Burundi: individual capital income and disposal gains for 2026

General reference only. This Guide is general tax/accounting reference material for AI-assisted workflows. It has not been reviewed for any specific person's facts, documents, elections, deadlines, residency, filing status, or local procedures. Do not rely on it to file, pay, amend, or take a tax position without review by a qualified professional in Burundi.

Who this applies to

Use for a natural person's second-category income under income law (IR) arts. 19, 23 and 88–93. Residents include Burundi and foreign taxable income; nonresidents include only Burundi-source taxable income, subject to the additional gain limitation below. Establish residence and source using cross-border tax. This partial computation workpaper passed independent AI source review and focused repair closure within its stated scope. IR arts. 19–20.

Art. 88 covers cash or in-kind interest, dividends, royalties, lottery/gambling gains and other investment income not already taxed as business profit under arts. 37–39. The gain definition names immovables/related rights, financial assets and collectible movables. Identify the asset and whether it belongs to an individual or a company before calculating. Company trading disposals stay in corporate income tax; ordinary individual business/rental income stays in individual income tax. IR arts. 2(u), 37, 88 and 98.

Rates, bands and thresholds

Item and conditions	Rule / amount	Period	Official source
Individual second-category capital income and gains, after the applicable base and exemptions	15%; art. 23 also names the product of business-asset sales under art. 37(2). This is the income-tax rate, with payer withholding assessed separately.	Calendar 2026	IR art. 23
Immovable for which the seller has no legal obligation to depreciate; holding period printed as “0 à 5 ans”	Gain = disposal price × 20%	2026	IR art. 89, PDF p. 31
Same asset; “5 à 10 ans”	Gain = disposal price × 15%	2026	IR art. 89
Same asset; “10 à 15 ans”	Gain = disposal price × 10%	2026	IR art. 89
Same asset; “15 à 30 ans”	Gain = disposal price × 5%	2026	IR art. 89
Same asset; “30 ans et plus”	Gain = disposal price × 2.5%	2026	IR art. 89
Housing-use immovable or fraction and adjoining land	Exemption for one disposal of one immovable or one fraction; another grant requires five years elapsed since the last grant	2026	IR art. 91
Land-registration duties paid by the seller on the immovable sale	Only those seller-paid duties are creditable, limited to the tax on that gain; buyer-paid duties do not qualify for the seller's credit. Excess is not a refund entitlement under this clause.	2026	IR art. 93; Order 540/214bis, art. 18
Interest on Treasury bills and bonds	Exempt from income tax	1 January–30 June 2026	Modified budget art. 201; commencement art. 252
Treasury-bill/bond interest and gain on Treasury securities sold on the secondary market	Both exempt from income tax; secondary-market gain relief is expressly added by this text	1 July–31 December 2026	July budget art. 217; commencement art. 277
Nonresident indirect immovable participation	At least 50% of participation value attributable to Burundi immovables before that indirect participation is taken into account	2026	IR art. 90

The holding ranges above reproduce the statute. Their endpoints overlap at the stated anniversaries; a precise boundary-date convention is not established here. Do not invent inclusive/exclusive operators. The examples use eight years, away from an endpoint. The coefficient determines a deemed gain base, then the income-tax rate applies to that base. It is not itself the tax rate. IR arts. 23 and 89.

