Ghana's gateways charge 1.95% to 2.6% on local cards and mobile money, and the E-Levy is gone
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Payment Review Editorial Team
9 min read
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Ghana has no card-fee cap and, as far as we could find, no Bank of Ghana rule on surcharging. What a business pays to take a card or mobile money payment is whatever its provider's price list says. Most of those price lists are published, which makes Ghana easier to compare than many markets. The gateways that sell online to small businesses all charge a percentage with no fixed fee, from 1.95% to 2.6% on local payments, and pay out the next working day.
Two things changed in the past two years that affect what a business actually keeps. The Electronic Transfer Levy, the E-Levy, was repealed from 2 April 2025. The new Value Added Tax Act, 2025 took effect on 1 January 2026, keeping VAT at 15% plus the 2.5% NHIL and 2.5% GETFund levies for a total of 20%. Below is what the providers publish, read on their Ghana pages on 4 November 2026, and the rules that sit around them.
What online gateways charge
These are the published rates for a business registered in Ghana taking payments in cedis through a website, payment link or app. Mobile money here means a payment from an MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash or AT Money wallet.
Paystack (our grade: B): a flat 1.95% on local transactions, which its support pages say covers cards, mobile money and bank transfers. International cards are also 1.95%, charged and settled in cedis by default. There is no fixed fee and no cap, so a GHS 50 payment costs about GHS 0.98. Paystack advertises no integration or maintenance fee and says volume discounts are available. Money is settled to a bank or mobile money account the next working day (T+1). Its card terminals in Ghana are also priced at 1.95% for cards and mobile money.
Flutterwave (our grade: B-): 2.6% on local cards and 2% on local bank transfers and on mobile money and wallets. International Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover cards cost 4.8%, charged and settled in cedis by default. Local payments arrive the next day. Flutterwave's Ghana page says its pricing excludes VAT and other local taxes, and its VAT help article says VAT is added to the fee and cannot be passed to the customer.
dLocal (our grade: B-): supports Ghana in its documentation, with Visa and Mastercard cards and mobile money in cedis, but publishes no Ghana prices. It is built for foreign companies selling into Ghana rather than for a Ghanaian shop, and its rates are negotiated.
If you have been told to use Stripe, note that Ghana is not a country where you can open a Stripe account directly. Stripe's own country list shows Ghana as part of its "extended network" and sends Ghanaian businesses to Paystack, which Stripe bought in 2020. In Ghana, choosing Stripe means choosing Paystack.
Hubtel, a Ghanaian payments company we have not reviewed, publishes the most detailed fee schedule we found. When the business pays the fee, it charges 1.95% to receive from MTN Mobile Money, Telecel Cash, G-Money and GhQR and on online Visa and Mastercard payments, and 2.5% from AT Money. Hubtel also lets a business pass the fee to the customer instead, at lower rates: 1% on most payments from GHS 50.01 up to GHS 1,000 (GHS 2,000 on MTN Mobile Money), then a flat GHS 10 (GHS 20 on MTN) above that. Other local providers, such as expressPay and theteller, did not publish merchant rates that we could find.
Card machines
Card-present pricing in Ghana is less often published than online pricing. Paystack prices its terminals at the same 1.95% as its online payments. Hubtel's schedule prices in-person Visa payments on a sliding scale by amount: small flat fees up to GHS 100 (GHS 0.10 on a payment between GHS 1.01 and GHS 20, GHS 0.50 between GHS 50.01 and GHS 100), then 1% from GHS 100.01 to GHS 1,000, falling to 0.55% on payments between GHS 5,000.01 and GHS 100,000. Bank-supplied terminals are priced in each merchant's contract.
gh-link, the domestic card scheme run by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), processes its transactions within Ghana. GhIPSS says its fees are lower than those on international cards but publishes no merchant rate, so ask your bank or acquirer what it charges on gh-link specifically.
Mobile money and GhQR
Most Ghanaian customers pay by mobile money, and most gateways price a wallet payment the same as a card or close to it: 1.95% at Paystack, 2% at Flutterwave. A business can also collect directly from MTN through its developer API. MTN's published terms for MoMo API Collections in Ghana set a 2% fee per transaction, taken from the collections account, and say the fee can be negotiated.
