Writing for Reuters, author Diana Baptista has a nice summary here. An excerpt:
Since Kenya became the first country to scrap VAT on sanitary pads and tampons in 2004, at least 17 countries have followed suit, according to research by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Among the latest countries to pass laws to abolish the tampon tax are Mexico, Britain and Namibia.Another 10 countries have designated sanitary products as tax-exempt goods or have exempted the tax on imported raw materials used to make them.Advocates against period poverty usually campaign for sanitary products to be zero-rated for VAT, as this means producers can also claim back taxes on raw materials, making the final product truly tax-free.Although Tanzania and Nicaragua had also scrapped the tax on period products, both countries reintroduced it in 2019.Mainly in Europe, 17 countries have reduced the VAT on sanitary products, with Italy the latest to do so this year.The European Union last year revised a directive that previously only allowed member states to reduce VAT on sanitary products by 5%. The change means nations can now apply lower tax rates to some goods.