The base

1. Classify the receipt. Interest includes income from loans, deposits, guarantees, current accounts, government funds, bonds and other debt securities. Dividends include share/profit-participation income and assimilated distributions; liquidation distributions are dividends only to the extent the amounts distributed exceed revalued paid-up capital under the statutory definition. The revaluation mechanics are not supplied here. Royalties cover the specified copyright, intellectual-property, equipment-use and natural-resource payments. Obtain the actual agreement and receipt, rather than treating the return of investment principal as interest. IR art. 2(j), (o), (v), PDF pp. 4–6; art. 88.
2. Check business attribution and special charges. Art. 88 excludes income already taxed as business profit. Art. 23 separately names proceeds of art. 37(2) business-asset sales, retained in both budgets' replacements of art. 37. Art. 2(u) defines professional-immovable gain as disposal price less net fiscal value, but that definition alone does not settle the art. 23 proceeds interaction, depreciation recapture or every asset's cost. Do not extend the private-property coefficient method to depreciable business property, shares or collectibles. Those computations remain held. Gaming payments require the current special budget rules, not an automatic application of this table to a prize. IR arts. 2(u), 23, 37, 88; January arts. 80, 148; July arts. 79, 156.
3. Test exemptions before tax. For housing, establish residential use, the single immovable/fraction and adjoining land, and the date of the last exemption grant. Art. 91 says another exemption can be granted after the five-year interval. It does not state a self-occupation duration or use the phrase “principal residence”; do not invent either condition or automatic approval. The grant procedure and evidence remain held. Treasury interest is exempt in both periods; secondary-market Treasury gains have the express July exemption. Do not backdate that added text to a first-half disposal or infer relief for private securities. IR art. 91; January art. 201; July art. 217.
4. For a nondepreciated immovable, establish the disposal price and holding period. Multiply the price by the applicable art. 89 coefficient, then multiply the resulting gain by the second-category rate. Acquisition cost is not substituted for the coefficient formula. Art. 89 requires the immovable reference price to follow a ministerial order. Order 540/214bis of 5 March 2021, art. 17 points to Order 540/188 of 13 March 2000, completed by Order 540/577 of 31 July 2000. The recovered signed Order 540/550/720/1145 of 27 February 2025, arts. 1–4 implements 2024/25 budget art. 77: it defines reference values per are or square metre, provides the base for related duties/taxes and requires the higher contractual market value where that exceeds the calculated transfer value, without removing the authority's right to assess the real amount. Inputs depend on land location/surface and construction surface/materials/equipment, with its annexes integral. Arts. 6–7 repeal contrary earlier provisions and commence on signature; the filename's later date is not an enactment date. Continuing 2026 effect/current replacement and application to the actual property, including the relevant annex and inputs, are not established here. A deed price alone does not prove the accepted taxable price. Calculations below assume the lawful price has already been established. IR arts. 2(u), 23, 89.
5. Apply only the seller-paid registration-duty credit. Obtain proof that the seller paid the land-registration duties on that immovable sale and match them to the taxable gain. Buyer-paid duties do not become the seller's credit under Order 540/214bis art. 18. Deduct at most the tax attributable to that gain; do not turn the unused amount into a negative gain tax or apply it to unrelated income under art. 93. The actual registration charge and its payer are a distinct job in property transactions. Notary, title, wealth and construction charges are not all land-registration duties merely because they appear on one invoice. Current proof/claim fields and excess-credit treatment beyond art. 93 remain held. IR art. 93; Order 540/214bis, art. 18.

No purchase-cost, incidental-expense, inflation-indexation, loss-offset or rollover formula for financial assets and collectibles is established by the charging provisions alone. In-kind valuation and foreign-currency conversion for nonbusiness capital receipts also require their actual operative rules. Do not fill those gaps with the business-accounting method or another country's capital-gains rules.

Deadlines and filing

1. Prepare a seller schedule with NIF/identity, residence, asset/right, business or private use, legal depreciation obligation, acquisition/disposal dates, lawful price evidence, exemption history, gain, tax and matched land-registration duties with proof they were paid by the seller. A movable or immovable disposal gain must be declared and its tax paid within fifteen calendar days following the disposal month. This is the seller's art. 92 clock, not the buyer's withholding remittance clock. IR art. 92.
2. Separately check the payer/buyer's obligations through withholding and cross-border tax. A buyer's acquisition-price withholding on a nonresident seller does not determine the seller's gain base. Apply the actual payment category, payer/recipient status and certificate route, with the conditional nonresident final-tax rule in Cross-border points. That final-tax rule is separate from annual-declaration exemptions and unresolved filing/credit execution. IR arts. 122–129; January art. 148; July art. 156.
3. Check the individual's annual declaration independently. Art. 24 requires the Commissioner General's prescribed declaration by the last day of the third month after year-end. Art. 25, as corrected by Order 540/214bis art. 3, printed p. 338, lists the specified employment and arts. 118–119 withholding income, or both. It does not list art. 122 capital-payment withholding as a blanket annual-filing exemption. This is a separate test from final tax under corrected art. 22. Both 2026 budget replacements of art. 28 retain their own enacted annual calculation/payment and credit lists, including tax paid on art. 37(2) business-asset sales. Do not replace those later lists with the 2021 correction of the earlier art. 28. Do not postpone the art. 92 disposal payment until the annual filing date or deduct a payment twice. IR arts. 24–26; January art. 146; July art. 154.
4. OBR's published individual return is headed revenus d'affaires. Its business-asset-sales row and business-profit tax boxes do not establish a separate private-capital return or gain-tax credit box. This workpaper does not assign a private gain to those boxes. Use OBR's Umutangakori taxpayer-category routing; retain the actual filed declaration, acknowledgment and payment/quittance reference matched to NIF, tax and period. The prescribed private-capital/disposal form, boxes, annual reconciliation and authenticated payment sequence remain unconfirmed, so this Guide is not a completed filing workflow.

