# accra.cool — complete data reference > This file contains the editorial content and current facts from accra.cool, intended for AI assistants and crawlers that benefit from a single-document representation of the site. Last generated: 2026-10-09T13:49:58.703Z --- ## Cedi watch ### Current snapshot - **cedi 2.2% weaker since 1 July** — after June's 3.2% rally it gave up ground every week — 11.35 on 1 July to 11.60 today - **30-day high ₵11.60** — today — the weakest the cedi has been this month - **30-day low ₵11.35** — 1 July, the trough on a mid basis — the widely-quoted 11.34 was a buying rate - **cedi 0.4% weaker over the past week** — 11.55 at the 17 July fixing to 11.60 on 22 July - **BoG USD 1.2B/month FX support active for June** — announced 20 May 2026 - **₵11.60 per US dollar** — BoG official interbank mid, 22 July — weaker every week through July - **bureau spread at 6.6%** — BoG 11.45 vs bureau 12.20 — retail still lags official recovery - **BoG policy rate held at 14.0%** — 131st MPC, 22 July — a unanimous hold that pauses the easing cycle - **reserves at USD 12.9 billion** — 5.0 months of import cover, down from 13.8bn at end-2025 on energy payments (MPC, 22 July) ### Why we watch the cedi every day The cedi tells you what a month of rent costs an expatriate, what fuel will trade at next NPA window, and what a bag of imported rice will be at Makola by Friday. Every other vertical on this site moves when the cedi moves — sometimes immediately, sometimes with a two-week lag. So Cedi Watch is the most important number we track, even when it sits still for days at a time. Bank of Ghana publishes the official interbank rate daily at 11:30 GMT. Forex bureaus quote retail rates that diverge from interbank by 1.5–3% depending on demand. We track both, because they tell different stories: BoG is what the central bank thinks the cedi is worth; bureaus are what actual Ghanaians are paying to buy dollars today. ### Reading the 30-day trend A 1% weekly move barely registers; a 5% monthly move reshapes household budgets in West Hills, East Legon and Spintex alike. The chart above defaults to 30 days because that's the window where the cedi's direction becomes legible. Shorter windows are noise (a Wednesday BoG auction can swing things 0.3% intraday). Longer windows hide what's happening right now. When the line trends down (cedi strengthening), importers exhale and tomato prices ease at Makola. When it trends up, expect data bundles to be repriced within six weeks and Pent hostel fees to climb the following August. ### The bureau spread is a vibe check Compare the BoG midrate to the best forex bureau quote in any given week. When the spread sits below 1.5%, the market is calm — supply matches demand and bureaus aren't hoarding. When the spread blows past 4%, it's a tell: importers are scrambling for dollars, bureaus are rationing, and the official rate is lagging reality. Today the spread sits at 4.6% (GHS 11.85 BoG vs GHS 12.40 bureau sell) — the widest reading since the spring 2024 crisis. It's a clear signal that the cedi has further to fall before retail pressure eases, and that BoG's $1.2 billion monthly intervention is meeting strong headwinds. Watch for the spread to narrow back below 3% before declaring the pressure over. ### What actually moves the cedi The cedi's July recovery has stalled. After strengthening to around ₵11.34 on 3 July — the strongest point of the rebound from June's ₵11.85 — it has drifted back to roughly ₵11.50–11.55. Over the most recent fuel pricing window it depreciated about 0.55%, moving from ₵11.4333 to ₵11.4970, and Bank of Ghana's published rates for mid-July showed the cedi weakening slightly against the dollar, pound and euro. This is not a return to the spring slide: the cedi is still about 2.8% stronger than it was thirty days ago, helped by Bank of Ghana's $1.2 billion monthly FX support and the earlier fall in energy-import demand. But the easy gains are behind it. That 0.55% depreciation matters beyond the exchange rate itself — it is one of the reasons pump prices rose on 16 July, because Ghana's fuel importers settle in dollars and a weaker cedi lifts the cedi cost of every litre. The policy rate held at 14.0%. Watch whether the mild reversal deepens or the cedi settles into the ₵11.45–11.55 range. By August the question stopped being academic. The Bank of Ghana's July Summary of Economic and Financial Data puts the cedi 9.5% weaker against the dollar since the start of the year, and our own series — which begins in March at ₵10.80 — has it at ₵11.69. That slide is not confined to this page. Across the fuel pricing window that ended on 31 July the cedi gave up 1.41%, and when the National Petroleum Authority set the August window it raised the petrol floor 9.4% and the diesel floor 18.3%, the largest adjustment of the year. Two forces did that: Brent crude rose 23% on renewed US-Iran tension, and every dollar of it had to be bought with a weaker cedi. If you want to know why a tank costs what it costs this month, half the answer is on this page and half is on the fuel one. ### How we source the data Cedi midrates come from the Bank of Ghana's daily Interbank Exchange Rate publication, scraped at 11:45 GMT each weekday. Bureau quotes are sampled from five locations across Accra — Forex Bureau Limited in Osu, Mira Forex in Cantonments, Cosmos Forex in Adabraka, Mac Forex in Tema, and Royal Forex in East Legon — refreshed weekly. Cross-currency rates (EUR, GBP, NGN, CFA, CNY) are derived from BoG via open.er-api.com daily. Historical depth on this page is 30 days; the full archive (which we hold back from the chart for clarity) extends to 2018. ### Forex bureaus versus banks You can change dollars at a Ghanaian commercial bank — GCB, Stanbic, Ecobank, all of them — but you'll typically get 1.5–2% worse than a licensed forex bureau on amounts under $5,000. Banks build a wider margin into their published rates. Forex bureaus are regulated by Bank of Ghana, must display their daily buy/sell rates publicly, and are concentrated in five neighborhoods: Osu, Adabraka, Cantonments, Tema, and East Legon. For amounts above $10,000 negotiate directly with a branch manager; banks will sharpen pencils. ### Common mistakes when reading the cedi Three to flag. Don't confuse the BoG midrate with what bureaus quote — the midrate is an average of the previous day's interbank trades; bureaus quote forward-looking. Don't assume the parallel market and the bureau market are the same thing — parallel is unregulated, bureaus are licensed. And don't average BoG and bureau rates to get a "true" rate; they're different products with different liquidity. Use the BoG rate for accounting, the bureau rate for actual