowance of 3,600 yuan, or about $500, per year for each child born after that date, Bloomberg reported.
A tough job market and the skyrocketing price of raising a child through age 18, an estimated 538,000 yuan or $76,000, also has young adults blowing off the bedroom.
Recommended
They are offering new Moms longer leave and even giving Dad a whole month off. Also, they are giving baby bonuses. Perhaps, that'll do the trick.
Oddly only half the taxes of western countries due to smaller average size of condoms in China.
— MotherTrucker (@1MotherTrucker1) December 13, 2025
Oh, be nice.
You know that feeling you get every time you walk out of a sex shop like " what if someone takes a picture of me and I end up on the international news"😂🤣😂
— Brandon Ingram (@OpusMiraculous) December 13, 2025
The poor guy was caught in the act for infamy.
Crazy stuff
— Toby (@TobyOnChain) December 13, 2025
Yes I’m sure Asians have so little self control and foresight that they will end up pregnant due to a condom tax. People known for their reckless behavior.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) December 3, 2025
Only time will tell.
Sounds like an old Chris Rock bit about reducing gang shootings by making bullets really expensive.
— John Hayes (@johnfreehayes) December 4, 2025
I am old enough to remember when they were hunting down pregnant women for forcible abortions during one child policy.
— elektropionir (@elektrojagoda) December 3, 2025
It wasn't so long ago.
I expect them to criminalize vasectomies, and other surgical sterilizations next. Probably on pain of death.
— TheGhostOfRobertHeinlein 🏹🎯🤺🥊👨🏻💻🔫🎣🪵🏕 (@sumanpalit6) December 3, 2025
It might be funny if it wasn't likely true.
The downside of this is that you are mainly stimulating childbirth in poorer people who may not be ready.
— Lennart ten Wolde (@lenis0012) December 3, 2025
While tax credit and daycare subsidies makes it more attractive to working-class families with higher income.
They can't count only on rich people to have babies. They need children in the working class to help care for their elders and to well, work, in the future, as well.