---
title: Zimbabwe goes ahead with new digital services tax - Developing Telecoms
description: As it suggested it would in late 2024, Zimbabwe has now started levying a new tax on payments to increasingly popular multinational digital service providers.
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As it suggested it would in late 2024, Zimbabwe has now started levying a new tax on payments to increasingly popular multinational digital service providers.

Called the Digital Services Withholding Tax (DSWT), the new duty targets payments made to foreign digital service providers. It took effect, [as we reported it would a month ago](https://developingtelecoms.com/telecom-business/telecom-regulation/19433-new-zimbabwean-digital-tax-to-hit-non-resident-companies.html?highlight=WyJ6aW1iYWJ3ZSJd), from 1 January 2026.

The new 15% digital services withholding tax applies to global digital service providers such as Netflix, Starlink, InDrive and Bolt, among others. Payment service providers, such as banks and other payment processors, are responsible for collecting the tax.

Banks have already begun gearing up for this. As ITWeb Africa notes, Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe, owned by The Standard Bank Group, the leading banking and financial services group in Africa, informed its depositors via text message on 3 January that the 15% withholding tax on international internet and card payments went into effect on 1 January, in accordance with the 2026 Finance Act that enables the move.

It said at the time that the tax was applicable “to the gross value of each transaction and is intended to ensure that offshore providers receive their payment in full while the tax is accounted for locally".

The point of the tax, the government has argued, is that offshore digital platforms allow companies to supply services directly to domestic users without establishing a physical presence in the country. They also generate income from domestic consumers and businesses. Thus, the government suggests, they should be taxed, though there is no doubt that the troubled Zimbabwean economy would welcome some extra income.

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