canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/africacompliancedata.com/africacompliancedata

# Africa Compliance Data API

The Africa Compliance Data API returns tax and compliance reference data for 54 African countries, with every response citing its official source such as a law, gazette, or tax authority page. It covers VAT rates and registration thresholds, resident and non-resident withholding tax with treaty rates, tax treaties, tax ID format validation, and filing deadlines, alongside public holidays, business-day calculations, and iCalendar feeds. Compliance plans add finance-law change digests and webhooks that notify you when the underlying rules change.

## For AI agents

Look up tax and compliance reference data for 54 African countries: VAT rates, withholding tax and treaty rates, tax ID validation, filing deadlines, and public holidays, each cited to an official source.

## Scope

Does not handle tax filing, payment, or accounting. Use for African tax and compliance reference data only.

## Capabilities

- Look up VAT rates, registration thresholds, and the legal basis for 54 African countries
- Retrieve resident and non-resident withholding tax rates, including treaty rates by partner country
- Validate a tax ID against the official format for a country
- Get public holidays, business-day calculations, and iCalendar feeds per country
- Pull the latest finance-law changes and subscribe to webhooks when the rules change

## Use cases

### Agent-driven tax lookups with citations

An AI agent preparing a cross-border transaction can ask for a country's VAT rate, withholding tax, and any applicable treaty rate and receive each value with a citation to the law or tax authority page behind it. Because the Africa Compliance Data API sources every response, the agent can show where a number came from rather than asserting an uncited figure.

Example prompt: Look up the standard VAT rate and the registration threshold for a country, then read the cited legal basis returned with the response

### Cross-border withholding calculations

A finance team paying a vendor in another country needs the correct withholding tax rate, which often depends on a tax treaty between the paying and receiving countries. The API returns resident and non-resident withholding rates plus the treaty maximum rate per partner country, so the team applies the right rate with a source to back it.

Example prompt: Retrieve the withholding tax rates for a country and the treaty maximum rate for a specific partner country

### Compliance-aware scheduling

Operations that run on a working-day cadence across African markets need accurate holiday and business-day data per country. The API answers whether a date is a working day, counts working days between two dates, and serves holiday calendars as iCalendar feeds, so scheduling respects each country's actual calendar.

Example prompt: Check whether a given date is a business day in a country and count the working days until a filing deadline

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | `/v1/countries` | List the 54 countries with currency and coverage per feature |
| GET | `/v1/countries/{country}` | Full compliance profile of one country |
| GET | `/v1/countries/{country}/vat` | VAT rates, registration threshold, and legal basis |
| GET | `/v1/countries/{country}/withholding-tax` | Resident and non-resident withholding tax rates with treaty rates |
| GET | `/v1/countries/{country}/treaties` | Tax treaty maximum withholding rates per partner country |
| GET | `/v1/countries/{country}/holidays` | Public holidays of a year |
| GET | `/v1/countries/{country}/tax-id/validate` | Check a tax ID against the official format |

## Key resources

- **Countries** — List countries with coverage per feature and read a full compliance profile for one country
- **Tax** — Read VAT rates and history, withholding tax, treaty rates, tax ID validation, and filing deadlines per country
- **Calendar** — Public holidays, business-day calculations, the holiday watch, and iCalendar feeds
- **Webhooks** — Create and manage webhooks that fire on finance-law changes

## AI readiness

This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.

- **Score:** 67 / 100
- **Maturity:** AI-Aware
- **Dimensions:**
  - Foundational Compliance: 93 / 100
  - Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility: 69 / 100
  - AI-Readiness & Agent Experience: 48 / 100
  - Agent Usability: 94 / 100
  - Security: 55 / 100
  - AI Discoverability: 74 / 100
- **View full report:** https://jentic.com/apis/africacompliancedata.com/africacompliancedata/scorecard
- **How the score is calculated:** https://docs.jentic.com/reference/api-readiness-framework/overview/
- **More about the dimensions:** https://docs.jentic.com/reference/api-readiness-framework/specification/#dimensional-model-overview

### Score it yourself

Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.

- **Score your own API:** https://jentic.com/scorecard.md
- **Scoring CLI agent skill:** https://github.com/jentic/jentic-api-scorecard/blob/main/skills/jentic-api-scorecard/SKILL.md

```sh
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>
```

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the Africa Compliance Data API by hand means handling its x-api-key header auth (also accepted as a bearer token), its per-plan access tiers that return a 403 outside your plan, and its per-minute limits yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import it from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** The country code sits in the URL path (`/v1/countries/{country}/...`), so a rule can pin your agent to one country and the read operations you pick for it. You choose the operations it may call, so webhook creation or deletion is not included unless you add it.
- **Credential handling:** Your Africa Compliance Data key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'look up a VAT rate' or 'get a country's public holidays', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without reading the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **Taxamo** — Taxamo calculates and settles VAT and sales tax on transactions, where Africa Compliance Data provides the underlying rates and rules.
- **44api VAT Validation** — 44api validates a specific VAT number, where Africa Compliance Data supplies the rate and rule that applies.
- **OpenSanctions** — OpenSanctions screens a counterparty against sanctions and watchlists alongside the tax checks.

## FAQ

### What authentication does the Africa Compliance Data API use?

The Africa Compliance Data API authenticates with an API key sent in the x-api-key header, which the spec also accepts as a bearer token. The public iCalendar holiday feed needs no key. Through Jentic the key is stored once and injected at call time, so it never appears in your agent's prompt or logs.

### Does the Africa Compliance Data API cite its sources?

Yes. Every response cites the official source behind the value, such as a law, gazette, or tax authority page, and states the coverage for that feature in the given country, so an agent can show where each figure came from.

### What are the rate limits for the Africa Compliance Data API?

The OpenAPI spec states per-key, per-minute rate limits by plan: 30 on Free, 60 on Starter, 300 on Pro, and 1,000 on Compliance, with full country profiles and the holiday watch sharing a limit of 5 per minute.

### How do I look up a VAT rate through Jentic with the Africa Compliance Data API?

Search Jentic for 'look up a VAT rate', which returns the GET `/v1/countries/{country}/vat` operation with its input schema, then call it with the country code. To run it on your own infrastructure, install Jentic One from its GitHub repo.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Africa Compliance Data API?

Yes. Because the country code sits in the URL path, write a rule that allows only the read operations under one country, such as its VAT and holiday lookups, so the agent reads that country's compliance data and nothing else, and every call is logged.