transactions. ### Methodology All rates quoted are GHS per unit of foreign currency (₵11.24 means one US dollar buys ₵11.24, or equivalently one cedi buys $0.089). Daily change is computed against the previous trading day's BoG midrate. Weekly and monthly changes use closing rates from the corresponding day-of-week. Bureau spread is calculated as (max sell − min buy) ÷ midrate, expressed as a percentage. All times are GMT (Ghana doesn't observe daylight saving). --- ## Fuel today ### Current snapshot - **Star Oil cheapest at ₵14.53/L petrol** — at the NPA floor, priced 4 August - **₵726.50 to fill a 50L Corolla at the cheapest OMC** — 50L at Star Oil ₵14.53/L — was ₵664 against a July price that is no longer legal - **diesel floor is ₵0.44/L above petrol** — petrol ₵14.53, diesel ₵14.97 after the ₵2.00 diesel margin relief of 4 August - **next NPA window opens 16 August** — the revised August window runs 4–15 August - **spread cheapest to dearest: ₵1.46/L** — Star Oil ₵14.53 to GOIL ₵15.99 — the two OMCs currently sourceable ### Why fuel prices matter beyond the pump A 50 pesewa move at the pump rewrites the cost of everything that travels by road, which in Ghana is most things. Trotro fares lag fuel by roughly one NPA pricing window. Following the August floor increases the GPRTU has asked the Transport Minister to approve higher fares; nothing has been approved yet, so the fares on this site have not moved. Tomato prices at Makola track diesel because trucks from the Volta and Eastern regions are the supply chain, and a diesel move shows up in the market within weeks rather than days. The same mechanism reaches hostel fees, delivery charges and the cost of running a generator through an ECG outage. This is why the floor and the pump are reported separately here. The floor is what the regulator sets; the pump is what you pay; and since OMCs began repricing inside the window, the distance between those two numbers changes faster than the window does. ### How OMCs set their prices The National Petroleum Authority publishes a minimum ex-pump price every two weeks — a floor, not a ceiling. It is the least an Oil Marketing Company may charge, and it deliberately excludes the premiums charged by international trading companies, the margins of bulk distributors, and each OMC's own marketer and dealer margins. Those are set by the companies themselves, which is why every pump in Ghana sits above the floor, and why the gap between them is where competition actually happens. The floor this window is {{petrol-floor}} for petrol and {{diesel-floor}} for diesel. This page said the opposite until August 2026 — that the NPA figure was a ceiling OMCs could not exceed. That was wrong, and the data had been contradicting it for months: in the second July window the published figure was ₵13.28 while observed pumps ran from ₵13.28 to ₵14.52, with the cheapest sitting exactly on the number rather than beneath it. Star Oil, Allied Oil and Frimps are the value players, pricing at or near the floor. Goil carries the state-owned network and the widest coverage. Shell and TotalEnergies price a brand premium on petrol and discount diesel for fleet contracts. Puma sits in the middle. ### Reading the OMC comparison bars The chart above shows petrol across the OMCs we can currently price, cheapest first. The green bar is {{cheapest-omc}} at {{cheapest-petrol}}. Each bar carries its own observation date, because OMCs no longer reprice together and a single date for the page would claim a check we did not make. Watch the gap between the leader and the field. Under 10 pesewas, competition is tight and the cheapest OMC is barely beating the rest. Above 30 pesewas, the leader has made a deliberate decision — usually inventory to move, or market share to take before the next window. A station appears here only if its last observed price is at or above the current floor. A price below the floor is not merely out of date: it cannot legally be charged, so we withhold it and say which stations are missing rather than render it as live. {{shown-count}} of the {{tracked-count}} OMCs we track are publishable today. ### How NPA windows actually work NPA reviews global product prices, the cedi-dollar rate and supply costs on the 1st and 16th of each month, then publishes minimum ex-pump prices for the following 14–15 days. The window we are in now opened {{window-start}} and closes {{window-end}}; the next opens {{next-window}}. The window is no longer the unit of change it once was. It sets the floor, and the floor moves fortnightly — but pumps move whenever an OMC replenishes stock. Most OMCs now buy on daily cash-and-carry terms, so each new consignment is priced at that day's international product price and that day's cedi rate. GOIL repriced three times in the week of 29 July alone: 29 July, 1 August, then again on 4 August. Read the window as the boundary of what is legal, not as a timetable for what you will pay. Government can also move the floor from inside a window. On 4 August 2026 it cut the regulatory margin on diesel by ₵2.00 per litre for one month, and NPA republished the floors for a shortened 4–15 August window. The world price had not moved; the margin had. ### Which OMC is best near you Coverage is not uniform across Greater Accra. Goil has the densest network, with stations in every district. Star Oil is strong in Madina, Adenta and Spintex. Shell concentrates on the Spintex and East Legon corridors. TotalEnergies is the default along the N1 and the Tema motorway. Allied Oil and Frimps run single-digit station counts in Accra but compete hard on price where they exist. The practical rule has not changed: the value players are worth a detour if one is roughly on your route, and not if it is not — a 20-minute drive across Accra to save a few pesewas a litre spends more fuel than it saves. ### Diesel is a different story Diesel is the number to watch this window. On 1 August the NPA lifted the diesel floor 18.3%, to ₵16.97, against petrol's 9.4% rise to ₵14.53. Crude explains only part of it: Brent rose 23% over the window, but the diesel FOB benchmark rose 24.84%, from $974.40 to $1,216.45 a tonne, because refinery margins and regional demand — not crude alone — set what Ghana pays for the refined product. A 1.41% weaker cedi added to both. Then the government intervened. On 4 August it cut the regulatory margin on diesel by ₵2.00 per litre for one month, and NPA republished the floors for a shortened window: diesel {{diesel-floor}}, petrol unchanged at {{petrol-floor}}. There is no matching relief on petrol. Star Oil passed the full ₵2.00 through the same day, taking its diesel from ₵18.97 to ₵16.97; GOIL's went from ₵19.26 to ₵17.26. The distinction matters beyond the