Beard tax

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A beard tax is a government fee charged to men for keeping a beard. The most famous example was in 18th-century Russia under Tsar Peter the Great. In 1698 he introduced the tax to push Western ways, and police could publicly shave anyone who refused to pay. Many people believed beards were a religious duty, and the Russian Orthodox Church said shaving was blasphemous.

Tax amounts varied by status: those at the Imperial Court, the military, or government paid 60 rubles a year; wealthy merchants paid 100 rubles; other merchants and townsfolk paid 60 rubles; Muscovites paid 30 rubles; and peasants paid two half-kopeks each time they entered a city. The tax raised little money overall because few people shaved and the state had trouble collecting it. It was repealed in 1772 by Catherine the Great.

Those who paid carried a "beard token" or "beard kopek"—a copper or silver coin showing a bearded face with the Russian eagle on the reverse. Several designs existed from 1698 to 1725. Early tokens were simple copper pennies; later ones were round copper coins dated 1705 and 1710, with a rhomboid version in 1724/1725. Inscriptions varied, sometimes saying the money was taken, and later versions noted that the beard was a burden. Dates appeared in Cyrillic on earlier tokens and in Arabic numerals on later ones.

There’s a popular but unclear claim that Henry VIII taxed beards in England, but there’s little evidence. In France, Francis I reportedly obtained papal approval to tax priests’ beards in the early 1500s to fund wars, creating a divide between wealthy court priests and poorer village priests.

In 1936 Yemen introduced a "no-beard tax," where clean-shaven men paid instead of growing a beard. This approach differs from other Islamic nations, where beards are often tied to tradition or law.