You have started earning something outside your main occupation. A few deliveries, a stall, design work for two clients, a phone repair bench. The money is small and irregular, and somewhere in the back of your mind sits an uncomfortable question: is this something you are supposed to declare, and if so, as what.
The answer in Rwanda is more precise, and considerably less alarming, than the rumours suggest. The law sorts activities by annual turnover, not by how serious they look, and it sets out exactly what each band pays. It also contains a floor that almost nobody mentions and that changes the picture for most people reading this. Getting your position right early costs an afternoon; getting it wrong is discovered later, when someone asks you for an invoice you cannot issue.
This guide walks through the three regimes, what triggers each one, and what you actually have to file. And because a side income only becomes a decision once it is regular, it is worth noting that apps like I am Beezy pay for viewing content — videos, articles, advertisements — which is one of the simplest ways to make an irregular month less irregular while you work out where you stand.
What Rwandan law calls your activity
Everything starts with one number: what you took in over the year, before any costs. Not profit, not what you kept — turnover. Law nº 027/2022 of 20 October 2022 on taxes on income, published in the Official Gazette nº Special of 28 October 2022, builds its whole small-business regime on that figure.
Micro-enterprise and small enterprise are defined by turnover
Article 2 of the law defines a micro-enterprise as an activity whose annual turnover is equal to or less than 12,000,000 RWF, and a small enterprise as one whose annual turnover runs from 12,000,001 to 20,000,000 RWF. Those two definitions are the doors, and they are frequently reported the wrong way round.
The floor that changes the picture
Article 14 sets the tax for micro-enterprises as a flat amount by band: from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 RWF of annual turnover, 60,000 RWF; from 4,000,001 to 7,000,000, 120,000 RWF; from 7,000,001 to 10,000,000, 210,000 RWF; from 10,000,001 to 12,000,000, 300,000 RWF. The band table begins at 2,000,000 RWF, so below that level of annual turnover the scale provides no amount at all. A side activity that brings in less than that over a full year is not sitting in a band. The 3 percent that circulates in so many summaries is not the micro rate — Article 14 applies it to the small enterprise, the tier above 12 million.
Liberal professions are outside both
The same article states that its provisions on the lump sum and on the flat amounts do not apply to an individual exercising a liberal profession. If your side activity is a regulated professional practice rather than a trade, the simplified route is closed and you go to the real regime. Road transport of persons and goods is handled separately again, by a flat amount set out in the annex to the law.
The three regimes side by side
Set out together, the choice is narrower than it looks, because turnover decides most of it for you.
| Regime | Who it covers | What is due |
|---|---|---|
| Below the band table | Annual turnover under 2,000,000 RWF | The micro band table provides no amount at this level |
| Micro-enterprise | Annual turnover up to 12,000,000 RWF | A flat amount: 60,000 / 120,000 / 210,000 / 300,000 RWF by band |
| Small enterprise | Annual turnover 12,000,001 to 20,000,000 RWF | A lump sum tax of 3 percent of annual turnover |
| Real regime, individual | Anyone who opts in, and liberal professions | 0 percent to 720,000 RWF of annual profit, then 10, 20 and 30 percent by band |
| Company | An incorporated business | 28 percent of taxable profit |
The three-year lock on the real regime
Article 14 lets a person running a small enterprise apply to leave the lump sum scheme and be taxed on actual profit, on condition of keeping accounts in line with the relevant legislation. The catch is written into the same paragraph: once you inform the tax administration of that choice, it is irrevocable for three years. That is a genuine commitment, not a formality, and it is the reason to think about it before a good year rather than during one.
Which one a beginner is usually in
Most people asking this question are below the band table and will stay there for a while. The useful move at that stage is not to pick a clever regime, it is to start counting properly, because the moment your turnover crosses 2,000,000 RWF in a year you want to know it on the day rather than in March.
What do you actually have to file, and by when?
Rwandan tax administration runs online, through the Revenue Authority portals, which removes queueing but not deadlines.
31 March, for the declaration and for the payment
Article 9 of the 2022 law, as amended by Law nº 051/2023 of 5 September 2023 published in the Official Gazette nº Special of 14 September 2023, requires an individual carrying out taxable income generating activities to file an annual tax declaration, with books of account and required annexes, no later than 31 March of the following tax period. The law sets the same date as the outside limit for paying the income tax due for the period. One date, both obligations, every year.