forecourt. Diesel is what moves goods: the trotro fleet, the trucks bringing tomatoes down from the Volta and Eastern regions, and the generators covering ECG outages all run on it. Petrol is mostly private cars. An 18.3% diesel rise reaches food and fare prices within weeks, and a one-month margin cut delays that pass-through rather than cancelling it — the underlying world price has not moved. ### Tank fill calculator: what it costs to fill up A Toyota Corolla holds 50 litres; a Hilux holds 80; a typical 4-cylinder sedan around 55. At the cheapest petrol we can currently source — {{cheapest-omc}} at {{cheapest-petrol}} per litre — a full Corolla tank is {{corolla-fill}}. The calculator below takes your own tank size and shows what each OMC costs to fill. ### Methodology Pump prices are collected per OMC and each carries the date it was observed rather than one date for the page. OMCs reprice independently and inside the window, so a shared sample date would assert eight checks made on one day. Our best evidence is a photograph of the station's own price board, dated. That is the primary artefact rather than a report of one, so a photographed board outranks a scraped or published figure for the same station on the same date, and the table marks which rows came from one. Where a board names a branded grade — Super XP, FuelSave — we record the grade and show it beside the price, because ranking a premium product against plain Super without saying so prices a station dearer on something the reader was never comparing. Where the observation was at a named station rather than chain-wide, we name the station: "GOIL Dome" is what was seen, and "GOIL" would be an inference from it. A price is published only if it is at or above the current NPA floor. Where our most recent observation for an OMC has fallen below the floor, that row is withheld and named at the top of the page with the date it was last seen. That is also the honest answer to why coverage is partial: we publish what we can actually see, and say plainly which stations we have not looked at recently. --- ## Data deals ### Current snapshot - **26 bundles tracked** — across MTN, Telecel, and AT - **best monthly value: GHS 1.00/GB** — MTN 50GB at GHS 50 - **last major price reform: 1 July 2025** — mandated 10 to 15% reductions - **value spread of 240% between best and worst** — MTN vs AT monthly - **worst monthly value: GHS 3.40/GB** — AT BigTime monthly bundles ### Why mobile data is the most regulated price in Ghana Every Ghanaian buys data every month. The average user goes through 6–10GB and pays between ₵40 and ₵400 depending on which network and bundle they choose. That's a 10x spread on an identical commodity — pure bandwidth, indistinguishable between providers — which is why the government has intervened in this market more than any other consumer pricing decision in Ghana. Bundle prices are set by MTN, Telecel, and AT but reviewed by the National Communications Authority quarterly. When the NCA disapproves, prices get rolled back, sometimes retroactively. The result is a market where prices change four times a year on fixed dates, then stay locked. We track every bundle from every network across these windows. ### What changed in July 2025 July 2025 was a structural moment. Government mandated a 10–15% reduction in retail bundle prices across all three networks, citing the need to make data affordable for students and small businesses. MTN responded with the 214GB monthly bundle at ₵399 — the floor that defines today's value benchmark at ₵1.86 per gigabyte. Telecel and AT followed with their own restructured bundles two weeks later, though both came in 23% and 41% more expensive per gigabyte respectively. The reform also introduced mandatory non-expiry options across all three networks, which was a quiet revolution: previously, unused data simply vanished at month's end. ### How we calculate value rank Every bundle on this page is ranked by cedi-per-gigabyte. That's the simplest possible comparison and the one that matters for 90% of users. But there are two caveats. First, validity period matters: a daily bundle at ₵0.50/GB is not directly comparable to a monthly bundle at ₵2/GB, because the daily bundle expires unused. Second, network coverage matters — MTN's ₵1.86/GB is the best value, but if you can't get MTN signal where you live, Telecel's ₵2.42/GB is the real choice. The value rank below filters by bundle type so you're comparing like with like. Daily against daily, monthly against monthly. ### Who wins in each bundle type In monthly bundles, MTN has held the value lead since July 2025 and shows no signs of giving it up. Their 214GB and 425GB packages are simply unmatched on cedi-per-gigabyte. Telecel competes hardest in the weekly tier and the night-only bundles, where their pricing is genuinely competitive — sometimes 5–10% cheaper than MTN equivalents. AT, the weakest of the three on pure value, wins on one specific axis: their social-only bundles (WhatsApp + Facebook only, no general internet) are the cheapest in the country at around ₵0.30/GB equivalent. For users who genuinely only need messaging, AT's social packs are unbeatable. ### The non-expiry trap Non-expiry bundles look like a free upgrade — pay the same monthly price, keep what you don't use. In practice they're usually 15–25% more expensive per gigabyte than their expiring equivalents. The math works out for heavy users who genuinely consume 80%+ of their bundle; it punishes anyone who buys "just in case." A typical user paying for non-expiry effectively burns ₵30–₵80/month on insurance they don't need. Read the fine print: most non-expiry plans cap rollover at 3–6 months anyway, after which unused data still disappears. The honest non-expiry option that holds data indefinitely is rare and even more expensive. ### How to actually choose a bundle Three questions, in this order. First, how much data do you actually use? If you don't know, check your last three months of usage in your network's app — most people overestimate by 40%. Second, on which network do you have the best signal at home and at work? This is non-negotiable; the cheapest bundle is worthless if you can't use it. Third, do you need flexibility (daily/weekly) or commitment (monthly/quarterly)? Monthly bundles win on pure value but lock you in. The budget calculator below lets you plug in your usage and see exactly which bundle minimizes your cost across all three networks. ### When to buy fibre broadband instead For households using more than 200GB per month, mobile bundles stop making sense. At MTN's best rate of ₵1.86/GB, 200GB costs ₵372/month. A Vodafone Fiber 100Mbps unlimited plan costs ₵499/month with no cap. Above 250GB monthly usage, fibre