Eswatini Withholding tax rates
Eswatini 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.
Domestic statutory withholding tax rates on payments to non-residents under the Eswatini Income Tax Order, 1975 (King's Order-in-Council 21 of 1975), as amended most recently by the Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Act No. 20 of 2023, assented 14 July 2023). Administered by the Eswatini Revenue Service (ERS). Covers dividends (non-resident shareholders tax, s 21-26), interest (non-residents tax on interest, s 27-32), entertainers and sportsmen (s 32A), royalties and management charges (s 32B), repatriated branch income (s 32E), payments to non-resident construction contractors (s 59) and payments under Eswatini-source services contracts to non-residents (s 59A).
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2024-07-01 |
| Official source | Income Tax Order, 1975 (consolidated text, WIPO Lex: s 21(2) 'The rate of the tax shall be fifteen per centum of the amount of any dividend', s 27 'ten per centum' [interest, pre-amendment], s 32A 'fifteen per cent', s 32B 'fifteen per cent of the gross amount of any royalty and fifteen per cent of the gross amount of any management charge', s 59(3) 'fifteen per cent', s 59A(2) 'fifteen per cent'); Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Act No. 20 of 2023, official PDF hosted by ERS: s 10 'Section 21 of the Order is amended in subsection 2 by deleting the proviso to subsection (2)' [removes 12.5% neighbouring-country dividend tier]; s 11 'Section 27 of the Order is amended after paragraph (c) by deleting the word "ten" between "to" and "per" and replacing it with "fifteen"' [interest 10% to 15%]) |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. Rates verified in the primary texts: the Income Tax Order 1975 consolidated text (WIPO Lex, wipo.int/wipolex/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/sz/sz015en.html) and the official scanned Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2023 PDF hosted by ERS. The one element resting on secondary corroboration is the commencement date: the Act commences 'on a date to be determined by the Minister by Notice in the Gazette' (s 1(2)) and the gazette notice itself was not retrievable online; PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries 'Significant developments' (reviewed 30 March 2026: 'New tax legislation has been introduced effective 1 July 2024. Withholding taxes (WHTs) on non-residents has been fixed at 15%. There had previously been dispensation of 12.5% for certain countries.') and Regan van Rooy ('generally with effect from 1 July 2024') both corroborate commencement on 1 July 2024. Beware stale official guidance: the ERS website's own 'Non-Resident Withholding Taxes' page (ers.org.sz/IncomeTax/Withholding) still reproduces the pre-amendment s 27 wording ('ten per cent of the interest'), and PwC's withholding-taxes detail page still shows the old 10% interest and 12.5% neighbouring-country dividend rates while its own significant-developments page records the change - the amendment PDF text is the controlling source. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Eswatini levies separate withholding taxes on dividends, interest, royalties, management charges, entertainers and sportsmen, non-resident construction contractors and non-resident service providers, each under its own sections of the Income Tax Order 1975. A caller wanting a number must name which payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. Since 1 July 2024 every non-resident category happens to sit at 15%, but they remain legally distinct taxes with different bases (gross amount vs amount excluding materials) and different final-tax status, so do not collapse them into one figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. A double-tax agreement can reduce any of them (e.g. the Eswatini-South Africa DTA caps dividends at 10% for a 25%+ corporate shareholder). We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral, condition-laden (beneficial ownership, shareholding thresholds, mode-of-application formalities), and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. Country-specific caveats: (1) The famous reduced 12.5% dividend rate for companies incorporated or registered in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia or the Republic of South Africa was a DOMESTIC statutory carve-out (the proviso to s 21(2) of the Order, as amended by Act 6 of 2000 - note it included Namibia, which some secondary sources omit), NOT a treaty rate - and it was ABOLISHED: s 10 of the Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2023 deleted the proviso, so from 1 July 2024 all non-resident dividends bear 15%. The parallel 12.5% concession on repatriated branch income was likewise removed (s 14 of the Act deleted the proviso to s 32E(1)). (2) The interest rate rose from 10% to 15% at the same date (s 11 of the Act). (3) The s 59 contractors withholding applies only to construction operations, excludes amounts shown to represent the direct cost of materials, and is on account of the contractor's liability (not final); the s 59A services-contract withholding (15% of gross) is a final tax and is the residual category for non-employment Eswatini-source service payments. (4) The 2023 Act also inserted a new s 32C imposing a 10% final withholding on interest and dividends paid by financial institutions etc. to RESIDENTS - that is a resident withholding, not part of this non-resident dataset.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/sz/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/sz/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/sz/withholding-taxOther Eswatini series: Central Bank of Eswatini discount rate · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Sectoral minimum wages (Regulation of Wages Orders) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Company income tax rate · Statutory late-payment interest · Personal income tax bands · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Ethiopia · Gabon · Ghana · Kenya · Lesotho · all 34