Kenya has followed Lagos. From this month Google withholds 5 per cent of Kenyan YouTube earnings and remits it to the Revenue Authority, with a 1 October deadline to file a tax number or payments stop. Two countries in two weeks have decided the simplest place to tax a creator is the moment before they are paid. Sandton gained four studios; Audacy closed a free one.
From September, Google withholds 5 per cent of YouTube earnings from Kenya-based AdSense accounts and remits it to the Kenya Revenue Authority. The first affected earnings are those generated in September and paid out in October. On KSh100,000 of finalised earnings, KSh5,000 is withheld, leaving KSh95,000 before any other deduction.
This is not a platform fee. Techpoint Africa put it plainly: Google is not taking a cut for itself, it is acting as the payer that deducts a Kenyan withholding tax and passes it to the authority. For a resident it works as an advance against a Kenyan tax bill rather than a final liability, the same mechanism Lagos is applying to creator payouts.
The enforcement is the sharp end. Creators must submit a valid KRA Personal Identification Number through AdSense by 1 October or their payments can be held. Kenya joins Nigeria in collecting at the platform layer, and for African video podcasters with real YouTube income that is now the pattern rather than the exception. Read the full story.
Two countries in two weeks have decided the simplest place to tax a creator is the moment before they are paid.
Africa's creator economy reaches $3.4 billion, and the payout rails still do not reach. The active creator base grew from 2.1 million to 4.8 million between 2022 and 2024, a 128 per cent rise against a global average of 67. Yet TikTok Creator Rewards remain unavailable in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
SoFyne opens four podcast studios in Sandton. Founded by Nontokozo Madonsela, Dan Moyane and Tsakani Moyane, all working podcasters, the rooms are built as sets for video as much as spaces for audio, and sold to corporates as well as creators.
Audacy shuts Creator Lab, and independents lose a free option. The free hosting and sponsorship marketplace, acquired as Podcorn in 2020, closes on 1 November. Active campaigns must be delivered by then and completed work will be paid. The field of free distribution narrows again.
Of the 516 shows on Airtime's shelf, 456 are South African. Nigeria has 19, Kenya 17, Ghana and Tanzania 6 each, Uganda 5, Zimbabwe 4, and three are pan-African. That is not what African podcasting looks like. It is what our sources have reached so far, and we would rather print the gap than dress it up. The fastest way to close it is a submission from a country we are thin on. The full shelf.
Recognition arrived in the same month as the tax. Forbes this week called Africa a sleeping giant, crediting women-led content and social-issue storytelling, and named Radio Workshop's I Will Not Grow Old Here among the shows earning global attention. Set that beside Nairobi and Lagos both moving to withhold at source, and beside a creator economy measured at $3.4 billion that still cannot pay most of the people in it. The continent's audio is now worth noticing, and worth taxing, before it is reliably worth a living. All three are true in the same week.
From the directory: 516 shows are live and six networks are mapped. The studios section lists 21 rooms across six countries, of which one is verified so far and the rest are still being checked, and we will keep saying which is which rather than count a listing as a booking. Guests stand at nine while we rebuild each entry to point at the episode that proves the appearance. Get on the shelf.