is cheaper. Below 100GB, mobile wins on flexibility and lower commitment. The middle range (100–200GB) is the genuinely difficult call — depends on whether the household has 3+ heavy users (favours fibre) or one heavy user plus light users (favours mobile). Fibre is currently only available in Accra Metro, Tema, and parts of East Legon. Outside those areas, mobile is your only practical option. ### Methodology Bundle prices are scraped weekly from MTN, Telecel, and AT official websites and app product pages. We track 26 active bundles across the three networks, covering daily, weekly, monthly, non-expiry, social-only, and broadband tiers. Cedi-per-gigabyte values are pre-computed at ingest. Bundles introduced or withdrawn mid-quarter are flagged in the history table. Coverage maps and signal-quality data are not yet tracked (Stage 3). All prices in GHS, current as of the snapshot date displayed at top of page. NCA-mandated changes are flagged in the history view. --- ## Rent across Greater Accra ### Current snapshot - **cheapest 2BR: Amasaman at GHS 1,800** — affordable western ring — longer commute to the CBD - **Madina rising fastest at 8.3% over 30d** — rents are the #2 inflation contributor at 8.4% of June headline - **only 2 prime neighborhoods flat this month** — East Legon and Cantonments — others moved - **mid 2BR median: GHS 4,650** — across 18 cedi-quoted areas - **outer 2BR median: GHS 2,700** — across 14 outer areas - **prime 2BR median: USD 1,300** — across 13 dollar-quoted neighborhoods ### Where Accra rent stands today Greater Accra's rental market splits cleanly into three layers, and widening the tracker to 45 neighborhoods only sharpens the picture. The prime layer — East Legon, Cantonments, Airport Residential, Labone, Ridge, Roman Ridge, Dzorwulu, Abelemkpe, plus the dollarised extension of Adjiringanor, East Airport, Airport Hills, Airport West and Shiashie — is dollar-denominated. A 2-bedroom here ranges from $1,150 to $1,800 monthly, usually paid a full year in advance. This is where expatriates, multinationals, and the upper-middle class live. The mid layer — Spintex, Tema Community 1, Dansoman, Achimota and the university corridor of West Legon, North Legon and Haatso — is cedi-denominated, roughly ₵3,800 to ₵6,500 for a 2BR, with one-year prepayment still standard. The outer ring — Kasoa, Madina, Adenta, Ashaley Botwe and the fast-growing corridors of Oyarifa, Kwabenya, Ashongman and Pokuase — runs ₵1,800 to ₵3,200 for a 2BR, sometimes with only six months up front. East Legon Hills sits between mid and outer: cedi-quoted built homes, but appreciating like a frontier. Each layer behaves differently. ### Why landlords demand a year upfront Ghanaian rental law technically caps advance rent at six months, but the prime market routinely demands twelve. The reason isn't legal — it's currency hedging. A landlord who collects a year of rent in dollars or cedis at January's rate carries no cedi-depreciation risk for the next twelve months. Tenants who can pay annually get the better units; tenants who push for six months get the worse units, the older buildings, and the more demanding landlords. For dollar-denominated tenants this matters less because dollar rent indexed in dollars carries no cedi exposure. For cedi-denominated tenants paying ₵4,500/month, fronting ₵54,000 in January when the cedi might weaken 15% by December is a meaningful financial decision. ### Which neighborhoods are heating up Spintex is the fastest-rising neighborhood in our 30-day window at +3.4% week-over-week and +6.2% over 30 days. Its rise is driven by the Tema motorway extension, faster commute times to the airport, and the steady flow of corporate relocations from Tema to Spintex over the past 18 months. East Legon prime is up 2.1% w/w but only 4.8% over 30 days — climbing steadily rather than accelerating. Labone is up 2.5% over the month, mostly on new high-end developments. Cantonments and Airport Residential are flat, which historically means they're close to a price ceiling that the market won't cross without a macro catalyst. The outer ring (Kasoa, Madina) is rising at single digits, tracking general cedi inflation rather than market demand. ### The dollar trap (and why most tenants fall into it) Paying rent in dollars feels safer for tenants because the amount looks stable. But "stable in dollars" means rising in cedi terms — and most tenants earn in cedis. A $1,400 East Legon 2BR cost ₵14,140 in May 2025 at ₵10.10 to the dollar; it costs ₵15,736 today at ₵11.24. Same rent in dollars, ₵1,596 more per month in cedis. Over a year that's ₵19,000 of effective rent increase invisible to anyone tracking only the dollar figure. The honest comparison between two neighborhoods needs both currencies converted to one base — we always show both on the explorer below. ### Where Accra is expanding The most interesting rent story in 2026 isn't in the prime belt — it's on the roads leading out of it. Four corridors are pulling demand outward. The Accra-Aburi road has turned Oyarifa into one of the fastest-appreciating budget areas, where a 2BR still sits near ₵3,200. The ACP Mall corridor through Pokuase and Amasaman anchors the government's affordable-housing pipeline, with 2BRs starting around ₵1,800 to ₵2,000. Community 25 in Tema is absorbing port-worker and young-family demand as Tema's older communities fill up. And East Legon Hills — technically mid-market, functionally a frontier — is appreciating fastest of all on the strength of the road that named it. The trade-off never changes: every ₵1,000 you save on rent out here you pay back in commute time to the CBD. For buyers rather than renters, the same corridors surface in our sale-price and build-cost data — the land is cheaper precisely because the infrastructure is still arriving. We've begun tracking all four; with only a first snapshot each, we're reporting levels, not yet trends. ### Why we anchor on 2-bedroom prices The 2-bedroom is the most-rented unit type in Greater Accra and the cleanest comparison point across neighborhoods. 1-bedroom inventory is dominated by studio conversions and serviced apartments that aren't price-comparable. 