Penalties and interest

Use tax overview: Penalties and interest for the sourced general declaration, payment and interest rules. Establish whether the default is the seller's disposal/annual obligation or the payer's withholding obligation. No additional capital-gain penalty rate or current interest order is asserted here.

Cross-border points

Art. 90 limits nonresident gains to disposals of shares in a resident company or a participation in a Burundi immovable. Indirect participation counts only when the statutory immovable-value threshold is met. Read this with the Burundi-source definition in art. 6; source and asset scope do not themselves establish acquisition cost, deemed price or a treaty reduction. Keep evidence of resident-company status and the participation's underlying asset values. IR arts. 6–7, 20 and 90.

Use cross-border tax for residence, payer withholding, foreign-tax-credit evidence and treaty effectiveness. For Burundi-source income of a nonresident that is not attributable to a Burundi PE, IR art. 22 as corrected by Order 540/214bis art. 3 makes the withholdings under art. 122 point 4°, art. 123 and art. 125 final. The correction table also replaces art. 22's first cross-reference with arts. 123–125. This does not establish finality for every art. 122 payment, residents or PE-attributable income, and does not itself give an annual-declaration exemption. No treaty exemption is inferred. Mixed/indirect-asset valuation, annual filing/reconciliation and credit execution remain held.

Two worked examples that recompute

Private immovable with a capped credit. Assume a resident individual's nonhousing immovable, no obligation to depreciate, held eight years, a lawfully established disposal price of BIF 100,000,000 and no other relief or withholding. The coefficient produces a BIF 15,000,000 gain; tax before registration-duty credit is BIF 2,250,000. Compare evidenced land-registration duties of BIF 1,000,000 and BIF 3,000,000 paid by that seller on the same immovable sale; buyer-paid duties are excluded. Balances are BIF 1,250,000 and zero. The larger duty leaves BIF 750,000 outside this credit, without establishing a refund. This does not establish continuing 2026 effect of the recovered valuation chain or a valuation for the actual property.

name: Private immovable coefficient and registration credit ceiling
inputs:
  established_price: 100000000
  seller_paid_duty_low: 1000000
  seller_paid_duty_high: 3000000
steps:
  - gain: established_price*0.15
  - tax_before_credit: gain*0.15
  - credit_low: min(seller_paid_duty_low,tax_before_credit)
  - credit_high: min(seller_paid_duty_high,tax_before_credit)
  - balance_low: tax_before_credit-credit_low
  - balance_high: tax_before_credit-credit_high
  - duty_outside_credit: seller_paid_duty_high-credit_high
expected:
  gain: 15000000
  tax_before_credit: 2250000
  balance_low: 1250000
  balance_high: 0
  duty_outside_credit: 750000

Housing exemption decision. Use the same established price, eight-year nondepreciated holding and a single residential immovable with adjoining land, but no registration-duty credit. If the last housing exemption was granted four years before disposal, the five-year repeat condition fails and BIF 2,250,000 remains payable. Compare a last grant six years before disposal where a fresh exemption has actually been granted: the qualifying gain is exempt, so tax is zero. The six-year interval alone is not presented as administrative approval. The switch below records those expressly established facts; it does not make an election or supply missing relief procedures.

name: Housing repeat-relief factual decision
inputs:
  established_price: 100000000
  relief_four_years: 0
  relief_six_years_granted: 1
steps:
  - gain: established_price*0.15
  - tax_without_relief: gain*0.15
  - four_year_tax: tax_without_relief*(1-relief_four_years)
  - six_year_tax: tax_without_relief*(1-relief_six_years_granted)
  - difference: four_year_tax-six_year_tax
expected:
  gain: 15000000
  four_year_tax: 2250000
  six_year_tax: 0
  difference: 2250000

