Government will introduce a First Port Duty Rule as part of sweeping customs reforms aimed at plugging revenue leakages, preventing tax evasion and creating a fairer trading environment for businesses.
Presenting the 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minister for Finance, said the reform would require duties and taxes on goods declared for transit to become payable at Ghana’s first port of entry.
He said the measure was designed to eliminate one of the biggest channels for false declarations and revenue losses while protecting legitimate transit trade through customs-to-customs arrangements with destination countries.
The Minister said between 2020 and 2025, about 37 percent of taxable imports passed through customs suspense regimes such as warehousing, transit, temporary admissions and free zones, many of which had been abused to evade duties.
He said the Customs Bill before Parliament would also introduce statutory warehousing limits of three months for perishable goods, six months for general goods and 12 months for raw materials, while restricting re-warehousing to a maximum of six months.
Government will further require all bonded warehouses to operate electronic inventory systems linked to Customs for real-time monitoring and audit.
Dr Forson said the reforms would accelerate revenue collection, reduce port congestion, improve compliance and provide greater certainty for legitimate businesses.
