A survey of the Ghanaian tax system (2026)

Edward Abrokwah; Nana Ama Kwakyewaa Asumah; Ernest Asiedu Berko; Philip Banahene Thompson; Benjamin Kamal Chackson; Abdul Malik Iddrisu; Martin Mikloš; Christine Seet

doi:10.1920/re.ifs.2026.0037

TaxDev

A survey of the Ghanaian tax system (2026)

Edward Abrokwah
Nana Ama Kwakyewaa Asumah
Ernest Asiedu Berko
Philip Banahene Thompson
Benjamin Kamal Chackson
Abdul Malik Iddrisu
Martin Mikloš
Christine Seet

Published on 15 September 2026

Third edition of the Survey that provides a comprehensive overview of Ghana's tax system as of the 2026 mid-year Budget.

This Report is an update of Survey of the Ghanaian tax system

Preface

This report was prepared by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, UK (IFS) through the Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TaxDev) in collaboration with the Revenue Policy Division at the Ministry of Finance, Ghana.

The authors would like to thank the UK Government Public Finance Centre of Expertise – funded by UK International Development – for financial support, through its grant to TaxDev. TaxDev is a collaboration between IFS and ODI Global, and aims to promote more effective tax policymaking in low- and middle-income countries through research, applied analysis, and partnerships with policymakers. Co-funding from the Economic and Social Research Council funded Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (ES/Z504634/1) is also gratefully acknowledged.

The authors would like to thank the Ghana Revenue Authority for its support and for providing tax revenue data, as well as David Phillips, Yani Tyskerud and Ben Waltmann for their feedback.

The views expressed in this report are, however, those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders or of the other individuals or institutions mentioned herein, including IFS, which has no corporate views, and the Ministry of Finance, Ghana.

This is version 3.0 of ‘A survey of the Ghanaian tax system’ and updates version 2.0 published in August 2024. The original report (version 1.0) was produced by Abdul Malik Iddrisu, Ross Warwick, Daniel Nuer, Edward Abrokwah, Harriet Conron and Andara Kamara.

Executive summary

Ghana’s economy has been recovering significantly in recent years after a period of severe macro-economic stress between 2020 and 2023 that was characterised by slow growth, rising public debt, high inflation and a sharp depreciation of the local currency. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth reached 5.8% and 6% in 2024 and 2025, respectively, and inflation fell to a low of 3.2% in March 2026. The quest to deepen domestic revenue mobilisation has been one of the central pillars in the macro-economic stabilisation agenda. In the context of its revenue mobilisation goals, the design of the country’s tax system is a crucial issue for policymakers.

This report is an update of earlier reports that provided a comprehensive overview of Ghana’s tax system (Iddrisu et al., 2021a, 2024). Together, these reports are intended as a repository of key information on the Ghanaian tax system for researchers, policymakers and the public. Throughout the report, we highlight notable revenue and policy trends and patterns.

Key findings

At 13.5% in 2025, Ghana’s tax-to-GDP ratio remains below the government’s target of 18–20% by 2027. Though this ratio is almost 6 percentage points higher than in 2000, it continues to fluctuate and has hardly risen since 2017.
Revenues from corporate and personal income taxes and from value-added tax (VAT) and associated taxes made up about 70% of total collections in 2025 – up from 57% in 2000. These three types of taxes have also accounted for much of the growth in Ghana’s tax revenues since 2000.
Tax collections from international trade have become far less important in the revenue mix, though they remain significant: 27% of overall tax revenues were collected on imported goods in 2025 (including VAT on imported products), compared with 55% in 2000. The contribution of import duties specifically to total tax revenue declined from 18% in 2000 to 12% in 2025.
Ghana’s tax-to-GDP ratio is typical of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, considering countries of a similar income level across the world, Ghana’s tax revenue collections are slightly below average: out of 26 lower middle-income countries with available data, Ghana ranked 18th in 2023.
Higher tax rates are generally associated with higher revenues as a share of GDP. However, personal income tax and general sales tax revenues in Ghana are lower than would be expected given its tax rates, all else equal. Yet, recent growth in corporate income tax revenues means that these revenues exceed those expected in countries with similar tax rates.