3- and 4-bedroom inventory is dominated by family homes where price is driven by lot size and amenities, not by neighborhood per se. The 2-bedroom is where neighborhood premium shows up cleanly. When you see East Legon 2BR at $1,400 and Spintex 2BR at ₵4,500, you're seeing what each neighborhood actually charges for the same product, controlled for size. ### Rent is cheap until you factor in commute A Madina 2BR at ₵2,400/month looks like 40% of an East Legon 2BR at ₵15,700/month. But if the Madina tenant drives to Airport City for work — 18km, typically 45 minutes each way in traffic, twice a day — that's ₵1,800/month in fuel and trotro fares depending on the mode. Add 22 hours per month sitting in traffic. The actual cost gap shrinks from ₵13,300/month to ₵11,500/month, and you're paying for it in time too. The commute-adjusted rent calculator below adds estimated transport cost to nominal rent and shows you the real number. East Legon and Labone often win this comparison against the outer ring, despite their headline premium. ### Where to actually find listings Three primary marketplaces in Greater Accra. MeQasa (meqasa.com) is the largest, with the deepest prime market inventory and the most accurate price displays. Ghana Property Centre (ghanapropertycentre.com) is the runner-up; weaker on prime but better on Adenta and Spintex. Jiji (jiji.com.gh) covers the budget tier most comprehensively but with the least reliable pricing — a "₵2,000 2BR" on Jiji can turn out to be ₵3,500 once you call. Facebook groups (Accra Houses For Rent, etc.) are where the genuinely best deals appear, but they require relationship-building. Anything advertised on a billboard is overpriced. ### Methodology Rent medians are aggregated weekly from listings on MeQasa, Ghana Property Centre, and Jiji, filtered for the 45 tracked neighborhoods. We exclude furnished serviced apartments, short-term lets under 90 days, and listings priced above the 95th percentile for their neighborhood (likely premium villas, not representative). Medians are computed across the qualifying listings; the displayed amount is the median. Delta percentages are week-on-week and month-on-month against the same-day-of-week last period. Currency policy: prime neighborhoods (thirteen specific areas across the Airport and East Legon belt) are quoted in USD because that's the market convention; everywhere else is quoted in GHS. Newly added neighborhoods carry a single snapshot with no week-on-week delta — we don't infer a trend from one point. --- ## Private school fees ### Current snapshot - **average fee rise of 12.4% YoY** — secondary school fees are the #3 inflation contributor at 7.2% of June headline - **15 schools tracked** — across Tiers 1, 2, and 3 - **Tier 1 median: USD 5,200 per term** — 6 elite schools - **Tier 2 median: GHS 28,000 per term** — 4 premium schools - **Tier 3 median: GHS 8,500 per term** — 5 mid schools ### Accra's private school market in four tiers Greater Accra has roughly 200 private schools serving kindergarten through senior high. They cluster into four pricing tiers that map almost perfectly to curriculum and currency. Tier 1 — six schools, all dollar-denominated, $15,000 to $35,000 per academic year — offers International Baccalaureate or American curricula, primarily to expatriate families and the wealthiest Ghanaian households. Ghana International School, Lincoln Community, American International, Galaxy International, Tema International, SOS-Hermann Gmeiner. Tier 2 — premium GHS, ₵30,000 to ₵80,000 annually — uses British or blended curricula and serves Ghana's upper-middle class. Tier 3 — mid GHS, ₵10,000 to ₵30,000 — is the bulk of the market: Methodist, Presbyterian, and large independent academies. Tier 4 is under ₵10,000 annually and serves the broad middle class. We track 15 schools across the first three tiers. ### Why school fees always rise Across all four tiers, fees rise faster than inflation. The 15 schools we track averaged a 12.4% increase between 2024-25 and 2025-26 — and the Ghana Statistical Service's May 2026 inflation breakdown puts secondary school fees as the 4th-largest contributor to national headline inflation, accounting for 9.3% of the total. Three forces drive the pattern. First, the cedi: Tier 1 schools that import textbooks, hire foreign teachers, and pay for international accreditation pass currency risk directly to fees, and the cedi just weakened 4.6% in May 2026 alone. Second, teacher wages: experienced teachers move between schools every two to three years, bidding up salaries; schools pass this through. Third, capacity constraints: prime tier schools are oversubscribed every year, which means they can raise fees without losing enrollment. A Tier 1 school with a six-year admission waitlist has no incentive to hold fees flat. ### Reading the tier ladder The diagram above shows the four tiers as ladder rungs with the horizontal extent of each rung representing the fee range within that tier. Tier 1 is short and high — six schools clustered in a narrow $15,000–$35,000 band. Tier 2 is wider, more diffuse — pricing spread varies more across the four schools. Tier 3 is the widest of all, because "mid" covers everything from solid academic schools at the top end to barely-private schools at the bottom. Tier 4 is the broadest and lowest, with the most schools we don't track yet. The horizontal width tells you how much price variation exists within a tier; the vertical position tells you the absolute level. ### Annual fee is not the real cost The annual fee posted by a school is roughly 65–75% of what you'll actually pay over the year. Add capitation/development levy ($500–$2,000 in Tier 1, ₵1,500–₵5,000 in Tier 2–3), books and stationery (₵800–₵4,000 depending on stage), uniforms (₵1,200–₵3,500 for the first set), school transport if used (₵800–₵2,000/month), lunch (₵400–₵1,200/month), and extracurricular activity fees (variable, ₵500–₵3,000/term). A Tier 2 school advertising ₵35,000 annual fee actually costs a family closer to ₵52,000 once everything is factored. Tier 1 ratios are even steeper in absolute dollars. Always ask for the "all-in" fee structure before committing — most schools will provide it on request. ### Curriculum: which one and why Four curricula compete in Accra. British (IGCSE/A-Level) is the most established and the most portable — A-Level credentials get recognized everywhere. American (AP/SAT) is dominant at the international tier and increasingly popular among Ghanaian families targeting US university admission. International Baccalaureate (IB) is the academic prestige choice; only three schools offer the full Diploma Programme in Greater Accra. Ghanaian (WAEC) is universally available and the cheapest path; it's also the only path for university admission to public Ghanaian universities like Legon or KNUST. Most Tier 2/3 schools offer "blended" — Ghanaian curriculum supplemented with British-style methodology. The right choice depends almost entirely on where you intend your child to attend university. ### When to apply Tier 1 schools open admissions in August/September for the following September. The genuinely oversubscribed ones (GIS, Lincoln, AIS, Galaxy) often have six-year waitlists for Reception and Year 1 — if you're thinking about a Tier 1 school