Benin taxes companies under the Code Général des Impôts (CGI) on profits from business activities carried on in Benin, following the territorial-basis corporate tax approach common to the WAEMU/UEMOA-harmonized tax codes of Francophone West Africa. Resident individuals are taxed on worldwide income based on tax domicile (habitual residence, principal home, or center of economic interests in Benin), while non-domiciled individuals are taxed only on Benin-source income.
The tax year is the calendar year: under CGI Article 8, tax is assessed each year on profits realized in the preceding calendar year, and taxpayers must close their accounts on December 31 annually, except in the event of a transfer or cessation of business during the year. Educational institutions may instead close their accounts on August 31.
30% standard rate (25% for industrial sector companies; 35-45% for oil/hydrocarbon exploration and production).
Progressive, up to 30%.
18% standard VAT.
An individual (Beninese or foreign national) whose tax domicile is in Benin is subject to personal income tax on worldwide income; individuals not domiciled in Benin are taxed only on Benin-source income. Foreign-source income already taxed abroad may be exempt where a tax treaty applies. Resident companies (including branches/permanent establishments of foreign entities) are taxed on the standard 30% rate.
A foreign company is brought within Benin corporate tax where it operates through a permanent establishment in Benin, meaning a branch, a fixed place of business, or a dependent agent habitually concluding contracts on its behalf. Profits attributable to that permanent establishment are taxed at the standard 30% corporate rate, or the reduced 25% rate available to industrial and mining companies.
No CFC-style attribution provision was found in Benin's General Tax Code. Where a resident enterprise is dependent on or controls an enterprise located outside Benin (control defined at more than 50% of voting rights, share value, or effective equity participation), profits indirectly transferred to that foreign enterprise - whether through inflated or deflated purchase/sale prices or by any other means - are reincorporated into the Benin resident's taxable results. This is a transfer-pricing reallocation mechanism, not a CFC regime: it pulls mispriced profits back into Benin's own tax base rather than attributing a foreign subsidiary's own undistributed low-taxed profits to a Benin parent regardless of pricing.
Benin has no specific thin capitalization rules based on a debt-to-equity ratio. Instead, a rate-based limitation applies - loan interest paid to shareholders is disallowed as a deduction to the extent the applicable interest rate exceeds the West African States Central Bank (BCEAO) base rate by more than three percentage points.
Benin's Code Général des Impôts classifies entities by their domestic legal form (société anonyme, SARL, etc.) rather than offering an elective check-the-box system, and Benin has not enacted ATAD2-style anti-hybrid mismatch rules denying deductions for double-deduction or deduction-without-inclusion outcomes. As a WAEMU/UEMOA member, Benin's corporate tax base follows the bloc's harmonized directives rather than an EU-style anti-hybrid framework.
No domestic FBAR-equivalent regime requires Benin residents to separately disclose foreign financial accounts, and Benin is not currently a CRS participating jurisdiction, meaning it does not automatically exchange financial account information with foreign tax authorities under the OECD's Common Reporting Standard. US persons remain independently subject to FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR) and potentially Form 8938 regardless of Benin's own rules.
A dedicated parent-subsidiary participation exemption regime for dividends and capital gains from a qualifying Benin or foreign subsidiary is identified in the CGI. Benin's CGI does contain a transfer-pricing rule (Article 45) addressing indirect profit transfers to related foreign entities, but this is a base-erosion rule rather than a participation exemption; confirm the current dividend and capital-gains treatment for qualifying shareholdings directly with Benin's Direction Générale des Impôts before relying on this page.
Benin grants relief from double taxation for foreign-source income already taxed abroad primarily through its network of bilateral and WAEMU-regional tax treaties rather than through a standalone unilateral foreign tax credit provision in the CGI; the specific credit or exemption mechanism depends on the applicable treaty.
Benin has no bilateral income tax treaty with the United States. Confirmed bilateral partners include the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (signed 2001) and France (confirmed via France's own treaty partner list), and as a WAEMU (UEMOA) member since 1994, Benin participates in the regional tax harmonization framework covering corporate income tax, VAT, and excise directives shared across member states.