Sierra Leone: technology regulation at a glance

Framework: No dedicated crypto law; overlapping instruments include Banking Act 2019, Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act 2012, National Payment Systems Act 2022, and the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) Fintech Regulatory Sandbox

Sierra Leone has no dedicated virtual-asset or cryptocurrency legislation as of May 2026. Crypto-assets are neither explicitly legalised nor banned; the Bank of Sierra Leone has not issued VASP licensing rules or recognised any crypto-asset as legal tender. Regulatory activity is limited to a general fintech sandbox and existing AML/CFT obligations flowing from Sierra Leone's GIABA membership.

Framework: No AI-specific law, regulation, or adopted national AI strategy. AI is touched on only obliquely by the National Innovation & Digital Strategy (2019-2029) and the Cyber Security and Crime Act, 2021; a dedicated National AI Strategy is under development by the Ministry of Communication, Technology and Innovation (MoCTI) following a World Bank-supported AI Readiness Assessment launched in 2025.

Sierra Leone currently has no comprehensive AI law, no sectoral AI rules, and no formally adopted national AI strategy or binding AI principles. The government, through MoCTI and the World Bank's Digital Transformation Project, launched a National AI Readiness Assessment in October 2025 whose findings are intended to guide a forthcoming National AI Strategy. Foundational legal infrastructure (notably a data protection law) is also still only at the bill stage, leaving AI governance largely undefined.

Framework: No comprehensive personal-data protection law is in force. The Data Protection and Right to Access Information Bill, 2025 (which would create a single independent regulator for both data protection and access to information) completed national validation in November 2025 and is progressing toward Cabinet and Parliament. Only fragmentary sectoral provisions (Telecommunications Act 2006; Cyber Security and Crime Act 2021) currently touch on personal data.

As of May 2026, Sierra Leone has no enacted comprehensive data-protection statute and no dedicated data-protection authority. A GDPR- and AU Malabo Convention-aligned Data Protection and Right to Access Information Bill, 2025 has been drafted and nationally validated (final validation concluded 7 November 2025) and is awaiting Cabinet approval and parliamentary enactment. In the interim, only narrow sector provisions in the Telecommunications Act 2006 and Cyber Security and Crime Act 2021 address aspects of privacy.

Framework: National Payment Systems Act, 2022 (in force 23 June 2022) and the National Payment Systems Oversight Regulations, 2022, administered by the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) as licensing and oversight authority.

Sierra Leone operates a dedicated, in-force payments licensing regime: under the National Payment Systems Act 2022 no person may provide payment services or operate a payment system without a licence from the Bank of Sierra Leone, which also regulates e-money issuers and mobile money. The BSL runs a national interoperable switch (Salone Payment Switch / SaPS) with instant payments live since 2025 and a fintech regulatory sandbox, while a dedicated open-banking and BNPL framework is not yet established and a national FinTech Strategy was still being procured in late 2025.

Framework: Immigration Act and Work Permit Act 2023, administered by the Sierra Leone Immigration Department (residence/visas) and the Work Permit Bureau at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (work permits). No remote-work or digital-nomad-specific statute exists.

Sierra Leone offers no dedicated digital-nomad or remote-work visa. Tourist visas permit stays of only up to 30 days, so longer-term relocation requires an annually-renewed residence permit issued for employment, business/self-employment, study or as a dependent, plus a work permit where local work is performed. A separate residency- and citizenship-by-investment program (GO-FOR-GOLD) provides a non-employment relocation pathway.

Framework: Cyber Security and Crime Act, 2021 (enforced via the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre / Ministry of Information & Civic Education); media regulated by the Independent Media Commission. No comprehensive DSA/OSA-style platform-safety law; a Data Protection and Right to Access Information Bill 2025 is pending.

Sierra Leone regulates online conduct mainly through the criminal-law lens of the Cyber Security and Crime Act 2021, which criminalises specified online content (cyberstalking, harassment and knowingly false messages) and contains child-online-protection and corporate-liability provisions, but it has no comprehensive online-safety or platform content-moderation regime, no systematic age-verification rules, and no broad intermediary-liability framework comparable to the EU DSA or UK OSA. There is no routine state blocking or filtering of the internet, but rights groups and journalist bodies report the Act (notably Section 44) being used to prosecute journalists and critics, raising freedom-of-expression concerns. A dedicated data-protection law and a standalone online-safety platform regime do not yet exist; the Data Protection and Right to Access Information Bill 2025 was validated and awaits Cabinet and parliamentary enactment.

Framework: Cyber Security and Crime Act, 2021 (No. 7 of 2021), implemented by the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NC3); complemented by the National Cybersecurity Strategy and the National Communications Authority (NatCA).

Sierra Leone has an in-force comprehensive cybersecurity and cybercrime statute, the Cyber Security and Crime Act, 2021, enacted in November 2021. It criminalises a wide range of cyber offences, mandates protection of critical national information infrastructure, requires reporting of cyber threats and breaches, and provides the legal basis for the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NC3), which launched the national CSIRT and Digital Forensics Lab in January 2025.

Framework: Companies Act, 2009 (as amended); registration administered by the Office of the Administrator and Registrar General (OARG) / Corporate Affairs Commission, with facilitation by the Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SLIEPA) and tax registration via the National Revenue Authority (NRA).

Sierra Leone permits 100% foreign ownership of companies with no mandatory local-partner requirement and no minimum share capital for private limited companies, and registration is concentrated at the OARG with SLIEPA acting as a one-stop facilitation centre. The legal regime is open, but practical formation still involves multiple physical steps (name search, OARG submission, TIN registration) and typically takes roughly one to three weeks, which keeps overall ease at a moderate level rather than fully frictionless.