for a future child, register interest before the child is born. Sibling priority typically guarantees admission, but the eldest child has to make it in first. Tier 2 schools are more accessible but the better ones still require applications 12 months ahead. Tier 3 schools generally have rolling admissions and accept applicants within weeks. SHS-stage admissions across all tiers are tighter than KG/Primary; transitioning a child mid-stage from a Tier 2 school to a Tier 1 SHS is the hardest application path in the system. ### Boarding versus day About 30% of the schools we track offer boarding, all of them in Tier 2 or below. Tier 1 schools are exclusively day schools — expatriate families don't board, and the academic intensity is built around home-supported study. Boarding fees typically add ₵15,000–₵30,000 annually for full board to the day-school baseline; weekly boarding (Sunday night through Friday) is ₵8,000–₵18,000 less. Boarding makes economic sense for families outside Greater Accra: the alternative is daily transport from Cape Coast or Kumasi, which doesn't work. For Greater Accra families, boarding is usually a parenting choice rather than a logistical one — and an expensive one at scale. ### Methodology We track 15 schools across Tiers 1–3 in Greater Accra. Schools are included based on having published, verifiable fee structures and being at minimum 10 years old (filtering out brand-new and unstable institutions). Fees are confirmed annually in August/September from school websites, admissions offices by direct request, and Ghana Education Service registries. Where a school publishes a fee range (e.g., $4,800–$8,500), we display the range; the median is computed against the midpoint. Year-over-year deltas compare the current academic year's fee against the same stage and currency in the prior year. Tier 4 schools are not currently tracked; expansion to ~50 mid-tier and budget schools is planned for Stage 3. --- ## Market prices ### Current snapshot - **month-on-month inflation slowed to 0.2%** — down from 1.1% in May — pace easing even as annual rises - **Makola basket: ₵532** — verified 18 July; June CPI 5.3% still the macro read, July CPI publishes early August - **Bus and trotro fares are the top inflation contributor** — 10.5% of headline — the June GPRTU increase flowing through - **Inflation 5.3% year-on-year** — June 2026, Ghana Statistical Service — the benchmark savings returns are measured against - **11 markets tracked** — across Greater Accra ### Why we track a 10-staple basket in Accra Every household in Greater Accra buys roughly the same 10 items each week — rice, palm oil, tomato, plantain, yam, onion, eggs, fish, chicken, bread. The combined cost of those 10 items is the basket, anchored at Makola, Accra's central retail market. We are widening the panel to compare the same basket across Madina, Kaneshie, Agbogbloshie and the other major markets, so each week shows every market that reports the complete basket. The basket total is the cleanest single number we have for everyday cost of living in Greater Accra — more honest than national CPI because it is sampled at the markets where Accra actually shops, not at the supermarkets where the upper middle class shops. ### Why tomato leads the basket Ghana's headline inflation rose to 5.3% year-on-year in June 2026, up from 3.7% in May — the third consecutive monthly increase, though still less than half the 13.7% recorded a year earlier. The nuance matters: month-on-month inflation actually SLOWED to 0.2% from 1.1%, so the pace of price increases is easing even as the annual figure rises. The rise is driven by lagging non-food effects rather than fresh food shocks. The biggest contributors, per the Ghana Statistical Service, are bus and trotro fares (10.5% of the headline rate — the June GPRTU 20% increase now flowing through the CPI), rents (8.4%), and secondary school fees (7.2%). Food inflation edged up more modestly to 3.9% from 3.3%, with ginger, river fish, cooked rice, tomatoes, and yam the main movers. Tomato, which spiked earlier in the year, has since retreated into its June–July southern-harvest season as supply improved. Non-food inflation at 6.3% now accounts for 68.5% of the headline number. The takeaway: the disinflation trend since the 2025 peak hasn't reversed, but the transport and housing cost increases of the spring are working through the system with the expected lag. ### Why Makola is cheaper than Tema The same 10 items can cost ₵470 at Agbogbloshie wholesale, ₵521 at Makola retail, and ₵610 at the supermarket strip in East Legon. Three forces drive the spread. First, wholesale-vs-retail: Agbogbloshie sources directly from the Northern, Volta and Eastern Region farms, then breaks bulk for retailers. Second, distance from the supply chain: markets close to the wholesale terminals (Agbogbloshie, Mallam Atta, Madina) have cheaper produce; markets in the consumption zones (Osu, East Legon, Cantonments) carry a 10–25% premium. Third, demand mix: markets that serve professional buyers (chop bars, hotels) often have negotiated prices that retail walk-ins can't access. ### Reading the weekly basket move Single-week basket moves of under 2% are noise. Anything between 2% and 5% is signal — usually tied to a fuel pricing window or a weather event. Above 5% is a structural shift — currency, government policy, or regional supply chain. The May 2026 weekly moves clustered around 1.5–2.2%, with the big move coming in the monthly aggregate as tomato surged on Burkina Faso supply pressure. Comparing this week's move to the four-week running average tells you whether you're in a noise period or a trend period. ### How the cedi shows up in your shopping bill Roughly 40% of the basket by value is imported or has imported inputs — rice (Vietnamese and Thai), palm oil (Malaysian for the bulk of supply), wheat flour for bread (Turkish and Russian), fertiliser-grown produce (Moroccan urea). When the cedi weakened 4.6% in May, those import-heavy items rose 2.5–4% within four weeks. The pass-through isn't one-for-one because traders smooth the rise across cycles, but the direction is reliable. A weaker cedi today = a heavier basket bill within a month. ### How fuel shows up in your shopping bill Diesel is the freight cost of moving produce from Volta and Eastern Region farms to Greater Accra markets. When diesel moved past ₵17/L in June 2026, basket prices for produce items (tomato, plantain, yam, onion) ticked up 2–4 percentage points beyond what the cedi alone would have produced. Tomato is the most diesel-sensitive item because the supply chain is the longest. Bread is the least diesel-sensitive because it's baked locally with imported flour — the inputs are