You brought someone in. A guest for a compound in Kololi, a customer for a shop on Kairaba Avenue, a client for a friend who fixes air conditioners. The fee was agreed over the phone, in one sentence, and everyone was happy. Then the guest checked out, the shop banked the money, and your share never moved. You send a message. Nothing. You send another. Still nothing, and now it feels rude to keep asking.
This happens constantly here, and it is not mainly a story about dishonest people. It is a story about how work is organised in the country. The Gambia Bureau of Statistics puts informal employment at 85.8 percent of all employment and self-employment at 58.5 percent of workers, in its labour force survey for the first quarter of 2026. When almost nobody has a contract, almost nobody has a paper trail either — and a commission with no paper trail is a favour, not a debt.
What follows is the sequence that works: what to gather, what to say, in what order, and when to stop. It is also worth having something small and predictable arriving while you chase the big thing. Apps such as I am Beezy pay you for viewing content — videos, articles, ads — which will not settle the debt for you but keeps a little money moving while you wait.
Why do commissions go missing in The Gambia?
Before you decide someone cheated you, work out which of three very different failures you are looking at. The right first message depends entirely on the answer, and getting it wrong costs you the relationship without recovering the money.
Nothing was ever written down
Most introduction fees here are agreed by voice — in a compound, in a car, at the end of a shift. Neither side is lying when they remember different numbers, because neither side wrote anything down. Six weeks later, "ten percent" and "a thousand dalasi" are both honest recollections of the same conversation. If you cannot point to a message, a voice note or a witness, you are not in a dispute about payment: you are in a dispute about what was agreed, which is far weaker ground.
The season ended before the money moved
The Gambian tourist year runs with the dry season, from November to May, and the rains take June to October. That shape matters more than people expect. A fee earned in April sits unpaid through five or six months when the person who owes it has almost no income, and by November the guest, the booking and the conversation are all a year old. An introduction fee that is not settled before the season closes becomes very hard to recover, because the money that would have paid it stops arriving in June. Chase in April, not in August.
The person who owes you is not a business
This one has changed recently, and it is worth understanding. In its Monetary Policy Report of February 2026, the Central Bank of The Gambia attributes part of the fall in the services balance during 2025 to the rise of cheaper alternative accommodation of the Airbnb type. The Gambia Tourism Board itself now lists home stay among the country's accommodation formats. In practice, the person you introduced a guest to may no longer be a hotel with an accounts office and a licence. It may be a household. Households do not have payment runs, invoice numbers or anyone whose job it is to settle with you.
Build your proof before you ask for the money
Do not open with the demand. Open with the reconstruction, because the reconstruction is what turns your claim from a feeling into a fact, and because it takes an afternoon rather than a lawyer.
What counts as evidence when nothing was signed
More than you think. The message where you sent the guest's name and arrival date. The call log showing you rang the owner that morning. The guest's own confirmation that you were the one who sent them. None of this is a contract, but together it establishes that you performed, which is the half of the case people usually cannot prove. Collect it before you accuse anyone: once relations sour, nobody will confirm anything for you.
Why a traceable payment beats cash on exactly one point
Cash settles instantly and disappears completely. A transfer through a licensed wallet leaves a record on both handsets and in the operator's system. The Central Bank licenses two mobile money operators — Afrimoney, tied to Africell, and QMoney, tied to QCell — and lists fifteen fintech payment service providers alongside them, Wave Transfer among others. If any part of the arrangement has already moved through one of those rails, even a small advance, you have a dated record that a verbal deal existed at all.
The first message, and what it has to contain
Keep it short, factual and free of grievance. Name the client or the guest. Give the date. State the fee as you understood it. Ask one closed question: when will it be settled. A message like that can be forwarded to a third party without embarrassing anyone, which is precisely why it works in a small country where everybody is somebody's cousin.
| Why it stalled | What you need to show | Your next step |
|---|---|---|
| Terms remembered differently | Any message or voice note naming a rate or an amount | Propose a figure in writing and ask for a yes or a no |
| Payer has no cash until November | That the introduction happened and was accepted | Agree a written instalment date before the rains |
| Payer is a household, not a firm | The guest's own confirmation that you sent them | Ask to be paid from the booking, on arrival, not after |
| Payment sent but short | The transfer record and the agreed gross figure | Ask which deduction was applied and on what basis |
| Payer denies the deal entirely | Call logs, photographs, a witness present that day | Ask whether the business is registered, then decide |
Was your commission withheld, or was it never sent?
A short payment and a missing payment feel identical when you are staring at your balance, but they are different problems with different answers. Check this before you escalate, because accusing a payer who actually paid is a mistake you cannot take back.
There is a withholding tax on contract payments
The Gambia Revenue Authority states in its domestic taxes guidance, consulted on 12 August 2026, that withholding tax on contract payments is 10 percent for Gambian residents and 15 percent for non-residents. If the party paying you is a formal business and treated your fee as a contract payment, the amount that reaches you is legitimately smaller than the amount agreed, and the difference has gone to the revenue authority rather than into anyone's pocket. That is not a dispute. That is a deduction, and you are entitled to know it was applied.
