Airport charges included in a Freetown air ticket

Taxes the ticket issuer collects

The Foreign Travel Tax is set by the Foreign Travel (Ticket) Tax Act, 1975, as amended by Act No. 4 of 2004 ¹. The National Revenue Authority says it applies to every person leaving Sierra Leone by ship, aircraft or other transport ¹. Its website says it is 10% of the normal price of the return ticket ¹. The authority's Tax and Non-Tax Revenue Guide of October 2022 says the Act was amended by the Finance Act 2017 and gives flat rates instead, from US$25 economy to an ECOWAS country up to US$250 first class elsewhere ⁹. The website page is undated, so this site cannot say which version applies now ^1,9.

The person who issues the ticket collects the tax and gives the passenger a written statement of payment ¹. The issuer pays the tax to the authority within 15 days after the end of each month ¹. Late payment carries a penalty of 15% per month ¹.

An issuer that fails to collect the tax owes no tax or penalty, but it can be prosecuted ¹. On conviction the fine is up to Le 500 or up to one year in prison ¹. Persistent failure by an aircraft or ship owner may lead to suspension of its operating licence ¹.

Charges set by the Civil Aviation Act

The Civil Aviation Act, 2019 lists a safety charge on all air tickets and freight charges as a source of funds for the Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority ². The Act gives the authority 70 percent of the air ticket and cargo sales charge ².

Section 41 lets the Director-General, with Board approval, put surcharges on tickets sold to international passengers ². The Act's table of contents lists section 95 as Charges ². The sections reviewed for this page do not state the amounts ².

Airport charges and the terminal operator

An undated Logistics Cluster assessment lists a US$39 security charge and a US$20 infrastructure development charge per departing passenger ⁵. The page gives no date, so these rates may be out of date ⁵.

Summa built the terminal that opened in March 2023 under a 25-year build-operate-transfer contract, per a press release on Runway Girl Network ⁶. The release says Summa's earnings from the airport are meant to recover its construction costs ⁶. It did not list passenger charges ⁶.

The security fee was separate

Business Daily reported in April 2017 that airlines would collect a US$40 one-way security fee at ticket purchase ⁷. From 1 September 2022 the Ministry of Internal Affairs set a US$25 fee that passengers paid through securipass.sl, mobile money or banks ³. That fee was suspended from 6 July 2026 ⁴.

In October 2023 the government rejected claims of a new US$165 passenger tax ⁸.