dollar-sensitive but the trucking leg is short. ### How we sample the basket Each Tuesday morning, a sampling pass visits Makola, Madina, Kaneshie, Agbogbloshie and three rotating markets. The other 4 markets are sampled Wednesday morning. At each market we price the same 10 items at consumer-scale quantities (5kg rice, 1.5L palm oil, half-crate eggs, etc.) and record the median quote across at least three sellers. Outlier quotes get dropped. The basket total is computed against the same scale for every market. The Makola figure is the most-cited because Makola is the most-visited general market in Accra; other markets are useful for triangulation. ### Methodology Basket sampling is manual, weekly, two days per week, three quotes per item per market minimum. We exclude supermarket prices entirely (different supply chain, different customer base). Item quantities are fixed to consumer-scale: 5kg rice, 1.5L palm oil, 1kg tomato, 1 bunch plantain, 1 large yam tuber, 1kg onion, half-crate eggs (15), 1kg tilapia, 1kg chicken, 1 loaf bread. The basket total is the simple sum across the 10 items at each market on each sampling date. --- ## ECG tariffs ### Current snapshot - **average residential bill: GHS 402/month** — typical 250 kWh household — lifeline + low band - **Residential 0-300 kWh band: GHS 1.91/kWh** — most household electricity falls into this tier - **EV charging tariff: GHS 2.02/kWh** — introduced April 2026 — Ghana's first dedicated EV rate - **last PURC review: 1 April 2026** — 4.81% average reduction across bands - **next PURC review: 1 July 2026** — analysts expect adjustment given cedi pressure ### The three-band residential ladder ECG residential tariffs follow a three-band ladder under PURC's 2026–2030 Multi-Year Tariff Order. Lifeline (0–30 kWh/month) at ₵0.8413/kWh is heavily subsidized for the lowest-consumption households. The standard residential band (0–300 kWh) at ₵1.9059/kWh is where the majority of Greater Accra households land — apartments, small homes, low-AC use. Above 301 kWh, the high-residential band at ₵2.5183/kWh kicks in — multi-AC houses, electric water heaters, swimming pools. The structure is progressive: each kWh in a higher band costs more than the same kWh in a lower band. Your monthly bill is the sum of how much fell into each band, not all kWh times your top band's rate. That distinction matters: a household using 400 kWh pays at three rates simultaneously, not one. PURC introduced a dedicated EV charging tariff at ₵2.0160/kWh effective April 2026 — the first time Ghana has had a separate utility tariff for electric vehicle charging. ### How PURC adjusts tariffs The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission reviews electricity tariffs every quarter. The current PURC schedule is set under the 2026–2030 Multi-Year Tariff Order, which projected an annual average increase of 9.86% across the 5-year period to fund GRIDCo and ECG operational and capital needs. The actual quarterly adjustments respond to fuel cost, the cedi exchange rate, hydro vs thermal generation mix, and operational expenses. In Q1 2026, PURC implemented a 9.86% tariff rise effective 1 January — the first major increase under the new tariff order. In Q2 2026 (effective 1 April), PURC reduced tariffs by an average of 4.81%, citing improved macroeconomic conditions. The Q3 2026 review is scheduled for 1 July; given the cedi's 4.6% May depreciation and Middle East energy pressures, analysts expect an upward adjustment. ### How to read your ECG bill Your monthly ECG bill has three components and several add-ons. The energy charge is the sum across the three residential bands — the first 30 kWh at ₵0.8413, the next 270 kWh at ₵1.9059, anything above 300 kWh at ₵2.5183. Then VAT at 12.5%, the National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) at 2.5%, the GETFund Levy at 2.5%, the ECG Tariff Adjustment Levy at 2.5%, and the Energy Sector Recovery Levy at ₵0.20/kWh. The total of these levies adds 25–30% to the energy charge for a typical household. Finally a fixed service charge of ₵10–15/month. A 250 kWh household lands around ₵402/month all-in. ### When to expect dumsor Dumsor — Ghana's term for rolling blackouts — clusters around three risk windows. First, the dry season (October–March) when Akosombo and Bui hydro generation drops by 30–40%, forcing more expensive thermal generation. Second, peak-demand evenings (6pm–10pm) when air-conditioning load surges in Accra. Third, infrastructure events — a tripped transmission line, a substation fault, a generation plant outage. The Q1 2026 outages were mainly hydro-driven (Volta water levels low); Q2 has been calmer with the rains returning. Watch the Bui and Akosombo reservoir levels — published weekly by Volta River Authority — as the leading indicator of dry-season risk. ### When solar pays back A 5kW residential solar system in Accra costs roughly ₵55,000–₵75,000 installed (June 2026 prices) depending on battery configuration. At the standard 0–300 kWh tariff of ₵1.9059/kWh, generating 600 kWh/month at home saves roughly ₵1,140/month on the energy charge plus levies — call it ₵1,500/month all-in. That puts the payback period at 3.5–4.5 years for a moderately-sized system, faster if your usage pushes you into the high band where you'd otherwise pay ₵2.5183/kWh. Solar makes the strongest financial case for households consistently consuming above 400 kWh/month or in regions with frequent dumsor where the alternative is generator fuel. ### How appliances stack up A modern 1HP split AC running 8 hours a day pulls about 6 kWh — ₵11–14/day on the energy charge alone. Two ACs running 8 hours a day puts a household squarely in the 301+ kWh band, where every additional kWh costs ₵2.52 vs ₵1.91 in the standard band. An LED light bulb at 10W runs for 100 hours on 1 kWh — negligible. A fridge averages 1–1.5 kWh/day. A water heater is the silent killer at 4–6 kWh per shower if it's an electric instant heater. If your bill seems high, it's almost always AC and water heating; lighting and small appliances barely move the needle. ### How to pay your bill ECG offers post-paid and prepaid metering. Post-paid is monthly billing, paid via Momo (MTN, Telecel, AT), bank transfer, or at any ECG payment centre. Prepaid is meter-top-up via the same channels — buy credit, the meter draws from the balance. Prepaid is cheaper because there's no service charge debt accumulation, and you can't accidentally run a bill you can't pay. ECG Power app handles both. If you're a tenant in a prime neighborhood, your landlord is probably billing the meter directly; verify before signing. ### Methodology Tariff rates are sourced from PURC quarterly publications and ECG bill validation. Band definitions and rate