The invoicing tool that matches your size
Rwanda invoices through the electronic billing machine system, and the Revenue Authority publishes versions scaled to different taxpayers. Two of them are aimed at exactly this readership: the EBM mobile application, described by the Authority as being for taxpayers not registered for value added tax whose annual turnover does not exceed 20 million RWF, and the online EBM, described as being for service sector operators issuing fewer than ten invoices a month. If a client asks you for a proper invoice, that is where it comes from.
The reason registration is worth doing early
Article 60 of the same law sets a fifteen percent withholding on payments made by residents whenever the recipient is absent from the Rwandan tax register, or is on it but has filed no recent income tax declaration; service fees sit squarely on the list of payments concerned. Put plainly: a Rwandan business that cannot find you in the register must hold back fifteen percent before transferring anything. Registering is what stops that, which is why it is worth doing before your first serious client rather than after.
Smoothing an irregular month with I am Beezy
Side income in Rwanda is rarely steady, and the labour figures explain why. In May 2026 the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda measured unemployment at 13.4 percent among people aged 16 and over, 15.7 percent among 16 to 30 year olds — and labour underutilisation, which counts underemployment and potential labour force as well, at 59.7 percent. Irregularity is the norm, not a personal failure.
The mechanism, in one sentence
Videos, articles and advertisements are shown to you on I am Beezy, each completed view adds to a balance, and the balance leaves for the payment method you already use. Where does that land in practice? The corpus figure is 5 to 15 euros a day. Nobody publishes a euro parity you can apply to it here, since the Rwandan central bank hands out its exchange rate only to accredited applicants — so convert the range at the day's rate and do not carry a fixed number in your head.
How to treat it in your own accounts
Count it in the same notebook as everything else. The point of tracking turnover is that it is the number the law uses, and a stream you leave out of your count is a stream that surprises you later. Keeping one running total for the year is the whole discipline.
What changes if you also have a job
Many people with a side activity are employed as well, and the two are taxed separately by different mechanisms. Knowing which is which prevents double-counting.
The monthly employment bands
Article 56 of the 2022 law sets withholding on employment income, in the table applicable from the second year after the law came into force, at 0 percent up to 60,000 RWF a month, 10 percent from 60,001 to 100,000, 20 percent from 100,001 to 200,000, and 30 percent above 200,001. Your employer applies that to your salary. It has nothing to do with what your stall turned over.
The casual worker rate
The same article provides that income from a casual labourer is taxed at a special rate of fifteen percent, with the portion not exceeding 60,000 RWF a month rated at zero. If your side work takes the form of short engagements with an employer rather than sales to customers, that is the rule that applies to it.
What comes off the payslip besides tax
Social contributions are separate again. The Rwanda Social Security Board sets pension at 6 percent from the employer and 6 percent from the employee, with voluntary members paying 12 percent themselves; the medical scheme at 15 percent of basic salary, split 7.5 and 7.5, with the Board covering 85 percent of care and medicine costs; and the community-based health insurance contribution at 0.5 percent of net salary, withheld by the employer under the Prime Minister's Order nº 034/01 of 13 January 2020.
How do you decide without paying an accountant?
You do not need advice to answer this. You need one number and a short grid.
| If your annual turnover is | Your position | What to do this month |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2,000,000 RWF | Below the micro band table | Keep a running total; register so payers can pay you in full |
| 2,000,000 to 12,000,000 RWF | Micro-enterprise | Identify your band and the flat amount attached to it |
| 12,000,001 to 20,000,000 RWF | Small enterprise | Budget 3 percent of turnover; consider the real regime seriously |
| Above 20,000,000 RWF | Outside the simplified regimes | Get proper accounting help before the March deadline |
| Farming or livestock | Exempt up to 12,000,000 RWF of turnover per tax period | Check Article 21 before assuming anything is due |
Three mistakes that cost the most
Confusing turnover with profit puts people in the wrong band in both directions. Assuming the 3 percent applies to a micro-enterprise leads to paying a rate that does not exist at that level, or to panic about one. And leaving registration until a client asks for an invoice is what triggers the fifteen percent withholding on the first payment that matters.
Where to start, in order
Add up what you actually took in over the last twelve months, honestly and including the small payments. Compare it to the two thresholds. Register with the Revenue Authority and pick the invoicing tool that matches your size. Put 31 March in your calendar for next year. And if the quiet months should be producing something while the activity finds its rhythm, registering on I am Beezy costs nothing and turns time already spent on a screen into a credited balance.