Ask for the deduction, not for an apology
Request a written note of what was withheld and under what heading. A registered business can produce it; an unregistered one cannot, and the answer tells you which kind of payer you are dealing with. It matters at your end too: the revenue authority taxes self-employed income above 24,000 dalasi a year, and where annual turnover stays under 500,000 dalasi the liability is 3 percent of turnover as a final tax, declared quarterly, fifteen days after each quarter ends.
Pick a payment channel that leaves a record
The channel you agree to at the start decides how much power you have at the end. This is the single cheapest change you can make, and it costs nothing but a sentence in the original conversation.
Cash, wallet or bank transfer
Cash is universal here and completely unprovable. A wallet transfer is nearly as universal and fully dated. The Central Bank reported 4.3 million registered mobile money accounts and 2.1 million active ones at 30 September 2025, with 20.5 billion dalasi paid in and 21.6 billion paid out over that single quarter, so nobody can tell you a wallet is unusual.
The two wallets, and why the choice is not neutral
Afrimoney sits in the Africell ecosystem and QMoney in QCell's, and people tend to hold the wallet that matches the SIM they already use. If you and the payer are on different networks, agree which side absorbs the friction before the job, not after. There is no published market share for either operator and no reason to argue about which is bigger.
Where a bureau de change fits, and where it does not
The Central Bank publishes a list of more than a hundred approved bureaux de change, named with manager and address, concentrated in Banjul, Serekunda, Bakau and Kololi. They are useful when a fee is agreed in foreign currency, which is common on the tourist strip. They are not a payment channel and not a witness: changing money there proves you had money, not that someone owed it to you.
| Channel | Leaves a record? | Regulated by | Use it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash in hand | No | — | Small, immediate, low-trust-required amounts only |
| Mobile wallet transfer | Yes, dated on both sides | Central Bank of The Gambia | The default for any fee you might have to chase |
| Bank transfer | Yes, with a statement line | Central Bank of The Gambia | Larger fees, formal payers, recurring arrangements |
| Bureau de change | Only the exchange, not the debt | Central Bank of The Gambia | Converting a fee agreed in foreign currency |
How far should you push before you let it go?
There is a real cost to pursuing a debt in a country where reputation travels faster than money. That cost is not a reason to give up, but it is a reason to escalate in order rather than all at once.
Find out whether the payer is registered
Registration changes everything about what you can ask for. Setting up as a sole proprietor at the Registrar General's Department costs 500 dalasi on form SWR 3 and can be completed in a day at Banjul or at the Kanifing office, according to the Attorney General's Chambers and Ministry of Justice, consulted on 12 August 2026. A payer who is registered has an address, a certificate and something to lose. A payer who is not has none of those things, and your realistic leverage is social rather than legal.
Licensed sectors have somewhere to complain
A business operating in tourism sits under the Gambia Tourism Board, established by an Act of the National Assembly in July 2001 to promote, develop, regulate and oversee the sector. A licensed enterprise cares about its licence in a way an unlicensed one does not. Ask in writing whether the matter should go to the board — that question alone settles more fees than any threat.
Know when the answer is to write it off
Below a certain amount, the time you spend chasing costs more than the debt. Set that line before you start, not while you are angry. If you cross it, write the fee off and change how you agree the next one: carrying an unpaid fee around for a year damages your earning far more than the fee was worth.
Earning between two seasons with I am Beezy
The structural weakness of introduction income here is not the rate. It is the gap: money arrives in bursts during the dry season and stops for five months, and a payer who is broke in August is not refusing you, he simply has nothing. I am Beezy works differently in exactly that respect — you are paid for consulting content, the amount is known before you start, and it does not depend on whether a third party has had a good week.
What the range actually looks like in dalasi
Across the platform, the reference range is 5 to 15 euros a day. At the Central Bank's daily valuation rate of 85.26 dalasi to the euro on 6 August 2026, that is roughly 425 to 1,280 dalasi. The dalasi floats — the Central Bank measured a 4.3 percent depreciation against the euro in a single quarter of 2025 — so convert at the day's rate. For comparison, the Gambia Bureau of Statistics puts the median monthly income of a self-employed worker at 1,750 dalasi.
Where it lands
Earnings are paid out to your usual payment method rather than to a foreign account you would have to open first. That is the part most online earning schemes fail here, and it is the first thing to check on any of them, including this one.
What to change on the next introduction
Say the rate, the trigger and the destination in one sentence. Put it in a message. Ask to be paid on the guest's arrival rather than after departure. Keep the season in mind and settle before June. If you want a floor under all of that while your next introductions ripen, I am Beezy is one way to stop your income depending entirely on other people's cash flow — and the habits above are worth adopting whether or not you ever sign up for anything.