GhQR is the national QR code standard run by GhIPSS, which lets a customer pay from a bank or wallet app by scanning one code. GhIPSS says the customer pays no fee and the merchant gets the money instantly. What the merchant pays depends on who issued its QR code; Hubtel, for example, charges 1.95% on GhQR payments it receives for a business.
Wallet fees are under watch. Mobile Money Fintech Limited, the company behind MTN MoMo, planned a 0.75% fee on direct wallet-to-bank transfers from 1 June 2026. On 26 May 2026 the Bank of Ghana directed it to pause the fee to allow further consultation, and we found no later notice lifting that pause. If you sweep mobile money takings into a bank account, check what the transfer costs before building it into your prices.
Getting your money out
Payout fees differ more than transaction fees, and they add up if you withdraw daily.
Paystack: GHS 1 per transfer to a mobile money wallet and GHS 8 per transfer to a bank account. There is no minimum payout to a wallet; a bank payout needs at least GHS 50.
Flutterwave: GHS 10 per transfer to a bank account and 1.5% per transfer to mobile money. On a GHS 2,000 withdrawal to a wallet that is GHS 30, against GHS 10 to a bank.
Hubtel: 1% to send between GHS 50.01 and GHS 500, GHS 5 between GHS 500.01 and GHS 1,000, and GHS 10 above that (GHS 17.50 to Telecel Cash).
Taxes and the rules
The E-Levy is gone
The Electronic Transfer Levy was cut to 1% from early 2023 and then abolished by the Electronic Transfer Levy (Repeal) Act, 2025, from 2 April 2025. The Ghana Revenue Authority said deductions made from that date had to be refunded. Even while it applied, the levy exempted payments to a business registered with the GRA for income tax or VAT, so a registered merchant receiving mobile money was never the one charged. Some guides still describe it as live; it is not.
VAT from January 2026
Under the Value Added Tax Act, 2025, in force from 1 January 2026, VAT remains 15% and the NHIL and GETFund levies of 2.5% each are charged on the same base, for a total effective rate of 20%. The 1% COVID-19 levy was abolished, as was the 3% VAT flat-rate scheme, and the registration threshold for businesses selling goods rose from GHS 200,000 to GHS 750,000 a year. For payment fees, the practical point is that providers do not all say the same thing: Flutterwave states its fees exclude VAT and other taxes, while Paystack and Hubtel publish their Ghana rates without saying either way. Ask before you compare 1.95% with 2%.
Prices in cedis
A Bank of Ghana notice of April 2022 restates that the cedi is the sole legal tender and that pricing, advertising, receipting or taking payment for goods and services in foreign currency in Ghana needs the Bank's written authorisation. The gateways above settle in cedis by default, including on international cards.
Who is allowed to process payments
Payment companies in Ghana are licensed by the Bank of Ghana under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987). Under its 2019 licensing notice, merchant acquiring, merchant aggregation and terminal deployment sit with Enhanced payment service providers, while gateways and payment apps hold lighter licences and rely on an Enhanced provider. Before you sign, check that your provider, or the licensed partner it names, appears on the Bank of Ghana's list of licensed payment service providers.
What to check before you sign
Who pays the fee by default. Flutterwave's Ghana page says customers bear the charges by default, and Hubtel lets a business absorb or pass on each fee. If you want your listed price to be what the customer pays, change the setting.
Whether the rate includes VAT. A 1.95% fee plus 20% tax is about 2.34%; a 2% fee with tax already in it is 2%.
What it costs to withdraw. A percentage fee on mobile money payouts is cheap on small amounts and expensive on large ones; a flat bank fee is the reverse.
What international cards cost. Paystack charges the same 1.95% on them in Ghana, Flutterwave 4.8%. If tourists or overseas buyers are a large share of your sales, that gap matters more than the local rate.
Whether the rate is negotiable. Paystack advertises volume discounts, MTN says its API fee can be negotiated, and Hubtel rebates part of its percentage fees to businesses that absorb them, from 10% at GHS 20 million of monthly turnover to 30% above GHS 100 million.
