Zambia corporate tax rate
Standard (headline) rate of income tax on the business income of a company, set in paragraph 3(1)(b) of the Charging Schedule to the Income Tax Act, Chapter 323 of the Laws of Zambia, administered by the Zambia Revenue Authority. Zambia's charge year runs 1 January to 31 December. Rates are amended annually by an Income Tax (Amendment) Act enacted in December and commencing 1 January.
| Current value | 30 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2022-01-01 |
| Official source | The Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2021 — Act No. 43 of 2021 (assented/enacted 30 December 2021; s.1(2): 'This Act shall come into operation on 1st January, 2022'), s.11(c): the Charging Schedule is amended 'in paragraph 3 (1) — (i) in item (b), by the deletion of the word "thirty-five" and the substitution therefor of the word "thirty"' |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
30% is confirmed and unchanged for the 2026 charge year — none of the Income Tax (Amendment) Acts since 2021 has touched Charging Schedule paragraph 3(1)(b). It replaced the long-standing 35% rate from 1 January 2022 (Act No. 43 of 2021). SECTOR RATES DIFFER MATERIALLY — the headline 30% is NOT the rate for many taxpayers. Verified from the amendment Acts as published by the National Assembly: (1) TELECOMS — income of an electronic communications network or service licensee is taxed at 35%, restored by the Income Tax (Amendment) Act No. 24 of 2022 s.13(c)(i), effective 1 January 2023, so telecoms pay 5 points MORE than everyone else; (2) NON-TRADITIONAL EXPORTS — 20%, but 10% where the Commissioner-General determines the income originates from the export of non-traditional products from FARMING or AGRO-PROCESSING (Act No. 22 of 2024 s.15(a)(i), effective 1 January 2025); (3) COPPER BENEFICIATION — 20% on income of a company from the manufacture of products made out of copper cathodes (Act No. 22 of 2024 s.15(a)(iii)); (4) PPP PROJECTS — 15% for five years from the first profit-making year for a special purpose vehicle under the Public-Private Partnership Act 2023 (Act No. 22 of 2024 s.15(a)(iv)), and for RAILWAY-sector SPVs a bespoke ladder of 0% for charge years 1-5, 10% for years 6-15, 12% for years 16-25 and 30% (or the paragraph 3(1)(b) rate if lower) for years 26-28 (Act No. 17 of 2025 s.17(b), effective 1 January 2026); (5) MFEZ/INDUSTRIAL PARK export manufacturers approved by the Zambia Development Agency — 0% for ten years from commencement of works, then half the standard rate in years 11-13 (Act No. 43 of 2021 s.11(e)); (6) TRUSTS, deceased's and bankrupt's estates — 30% (Act No. 43 of 2021 s.11(d)). NEW FOR THE 2026 CYCLE — MINIMUM ALTERNATIVE TAX: the Income Tax (Amendment) Act No. 10 of 2025 (assented 8 August 2025, enacted 19 August 2025) inserted s.14A and Charging Schedule paragraph 8 imposing a MAT of 1% per annum on TOTAL TURNOVER payable in addition to, and creditable against, income tax for up to five subsequent charge years. It does not apply to persons liable to presumptive or turnover tax, nor (per Act No. 17 of 2025 s.2) to a railway-sector PPP SPV in its first twelve years. ALSO from 1 January 2026 (Act No. 17 of 2025): turnover tax is 0% on annual turnover of K30,000 or less and 5% above K30,000 up to K5,000,000 (the turnover-tax ceiling was raised from K800,000); rental income turnover tax is 0% up to K30,000, 4% between K30,000 and K800,000 and 16% above K800,000; withholding tax on interest on Treasury bills and Government bonds is 20% (Act No. 10 of 2025). CITATION CAVEAT: the consolidated Income Tax Act published by the National Assembly (https://www.parliament.gov.zm/sites/default/files/documents/acts/Income%20Tax%20Act.pdf) is the Ministry of Legal Affairs edition as at 1996 and its Charging Schedule is decades out of date — the current rates only exist as a chain of annual amendment Acts, which is why each rate above is cited to its specific amending Act rather than to a consolidation. Widely-quoted rates for farming (10%) and mining operations (30%) could not be traced to a current official text and are therefore NOT asserted here.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/zm/corporate-tax
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/zm/corporate-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/zm/corporate-taxOther Zambia series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · income tax rates