A new amendment to Ethiopia’s Income Tax Proclamation proposes a 15 percent tax on earnings generated from digital content creation on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and others.
The draft legislation, currently under discussion in the House of People’s Representatives, aims to bring digital economy participants into the tax net by classifying regular income from content creation as “business income,” subject to the standard business tax regime.
According to the draft, if digital content creation does not qualify as business activity under the criteria outlined in the proclamation, earnings will be categorized under “Other Income” and taxed at a flat rate of 15 percent.
The proposed law also mandates platforms that facilitate payments to content creators to report all such payments to the Ethiopian tax authority.
In a move to formalize the digital content economy, the amendment will require all content creators earning income to obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), declare their income, and comply with all other tax obligations.
This is the first time Ethiopia has introduced a clear tax framework specifically targeting income from digital platforms and content monetization, signaling the government’s growing focus on the rapidly expanding digital economy.
Source: Capital Ethiopia
