U.S. Agreements and Dialogues with Ghana: The U.S. Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ghana that facilitates coordination between our two governments to support the engagement of American businesses in the respective countries’ priority business sectors. Ghana has a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the United States. Many Ghanaian exports to the United States benefit from duty-free tariff preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. 

The United States does not have a Bilateral Investment Treaty or a Double Tax Treaty with Ghana. Ghana has not yet signed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) intergovernmental agreement (IGA), but it has allowed banks or foreign financial institutions (FFIs) in Ghana to report information directly to the United States Internal Revenue Service.

U.S. companies can benefit from the expertise and guidance of the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA). This group advises the U.S. President, through the Secretary of Commerce, on ways to strengthen commercial engagement between the United States and African countries.   

Ghana’s External Trade Agreements: Ghana’s external trade is governed by several multilateral, regional, and bilateral agreements.  Ghana is a longstanding member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a signatory to the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, which deals with customs processes and procedures. Ghana is a member of the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Ghana is a party to the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which has been ratified by 46 African Union countries including Ghana (as of June 2023) and has its Secretariat in Accra. 

Ghana has a bilateral Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union and an Interim Trade Partnership Agreement with the United Kingdom. The EPA covers 78% of Ghana’s tariff lines. Products that are excluded include: cotton, pearls and precious stones, textiles, olive oil and table olives, meat, crustaceans, milk and milk products, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, fruits, cement, beauty and make-up products, rubber and its articles, and automobiles. Ghanaian tariff reductions on imports from EU countries began in July 2021. For some EU-origin goods, tariff elimination was immediate. For other goods, tariffs are phased out according to specific schedules, the longest being tariff elimination by 2029. (As a result, covered EU exports benefit from a preferential tariff margin vis a vis U.S. exports to Ghana.) Ghana’s Interim EPA with the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, which was signed in 2021, replicates the tariff treatment under the European Union-Ghana EPA giving products from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland the same tariff treatment as products from the European Union.