Treasury versus ordinary interest. Assume a resident individual receives BIF 2,000,000 cash interest in August 2026 outside business income, with no deductions, treaty claim or other exemption. A Burundi Treasury-bond coupon is exempt; an otherwise taxable private-debt coupon bears BIF 300,000 second-category tax before any evidenced withholding reconciliation. The security's identity changes the tax; this is not a payer-withholding calculation.

name: Treasury interest instrument decision
inputs:
  coupon: 2000000
  treasury_exempt: 1
  ordinary_exempt: 0
steps:
  - ordinary_before_relief: coupon*0.15
  - treasury_tax: ordinary_before_relief*(1-treasury_exempt)
  - private_tax: ordinary_before_relief*(1-ordinary_exempt)
  - difference: private_tax-treasury_tax
expected:
  treasury_tax: 0
  private_tax: 300000
  difference: 300000

Ask the client first

• What are the individual's residence facts, income source and actual receipt/disposal dates?
• What asset, security, right or payment is involved, and is it business income or a private holding?
• Is depreciation legally required, what is the holding period, and what establishes the lawful disposal price?
• Is the property one housing-use immovable/fraction with adjoining land, and when was relief last granted?
• What land-registration duties did the seller pay on that immovable sale, and what proof of payer, seller-tax payments and withholding relates to the same gain?
• For an indirect nonresident disposal, what proves the resident company and Burundi-immovable value attribution?

Sources

Official source	What was actually read	Read date
Law 1/14 of 24 December 2020	Read actual cached PDF pp. 1–15, 18–19, 28–34, 40–44: definitions, source, year, category/rate/annual duties, business-asset limb, complete arts. 88–93 with rental/corporate neighbours, corporate inclusion, withholding and final clauses. Visually checked pp. 4–6, 30–31; coefficient table is 20%, not the OCR's 26%.	2026-11-01
Modified 2025/26 budget, Law 1/09 of 31 December 2025	Read actual cached enacted PDF pp. 26–27, 43–44, 51–52 and 249: arts. 79–88, 146–149, 196–210 and commencement 252. Visually checked Treasury art. 201 and final signed page. Web PDF reader rejected its size; cached actual 40 MB law used, not comparison-table text.	2026-11-01
2026/27 budget, Law 1/10 of 30 June 2026	Read actual cached enacted PDF pp. 25–27, 45–48, 56–58 and 267: relevant business/annual/payment replacements, complete withholding replacement, exemptions including art. 217 and commencement 277, with neighbours. Visually checked art. 217 and final signed page. Other sector charges and allocation tables not substantively reviewed.	2026-11-01
Order 540/214bis of 5 March 2021	Read the complete actual order, arts. 1–26, gazette physical pp. 30–33 / printed 337–340, including all of art. 3's correction table, valuation art. 17, seller-paid-duty art. 18, neighbours and signature-day commencement art. 26. Visually checked all four pages. Other gazette acts not reviewed.	2026-11-01
Signed valuation Order 540/550/720/1145 of 27 February 2025	Visually read actual PDF pp. 1–4 and 11–12: complete operative arts. 1–7, beginning of annex I and annex III, repeal, commencement and actual signatures. Other location/construction tariff pages not substantively reviewed. Continuing 2026 effect/current replacement and actual-property valuation remain held; no annex value is promoted as current.	2026-11-01
OBR individual business-income return	Read all four pages, actual title, asset-sales line, business-tax/credit fields and receipt. This is evidence of the published business form's scope, not verified private-capital boxes.	2026-11-01
OBR portal routing	Read taxpayer-category access links and documentation list; no authenticated taxpayer screen accessed.	2026-11-01

Not yet confirmed: Continuing 2026 effect/current replacement of the recovered valuation chain and accepted actual-property price, including annex/location/construction inputs; exact holding-range boundary convention; housing-relief application, documents and approval; professional-immovable net-fiscal-value interaction with art. 23 sale proceeds, depreciation/recapture and annual credit allocation; financial-asset/collectible acquisition costs, deductions, indexation, loss offsets and rollovers; in-kind/nonbusiness foreign-currency valuation; first-half Treasury-gain treatment beyond the limited January exemption text; gaming special-charge computation; capital/disposal prescribed form, boxes, annual reconciliation, annual filing and withholding-credit execution separate from corrected art. 22's conditional finality, acknowledgment/payment-reference screens and current interest order. Gifts, inheritances, restructurings and live filing approval are outside this workpaper. All seven pack domains remain partial; no accountant attestation is claimed.