The Gambia taxes residents on worldwide income and non-residents on Gambia-source income only, under the Income and Value Added Tax Act 2012 - a common-law framework reflecting The Gambia's history as a British colony, not the French-derived Code General des Impots structure used across Francophone West Africa. The Gambia operates a self-assessment system for corporate tax, administered by the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA), formed in 2004 by merging the former Customs & Excise Department and Central Revenue Department.
The Gambia's tax year is the calendar year.
The higher of 27% of net profit, or 1% of turnover on audited accounts (2% on unaudited accounts).
The higher of scheduled progressive rates, or 1-3% of turnover depending on business size and audit status.
15% standard VAT.
An individual is resident if present in The Gambia for more than 183 days in a year. Companies incorporated and/or controlled in The Gambia are resident companies, liable to corporation tax on all income; non-resident companies, partnerships, and bodies of trust are taxed only on Gambian-source income.
A non-resident entity has a Gambia permanent establishment through a fixed place of business or a dependent agent habitually concluding contracts in the Gambia on the entity's behalf, following the OECD Model Treaty definition as applied under the Gambia's domestic law and any applicable tax treaty.
No CFC-style attribution provision exists in Gambia's tax legislation. There are no specific regulations dealing with transfer pricing other than in the Income and Value Added Tax Act, under which the arm's length principle remains the guiding standard - the Gambia's only cross-border related-party anti-abuse mechanism, with no dedicated transfer-pricing regulations and no CFC-style attribution regime layered on top of it.
The Gambia has no formal thin capitalization rules based on a debt-to-equity ratio, but interest deduction is restricted to specified limits under domestic law. The specific numeric limit is not identified in accessible sources.
The Gambia does not use an elective check-the-box classification system; entity classification generally follows the entity's actual legal characteristics under The Gambia's own common-law legal tradition. The Gambia does not have a comprehensive ATAD2-style anti-hybrid regime.
No foreign bank account or foreign financial asset reporting regime exists requiring residents to separately disclose foreign accounts; foreign income is reported through the standard annual tax return.
The Gambia does not provide a broad participation exemption for foreign dividends in the European sense, consistent with the transfer-pricing-focused (rather than exemption-focused) anti-avoidance framework already confirmed elsewhere on this page; relief from double taxation is available primarily through the Gambia's foreign tax credit system where one exists.
The Gambia has a foreign tax credit mechanism for foreign tax paid on foreign-source income also taxed domestically, capped at the domestic tax otherwise due on that income - confirm current specific provisions directly given limited public documentation of this area for the Gambia.
The Gambia has at least 4 confirmed double taxation agreements - Norway (in force 1997), Sweden (1993), Turkey, and the United Kingdom (in force 1982) - individually confirmed via primary treaty texts and government sources, a higher figure than the "approximately 3" some secondary compilations cite. The Gambia is a member of ECOWAS, providing tariff-free trade among member states, and participates in the West African Monetary Union's tariff-free framework for products and handicrafts.