The E-levy, fully defined as the Electronic Transfer Levy Act, 2022 (Act 1075) imposes a levy on transfers carried out electronically through an institution or a platform such as banks, MTN Momo, Zeepay and specialized deposit-taking institutions like the rural banks and micro-finance.
Per the Administrative guidelines issued by the GRA (AG/2022/002), the following are transactions covered by the levy:
1. Mobile money transfers done inter accounts across all networks;
2. Transfers from bank accounts to mobile money wallets across all networks including lottery winnings and bet cashouts;
3. Transfers from mobile money accounts to other bank accounts and;
4. Instant transfers from a bank account to another individual bank account on an electronic platform (a threshold to be set by the Ministry of Finance);
Kindly note that ATM deposits and withdrawals are not affected by the levy, but ATM transfers are, mobile money top-ups and cashouts are also not affected by the levy and bank transfers must be from an individual but not a business account.
The following transfers are also not affected by the levy;
1. Cumulative daily transfers from an individual account below 100 Ghana Cedis;
2. Transfers to accounts owned by the same person across platforms including a joint bank account, users are however advised to update their details across multiple platforms with their Ghana Cards to enable easy identification by the system;
3. Transfer for the payment of taxes, charges, fees or services provided by the government of Ghana such as passport application fees;
4. Special merchant payments for Tax or VAT-registered entities and;
5. Transfers between Master-agent accounts such as Mobile money merchants and electronic clearing of cheques.
The levy will only be charged only the value being transferred by the sender and when there is any failed transfer or reversal of such transfer, the deducted e-levy would be reversed.