If you are in London, Washington or Freetown itself and you have started putting people together — a supplier here, a buyer there, a platform and a cousin who needs the money — the question you will be asked within a fortnight is the same one every time. Not "is it legal", but "at what point does this become something I have to declare?" In Sierra Leone that question has a precise answer, and it is a smaller number than most people expect.
The line is drawn in turnover, not in profit, and it is drawn per year. Under section 7 of the Finance Act 2025, a micro taxpayer is a person whose annual turnover is NLe 10,000 or less, and section 6 of the Finance Act 2020 exempts micro taxpayers from income tax. At the Bank of Sierra Leone reference rate of 26.3086 new leones to the euro on 5 August 2026, NLe 10,000 is roughly 380 euros of turnover across a whole year. That is the threshold a first quarter of referral work quietly walks you towards.
Earning platforms sit inside this same arithmetic rather than outside it: with I am Beezy, viewing content on a phone generates earnings paid to the payment method the user already holds, which counts towards the same annual turnover as everything else you bring in. Knowing where the line sits before you cross it is cheaper than discovering it afterwards.
What does the first three months actually decide?
Nothing about the Sierra Leonean threshold is monthly, which is exactly why the first quarter matters. You are not measured on what you earned in March. You are measured on the twelve-month total that March is part of, and by March you have already established the pace.
The threshold is annual, your first quarter sets the pace
Divide the floor and the picture becomes usable. NLe 10,000 across twelve months is a shade over NLe 833 a month, or NLe 2,500 across a quarter. If your first three months of referral or introduction work total less than NLe 2,500, you are running below the exemption floor on current pace. If they total more, you are on course to cross it, and the sooner you know that the more choice you have about what to do next.
This is not a reason to hold back. It is a reason to keep a record from week one, because the record is what turns a vague worry into a decision you can take in an afternoon.
Two figures the revenue authority uses, and only one concerns you
People coming back from abroad tend to have heard about the ceiling rather than the floor. The National Revenue Authority segments taxpayers by turnover, and the same section 7 of the Finance Act 2025 puts the small taxpayer band above NLe 10,000 and up to NLe 500,000, the medium band above that up to NLe 6,000,000, and the large band beyond. The half-million figure is the one that circulates at dinner tables. It is almost never the one that applies to a person starting out.
Read the floor, not the ceiling. For someone building an introduction income in their spare time, the meaningful event is crossing NLe 10,000, not approaching NLe 500,000.
The three-month simulator, month by month
Work this with your own numbers rather than borrowed ones. The columns that matter are what you actually invoiced, what you actually received, and what the running twelve-month total would be if the pace held. Nobody can tell you what an introduction is worth in your sector; the framework below tells you what to do with whatever figure comes out.
Month one: build the record, not the volume
In your first month the useful output is not money, it is a habit. Write down the date, the counterparty, what was agreed, the gross amount, the channel it arrived on and the date it cleared. Six columns, one line per transaction. If a dispute or a query arrives eighteen months later, this file is the difference between a conversation and an argument.
Keep the gross figure, not the net. Turnover is what the threshold measures, so a commission of NLe 400 from which someone deducted NLe 50 of charges still counts as NLe 400 towards your annual total. Recording the net is the single most common way people underestimate where they stand.
Months two and three: read the annualised pace
At the end of month three, add the three gross figures and multiply by four. That number is your annualised run rate, and it is the only number you need in order to know which regime you are heading towards. Compare it with NLe 10,000 and you have your answer.
The table below is the frame. Fill the middle column from your own records; the right-hand column is fixed arithmetic on the statutory floor.
| Stage | What you write down | The line to compare it with |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | Gross received, per transaction, with dates | NLe 833 is one twelfth of the annual floor |
| Month 2 | Gross received, plus anything invoiced but unpaid | NLe 1,667 cumulative at floor pace |
| Month 3 | Gross received, plus the two earlier months | NLe 2,500 cumulative at floor pace |
| End of quarter | Three-month total multiplied by four | NLe 10,000 annual micro taxpayer floor |
| If below | Keep the record, keep going | Micro taxpayer, exempt from income tax |
| If above | Prepare to register and to file | Small taxpayer band, up to NLe 500,000 |
What happens the day you cross NLe 10,000?
Crossing the floor is not a penalty and it is not a catastrophe. It changes which rules apply to you, and the change is worth understanding in advance because one feature of the Sierra Leonean small regime catches people out badly.
