Compliance
Finance Acts and the rates that move
Statutory payroll rates change with every finance act, and the wrong version circulates for months afterwards — sometimes on the tax authority’s own website. This page lists what we currently track across our markets: which rates recently moved, which are commonly misreported, and which remain genuinely disputed.
Why this page exists
Every finance act moves a payroll rate, and the superseded version does not politely disappear. It stays in circulation — in guides written once and never revisited, in salary calculators nobody maintains, and more than once in our research, on the tax authority’s own website.
So rather than publish a rate table that rots, we hold every rate across Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia with a source, an effective date and a confidence level. This page lists what we are currently tracking: the figures that are commonly misreported, and the ones that remain genuinely disputed. Both lists are generated from that dataset, so they cannot drift from the country pages.
Genuinely disputed (5)
These are rates where authoritative sources conflict, or where the legal position is unresolved. We show the disagreement rather than pick a winner — because picking one and hiding the fight is how a wrong number gets laundered into a fact.
- Housing Levy Kenya
In force under the Affordable Housing Act 2024, which the High Court upheld. A consolidated constitutional challenge was heard by a five-judge Court of Appeal bench on 19 January 2026 and, as at 14 July 2026, no judgment has been published. The levy stands until one is. This is the only genuinely unresolved rate on the site.
- NITA levy Kenya
Remittance frequency is unclear: the levy is quoted per employee per month but reported by some sources as payable annually.
- PAYE Uganda
A different table is circulating, and it is not law. The Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2026 would raise the tax-free threshold to UGX 335,000 a month (UGX 4,020,000 a year) and make 20% the first taxable band; Parliament passed it, URA’s own FY2026-27 amendments booklet prints it, and Ugandan press reported it as starting on 1 July 2026. But the President declined assent and returned the Bill to Parliament on 14 July 2026 (over an unrelated clause on betting winnings, not the PAYE bands). Until it is re-passed, assented and gazetted, the table above is the one in force. Expect employees, candidates and printed URA material to quote the 335,000 figure at you.
- LST Uganda
Bands are set by each local government and the rate table sourced was dated 2017. Confirm current amounts for every city you employ in, not just Kampala.
- WCFCB Zambia
The Workers’ Compensation Act fixes no single universal percentage — the Board sets rates per industry risk class by Gazette notice. WCFCB’s own site was unreachable throughout our research, and the figures circulating in secondary sources (anywhere from 0.5% to nearly 7%) are mutually inconsistent and untraceable. We will not print a number we cannot stand behind. Confirm your industry’s rate directly with the Board.
Commonly misreported (9)
These are settled. We know the answer — the entry explains why you will run into a different figure elsewhere, and what the superseded version was. This is a different claim from a dispute: here there is no argument, only a lot of stale copy.
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The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 replaced the old PAYE ladder on 1 January 2026, and renamed the Federal Inland Revenue Service the Nigeria Revenue Service. The former graduated rates (7%, 11%, 15%, 19%, 21%, 24%) are no longer in force — but many sites still publish them, sometimes mapped onto the new thresholds, which produces a table that is wrong twice over.
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Set by section 4(1) of the Pension Reform Act 2014. PenCom’s own published FAQ still shows 7.5% — that is the superseded 2004 scheme, which the 2014 Act replaced when it raised the combined minimum from 15% to 18%. An employer may instead carry the whole contribution, in which case it must be at least 20%.
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Section 45 of the Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2022 amended the NHF Act so that private-sector employees "may" contribute, where public-sector employees "shall". It is still widely described as compulsory for everyone. It is not — private-sector staff can opt out, and can reclaim what they already paid in.
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Several live "2026 tax guide" sites still quote 4% or 4.5%. Those are stale — the rate was cut to 3.5% in July 2023. Zanzibar-registered employers use different figures and a different employee-count threshold from the mainland.
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Content still showing the old 3% + 3% rate is stale. The phased schedule keeps rising annually through 2030, so any hardcoded figure here has a short shelf life — which is rather the point.
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Several third-party salary calculators circulate a different, incorrect table (25% and 37.5% marginal rates). The bands above are corroborated by PwC and PKF Zambia, and they reconcile exactly against the published annual thresholds — 5,100 × 12 = 61,200, 7,100 × 12 = 85,200, 9,200 × 12 = 110,400.
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NAPSA’s own website still shows a stale ceiling of K28,920.30. The current figure is K37,236 for 2026, and NAPSA revises it every January — it is set at four times the national average earnings, which checks out exactly for both 2025 and 2026. This is precisely the kind of number you should not be maintaining by hand.
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The base is BASIC salary, not gross earnings — read directly from the Third Schedule of the gazetted National Health Insurance (General) Regulations 2019 (SI No. 63 of 2019). Several secondary sources say gross; they are wrong, and getting this wrong overstates the deduction for every employee with allowances.
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From the 2026 charge year, SDL became deductible against corporate income tax. That changes its tax treatment, not the 0.5% rate. It is not charged on gratuities or redundancy payments.
What we do about it
Rates are maintained centrally and the current version is applied on every payroll run, in every market. That is the actual product: not a table you check, but a figure that is already right when the payroll runs, and a return that reconciles.
- Every rate carries a source and an effective date.
- Where sources conflict, the conflict is shown — not resolved by preference.
- A rate we cannot stand behind is marked unverified rather than guessed.
- Changes reach every client organisation without a per-client task.
Per-market detail
Each country page carries that market’s full statutory stack, every rate with its source and the date it was last reviewed:
- Kenya — 5 statutory items, reviewed 2026-07-14
- Nigeria — 6 statutory items, reviewed 2026-07-14
- Uganda — 3 statutory items, reviewed 2026-07-17
- Tanzania — 4 statutory items, reviewed 2026-07-14
- Rwanda — 5 statutory items, reviewed 2026-07-14
- Zambia — 5 statutory items, reviewed 2026-07-14
Rates on this page are rendered from our statutory dataset and were last reviewed against source on 2026-07-17. Statutory rates change with every finance act — check any figure against the relevant authority before you rely on it.
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Put this into practice
Questions
Finance Acts and the rates that move: common questions
How often do payroll rates change in Africa?
At least annually. Most of our markets pass a finance act each year, and any of them can move a band, a ceiling or a contribution rate. Between acts, phased schedules and gazette notices move rates too — so "current" has a shelf life measured in months.
Why do different sources give different payroll rates?
Because superseded rates outlive the act that replaced them. Guides get written once and not revisited, and — more than once in our research — a tax authority’s own page still showed a rate its statute had already replaced. That is why every rate on this site carries a source and a date.
How do you keep the rates current?
Each rate is held with a source, an effective date and a confidence level, and reviewed against source. Where authoritative sources genuinely disagree we show the disagreement instead of picking a winner. Last reviewed 2026-07-17.
What happens to my payroll when a rate changes?
Nothing you have to do. Rates are maintained centrally and the current version is applied on every payroll run, across every market you operate in. A finance act does not become a project on your side.
Stop tracking rates by hand
PayrollMaster maintains every rate on this page and applies the current version on every payroll run — then files the return. Start free and run one real month against your own numbers.