Sierra Leone capital gains tax calculator

25% of the gain. The Income Tax Act 2000's capital gains regime (sections 57 to 61B, inserted by the Finance Act 2013) charged 30% originally; the Finance Act 2021 cut the rate to 25% from 1 January 2021, and no Finance Act through 2026 has changed it since. The charge is on the gain, never on the sale proceeds.

Chargeable assets only: land and sea in Sierra Leone and its territorial waters with everything attached or growing and any interest in them; business assets such as intellectual property, goodwill and the listed government licences; and shares, including a resident's holding in a resident company. Private movable property and crypto are not chargeable assets, and no crypto provision exists in the law.

No. The capital gains regime contains no loss provision at all: a disposal at a loss pays nothing, the loss cannot offset another disposal's gain, and nothing carries forward to a later year.

Within 30 days of each disposal: a person who realizes a chargeable asset files a written return with the Commissioner-General together with the payment, and the tax is due at the time of the disposal. There is no year-end deadline for the capital gains return, and where the seller is a non-resident the buyer withholds the tax and pays it to the NRA within 30 days.

The charge: Income Tax Act 2000 section 57(1), as inserted by section 12 of the Finance Act 2013 and repealed and replaced by section 13 of the Finance Act 2021 (in operation 1 January 2021, section 1): 'Capital gains tax shall be payable by a chargeable person at the rate of 25 percent of the capital gain accruing to or derived by that chargeable person from the disposal of a chargeable asset.' The pre-2021 rate was 30 percent. No Finance Act 2022 to 2026 amends sections 57 to 61B; the Finance Act 2025 mention of capital gains is a filing-penalty cross-reference and the Finance Act 2022 'section 57' amendment is to the Public Financial Management Act 2016. Sources: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Finance_Act_2021_be1efb0bcc.pdf and http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

The base is the gain, never the proceeds: section 57(2)(i) defines 'capital gain' as 'the excess of the consideration received or receivable by a chargeable person (whether in cash, kind or by any other means) from the realization or disposal of a chargeable asset over the cost base at the time of the realization or disposal'. Section 59 sets the cost base as acquisition cost including incidental costs and construction or production cost, plus alteration and improvement costs between acquisition and realization, plus the costs of realizing; a part disposal apportions the cost base by market value (section 59(8)). A gift or non-arm's-length disposal is deemed to receive consideration equal to market value (sections 58(2) and 60(2)). Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

Chargeable assets, section 57(2)(iii): land and sea in Sierra Leone and its territorial waters with everything attached, growing or any interest in them (leases, rights to occupy, rights to explore or extract minerals, oil or gas, crops); business assets including intellectual-property rights and goodwill, government licences to explore or extract oil and gas at sea, fishing and marine-resource licences, and telecommunication-service licences; and 'shares': held by a resident in a resident company (including holding companies, subsidiaries and affiliates), held by a resident in a non-resident company if at least 20 percent of its sales are derived in or from Sierra Leone, and held by a non-resident in a resident company if at least 20 percent of its trading activity is carried out in, or 20 percent of its income derives from, Sierra Leone. Every share card in this calculator is a share in a resident company held by a resident individual. Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

Not chargeable: private movable property is outside the chargeable-asset definition unless it is a business asset, and no crypto, virtual-asset or digital-asset provision exists in the Income Tax Act or any Finance Act 2020 to 2026 (full-text check; the Finance Acts' digital provisions are GST measures). A private crypto disposal therefore carries no capital gains tax in Sierra Leone on the statute as it stands; this is a classification from the statute's silence, not a sourced crypto exemption, and the calculator says so on the card. Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

Exempt slice: the statute text of section 61(1)(a) exempts 'capital gain of a person that is up to and under the minimum chargeable income of Le1,800,000 per annum or per transaction', unchanged since consolidation. The NRA's 2022 Tax Guide states and applies the exemption at Le3,600,000 per annum or per transaction, its worked example subtracting the amount from a single transaction's gain (gain 180,000,000, less exempt 3,600,000, tax 25 percent of 176,400,000 = 44,100,000). This calculator follows the NRA's administered mechanics: the first Le3,600,000 (NLe 3,600) of each transaction's gain is exempt, so a gain below the amount pays nothing. Both figures are stated here because the consolidated statute and the authority's guide disagree. Sources: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/2022_NRA_TAX_GUIDE_83dc12b316.pdf and http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

Other exemptions, section 61(1): a transfer to the disposer's spouse, children, parent, brother or sister; a transfer between former spouses under a divorce settlement or genuine separation agreement; the rollover, where the amount received on realization is used within one year to acquire a chargeable asset of the same nature (and the same for the part so used); and, for companies, mergers and reorganizations with at least 75 percent continuity of underlying ownership. The NRA guide also describes transfers to religious, charitable or educational organizations used for public benefit without personal or commercial benefit as exempt. Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

Losses: sections 57 to 61B contain no loss provision. A chargeable disposal at a loss attracts no stated relief, losses do not net against other disposals' gains, and nothing carries forward; the ordinary-income loss machinery of section 32A does not reach the capital-gains regime. This calculator nets nothing between disposals and carries nothing to another year. Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

Filing and payment, section 61A: a person who derives a capital gain files a written return with the Commissioner-General within thirty days after the realization together with the payment, and 'the payment of tax shall be due at the time of disposal' (61A(3)). Where the disposer is a non-resident, the buyer withholds and pays the capital gains tax to the NRA within thirty days after the disposal (NRA Tax Guide 2022). The charge is standalone: it does not enter the annual income-tax scale. Sources: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf and http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/2022_NRA_TAX_GUIDE_83dc12b316.pdf

Holding periods: no rate, relief or exemption in the regime depends on how long the asset was held; the only time-limited rule is the one-year rollover reinvestment exemption of section 61(1)(e). Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/Income_Tax_Act_2000_as_amended_to_Finance_Act_2017_1_83760e046c.pdf

The Finance Act 2026 (in operation 1 January 2026, section 1) raises the company rate in First Schedule Part III back to 30 percent and changes withholding rates, but leaves the individual Part I scale and the whole capital-gains regime untouched. Source: http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/The_Finance_Act_2026_121df05d9b.pdf

Currency: amounts are in the new leone (SLE), legal tender from 1 July 2022 at one new leone to one thousand old leones (Bank of Sierra Leone Gazette notice of 16 June 2022; SI No. 14 of 2021). The NRA's 2022 Tax Guide confirms the practice: figures reported in the old leone are converted to the new leone by dividing by one thousand, so the statutory Le3,600,000 slice is NLe3,600. Sources: https://bsl.gov.sl/PUBLIC%20NOTICE_220616_083553.pdf and http://webtestcms.nra.gov.sl/uploads/2022_NRA_TAX_GUIDE_83dc12b316.pdf