News Think Tank Spotlights Scope of Ethiopia’s Massive Misinvoicing Problem
January 31, 2026
A Washington, DC-based think tank says Ethiopia lost nearly USD 25 billion in potential revenue due to the rampant practice trade misinvoicing in the decade leading up to 2022.
Global Financial Integrity, the think tank, listed Ethiopia among the 10 African countries losing the most revenue to misinvoicing, or the deliberate under- or over-statement of export and import values on invoices.
Ethiopia is losing the most of any non-oil African economy, according to the report on illicit financial flows (IFFs) in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2013 and 2022.
South Africa tops the list in terms of trade-related IFFs with an estimated USD 478 billion in cumulative trade value gaps with all trading partners, according to the report. Nigeria follows with nearly USD 78 billion, then Ghana (USD 54 billion), Côte d’Ivoire (USD 47.7 billion), and Kenya (USD 47.5 billion).
Rounding out the top ten are Zambia (USD 36 billion), Angola (USD 35.4 billion), Senegal (USD 25.5 billion), Tanzania (USD 35.5 billion), and Ethiopia (USD 24.6 billion).
An UNCTAD estimate in 2020 indicated that nearly USD 90 billion in illicit capital leaves Africa every year, equivalent to more than three percent of the continent’s GDP and nearly on par with the combined total annual inflows of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
However, earlier studies suggest that trade mispricing alone may account for between USD 32 and 52 billion in financial flow value gaps in Africa’s trade each year, representing a large share of total IFF volumes.
High-value commodity exports (oil, gold, diamonds, etc.) are particularly vulnerable to misinvoicing, given the opacity in pricing and power imbalances between African exporters and the multinational buyers of these commodities.
Research on countries like Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, and South Africa confirms that misinvoicing of primary commodity exports has been a major mechanism of capital flight over time
Meanwhile, tax revenue losses due to IFFs in Africa are estimated at around USD 17 billion per year. This erosion of the tax base translates into large funding gaps for essential services. According to UNCTAD, African countries with high IFFs spend on average 25 percent less on health and 58 percent less on education compared to peer countries with lower IFF levels.