Ethiopia Withholding tax rates
Ethiopia Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
The withholding taxes Ethiopia levies on Ethiopian-source payments to non-residents - dividends, interest, royalties and management/technical fees - under the Federal Income Tax Proclamation No. 979/2016 as amended by the Income Tax (Amendment) Proclamation No. 1395/2025, at domestic statutory rates before any double-tax agreement relief. Administered by the Ministry of Revenues.
Compare withholding tax rates across all 34 African countries →
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2025-07-08 |
| Official source | Federal Income Tax Proclamation No. 979/2016 as amended by Income Tax (Amendment) Proclamation No. 1395/2025 (enacted 17 July 2025, provisions effective from 8 July 2025); rates cross-checked against PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries - Ethiopia (last reviewed 15 July 2026): dividends 15%, interest 10%, royalties 10%, management/technical fees 15%, repatriated branch profits 15% |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | secondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access). The controlling instrument is Amendment Proclamation 1395/2025 in the Federal Negarit Gazette; the English PDF in circulation is a scan whose text layer is too degraded to quote operative words cleanly (fragments confirm the new dividend 15%, interest 10% and royalty 10% articles and the 15% repatriated-profit article). Rates served follow the concordant reading of PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries (reviewed 15 July 2026, post-amendment), Chambers and law-firm analyses of Proclamation 1395/2025. Treat as secondary until quoted from a clean gazette text. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Ethiopia rates each head of payment separately (10% and 15% across the four heads). A caller wanting a number must name which payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. Ethiopia's double-tax agreements can reduce them; applying a treaty rate is a legal determination rather than a lookup, so we do NOT serve treaty rates. THE 2025 REFORM CHANGED THESE RATES: Amendment Proclamation No. 1395/2025 (effective 8 July 2025; domestic-payment withholding from 7 August 2025) raised dividends from 10% to 15% and royalties from 5% to 10%, set interest at 10%, raised the tax on repatriated profits of a non-resident's permanent establishment from 10% to 15%, and renumbered the operative articles of Proclamation 979/2016 (the old royalty/dividend/interest Articles 54-56 are now Articles 56-58). Pre-amendment figures still circulating (10% dividends, 5% royalties, 5% saving-deposit interest under old Article 51) are STALE. Whether the old 5% concession for interest on saving deposits at financial institutions survived the amendment is not clearly stated in available sources; PwC's post-amendment table shows only the 10% general interest rate. Ethiopia also withholds on non-resident insurance premiums and on non-resident entertainers, outside the four heads served here.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/et/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/et/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/et/withholding-taxOther Ethiopia series: NBE National Bank Rate (policy rate) · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage (none in force) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Legal interest / interest for default · Personal income tax brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Gabon · Ghana · Kenya · Lesotho · Mali · all 34