Three per cent of turnover, not of profit
Section 25 of the Finance Act 2021 sets the tax of a small taxpayer who opts into the small and micro taxpayer regime at 3 per cent of annual turnover. Read that as written. It is not three per cent of what you kept after your travel, your phone credit and the person you paid to make the introduction. It is three per cent of everything that came in.
For an introduction business that is usually fine, because the costs are low. For anyone whose margin is thin — reselling, moving physical goods, paying a share onward to a partner — a turnover tax bites in a way a profit tax does not. If your model involves passing most of the money straight through to someone else, model the effect before you scale it, not after.
Who cannot use the regime at all
Two categories are shut out. Section 20 of the Finance Act 2020 excludes providers of professional services from the small and micro taxpayer regime, and entities incorporated as companies are excluded as well. So the decision to register a company is not a neutral piece of housekeeping: it can move you out of a simple turnover regime and into the ordinary corporate rules, where the rate for resident companies was raised from 25 per cent to 30 per cent by section 13(a) of the Finance Act 2026 with effect from 1 January 2026.
The practical order is therefore the reverse of what people assume. Establish the income first, see where the annualised pace lands, and only then decide whether a company structure earns its keep.
| Where your annual turnover lands | What applies | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| NLe 10,000 or less | Micro taxpayer, exempt from income tax | Keep the record; nothing to pay |
| Above NLe 10,000, up to NLe 500,000 | Small taxpayer band; 3 per cent of turnover if you opt into the regime | Register, file, and budget the 3 per cent from gross |
| Above NLe 500,000 | Medium band, and the GST registration threshold | Take advice before you get there, not after |
| Incorporated as a company | Excluded from the small and micro regime | Weigh the corporate rate before incorporating |
| Professional services provider | Excluded by section 20 of the Finance Act 2020 | Assume the ordinary rules apply to you |
Building the first three months with I am Beezy
A referral income that depends on one counterparty is fragile, and the first quarter is precisely when it is most fragile. A second, smaller stream that does not depend on anyone answering your message has a real function here: it keeps the record moving while the introductions mature.
How the mechanism works
With I am Beezy, you view content — videos, articles, advertisements — and each view generates earnings that are paid out to the payment method you already use. The reference range across the platform is 5 to 15 euros a day, which converts to roughly NLe 132 to NLe 395 at the Bank of Sierra Leone reference rate of 26.3086 to the euro on 5 August 2026. The leone moves, so check the current rate before repeating a figure to anybody.
Where it lands, and why that matters here
In Sierra Leone the documented channel for this kind of payout is mobile money, through the wallets the Bank of Sierra Leone supervises — Orange Money and Afrimoney among them. There is no evidence from the central bank that a Sierra Leonean can be paid on PayPal, and a diaspora referrer who assumes otherwise sets up a disappointment at the other end. Ask which wallet the person holds, and check the SIM is registered in their own name, before anything else.
It counts towards the same total
Whatever you earn this way is turnover like any other. Put it in the same six-column file, on the same lines, with the same dates. The point of the exercise is a single annual figure you can trust, and a second stream kept in a second place defeats it.
Questions people actually ask
Does money sent to me from abroad count as turnover?
A gift from a relative is not turnover. A payment for an introduction you made is, whatever country it started in and whatever channel it arrived on. The test is what the money was for, not where it came from, and the reason to write the purpose in your record at the time is that nobody remembers accurately two years later.
What if I am paid partly in cash?
It counts. Cash remains a major part of how Sierra Leone settles, and a commission paid in notes is turnover exactly as a wallet transfer is. Record it on the day, with the name of the person who handed it over.
Do I need to register before I reach the floor?
The exemption applies to micro taxpayers by the operation of the Finance Act 2020; the registration and filing obligations belong to those above the floor. If your annualised pace is heading over NLe 10,000, treat registration as the next step rather than the last one, and take the question to the National Revenue Authority directly rather than to a forum.
Where this leaves you
Three months is long enough to know your pace and short enough that changing course costs nothing. Keep the six-column record from the first transaction, use gross figures throughout, multiply the quarter by four, and compare it with a floor of NLe 10,000 that most people have never heard of. If you are under, you are exempt and you carry on. If you are over, you have a turnover tax at 3 per cent to plan for and a decision to make about structure — and you have found that out with nine months of the year still to run. If you also want a stream that does not wait on anyone else's reply while the introductions mature, you can sign up free on I am Beezy and start recording it in the same file from day one.
