Getting paid when your country issues no tax reference

Ask a creator in Kinshasa for a tax identification number and you have asked a question with no correct answer.

The DRC does levy personal income tax, but it is largely collected at source from formal employment. Somebody earning from their phone, outside that system, simply has no number to give. Several countries — the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait — issue none at all, because there is no personal income tax to attach one to.

Most platforms handle this by demanding a number, and quietly excluding everyone who cannot produce one. That is a design choice, not a legal requirement.

What the rules actually say

The reporting standard already anticipates this. Under the OECD model rules for digital platforms — DAC7 in the EU, in force in the UK since January 2024 — a platform that pays people for services must collect and report their identity and earnings. Where a jurisdiction does not issue a taxpayer identification number, or where the person is not required to hold one, the platform records that fact in a form the return accepts.

It does not invent a number. It does not leave a blank. Both of those produce a return that comes back.

Three situations

The country issues them and expects them — the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, the US, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa. A reference is required and format-checked.

The country issues them but an informal earner usually has none — the DRC, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Sierra Leone. You are asked, the reason it is often absent is explained, and a reporting code is accepted instead. The message says plainly that this is a normal answer rather than a problem.

The country issues none at all — the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the Bahamas, Monaco, Vanuatu. The question is not asked. The jurisdiction fact is what gets reported.

The four codes

Where there is no number, one of these is filed in its place:

My country does not issue one to individuals

I am not required to hold one

I have applied and am waiting

I cannot obtain one

A chosen code files. A typed "n/a" does not, and is refused — a return needs something it can actually process.

Nothing is deducted, anywhere

This is worth stating plainly because it is where most confusion sits. A creator in Kinshasa is paid gross, exactly as one in Leeds is. No income tax, no National Insurance, no withholding of any kind, because a creator is not an employee of the platform or of any brand they promote.

What you owe where you live is between you and your own authority. The platform reports what it paid you and hands you the same figure it filed — reporting and withholding are different things, and conflating them is how people end up believing money was taken that never was.

None of this is tax advice. Thresholds and rules differ by country and change; check with an accountant before relying on any of it.

Then you get paid

Once the identity record is complete, the payout rails do the rest — mobile money on M-Pesa, Orange, Airtel and Africell needs only a phone number, with a £2 minimum.

You can start earning before any of this: SHARE2EARN has no gate at all, and the identity step arrives only when you want to take money out. The full picture is here.