Air Departure Tax Highlands and Islands Exemption: business and regulatory impact assessment

Section 6: Implementation and Review

6. Implementation plans

The Scottish Government and Revenue Scotland are working with prospective taxpayers ahead of ADT’s implementation date of 1 April 2027 to ensure impacts are appropriately identified, minimised and where possible mitigated. This includes working with airlines and other aircraft operators expected to report the exemption.

Revenue Scotland has established a programme to deliver the systems, resource, guidance, and other requirements to bring ADT into force. This programme is working within schedule and includes an extensive stakeholder engagement plan in order to ensure that those who are required to interact with Revenue Scotland in relation to ADT are well informed about their obligations and of the processes for reporting exemptions.

Revenue Scotland will undertake onboarding exercises in order to register future taxpayers prior to the introduction date of 1 April 2027 to aid a smooth transition from APD to ADT.

6.1 Post implementation review

As a new tax exemption within a new devolved tax, the Scottish Government is committed to reviewing the performance of the exemption in relation to its objective of protecting Highlands and Islands aviation once it is in operation.

The Scottish Government will work with Revenue Scotland to monitor the effectiveness of the exemption. The Scottish Government’s Framework for Tax principles inform our approach to decision making, engagement and how we manage and sequence tax policy and delivery. Following the introduction of the exemption alongside ADT coming into operation in Scotland, the Scottish Government will continue to take full account of the Framework’s principles and objectives, which includes evaluation.

In particular, the Scottish Government will monitor the number of services operating from Highlands and Islands airports and the numbers of passengers flying to and from airports in the Highlands and Islands region, in 2027-28 and in future years.