structures follow PURC's 2026–2030 Multi-Year Tariff Order. Average household bill estimates assume the published statutory levy stack (VAT + NHIL + GETFund + ECG levy + Energy Sector Recovery + fixed service charge). Solar payback estimates use mid-2026 installed prices for residential systems in Accra; actual prices vary by installer and configuration. Dumsor risk analysis pulls Bui Power Authority and Volta River Authority published reservoir levels. --- ## Trotro fares ### Current snapshot - **cheapest route: Circle to Kaneshie at GHS 3.60** — short cross-town hop — up 20% post-June 2 - **fares now in line with current NPA window** — June 2 adjustment caught fares up to fuel - **last GPRTU adjustment: 2 June 2026** — unchanged since June 2 GPRTU increase — now the #1 inflation contributor at 10.5% of headline - **longest route: Tema to Madina at GHS 14.40** — 28 km via motorway — up 20% post-June 2 - **15 routes on the homepage** — 80+ tracked across the network ### Why trotro fares are everyone's number The trotro is how Accra moves. 80% of Greater Accra's daily commuters take at least one trotro segment to get to work, school, or market. When the GPRTU adjusts fares — as it did 20% nationwide on 2 June 2026 — it's the single biggest cost-of-living event most households will see this year, ahead of fuel-price moves and ahead of food-price moves. The fare is set per route by the union, posted at the lorry station, and the conductor (mate) collects the exact amount. Fare structure is not negotiable; if a route is set at ₵6.60, every passenger pays ₵6.60 regardless of luggage, time of day, or weather. ### How trotro fares track fuel Trotro fares track petrol prices with a 2 to 4 week lag, but the May 2026 fare adjustment broke the pattern. When NPA's window moved petrol from ₵14.60 to ₵15.20 in the late-May review and diesel surged past ₵17 — partly due to the government removing petrol-side intervention while reducing diesel subsidy — GPRTU went straight to a 20% nationwide fare increase effective 2 June 2026. The lag exists because GPRTU negotiates a flat fare schedule rather than auto-indexing — every adjustment is a discrete negotiation. The June 2 adjustment was the largest in two years and brought fares almost exactly in line with current fuel costs, leaving no immediate lag. ### Station fares vs pickup fares A trotro that fills at the lorry station charges the standard route fare. The same vehicle picking up passengers along the route from a roadside flag-down typically charges 50p–₵1 more to compensate for the partial trip. This isn't officially in the GPRTU schedule but is universally practiced. The exception is short fixed-rate hops within a neighborhood (e.g., Madina internal at ₵1.50), which are flat regardless of where you board. If the conductor's asking price seems wrong, ask another passenger — the right fare is universally known on each route. ### Three kinds of trotro routes Long-distance intercity: Circle to Madina, Tema Station to Tudu — high-volume corridor routes, mate calls "fillup" only when seats are full. Short cross-town: Adabraka to Osu, Achimota to Lapaz — mid-volume, leaves on a partial fill at the conductor's discretion. Internal neighborhood: Madina-internal, Tema Community 1-internal — flat-rate ₵1.50–₵2.50 per ride within a defined zone. The fare-per-kilometre rises sharply on the internal routes — convenience pricing for short hops where alternatives are limited. ### How GPRTU negotiates fare increases The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) is the umbrella body that sets fares for the registered private commercial transport sector. Adjustments happen when fuel prices, vehicle parts costs, or insurance premiums move materially. The union polls regional executives, drafts a proposed schedule, then negotiates with the Ministry of Transport. The agreed schedule is published and takes effect on a specified date — typically 7–14 days after announcement. Drivers who charge above the schedule get reported to the union; drivers who charge below it (rare) face peer pressure to align. The June 2026 20% adjustment followed roughly six weeks of negotiation triggered by the diesel surge. ### When sharing a taxi beats trotro A shared "dropping" taxi typically costs 2–3x the trotro fare for the same route but completes the trip in half the time. The break-even point depends on how much you value the time saved. For the Circle–Madina route, trotro is ₵6.60 and takes 45–60 minutes; a dropping taxi is ₵18–25 and takes 25 minutes. If you earn ₵40/hour or more, the taxi pays back on time saved. Ride-hail (Bolt, Yango) sits between trotro and taxi on price; closer to taxi on time. The trotro stays the default because it's walkable from where most people live and predictable. ### How we track 80+ routes We monitor 80+ registered GPRTU routes across Greater Accra. Each route has a fixed fare, an origin station, a destination station, and a typical route length. Fare changes get sampled by direct enquiry at the lorry station within 48 hours of any announced adjustment. The 15-route subset shown on the homepage is the highest-search-volume routes plus a representative cross-section of intercity, cross-town, and internal types. The full sheet is maintained internally and published on the landing page after every GPRTU adjustment. ### Methodology Fare data is sourced from GPRTU adjustments and direct station enquiry. Route definitions follow official GPRTU registry. Distance and typical travel time estimates use Google Maps with peak-hour multipliers based on Greater Accra Department of Urban Roads congestion data. Fare history (in trotro_fare_history) captures every GPRTU adjustment since 2024. Routes can have multiple fares simultaneously for different vehicle types (sprinter vs urvan vs sumo) — we publish the standard 12-seater sprinter fare unless otherwise noted. --- ## UG hostel fees ### Current snapshot - **cheapest UG hall: GHS 2,500/year** — 2025/26 academic year — current through end of June 2026; refresh due August 2026 - **priciest UG room: GHS 7,520/year** — 2025/26 academic year — current through end of June 2026; refresh due August 2026 ### University accommodation in Greater Accra Greater Accra is the heart of Ghana's university system. UG (Legon), UPSA, GIMPA, Wisconsin, Central University and Ashesi together enrol roughly 90,000 undergraduates — and most of them need accommodation. Hostels split into three categories. UGEL (University of Ghana Enterprises Limited) hostels are owned and operated by UG and rented to students at subsidised rates. Traditional halls (Legon Hall, Akuafo, Volta, Commonwealth, Mensah Sarbah) are UG's historic residences with long-running culture and lower fees. Private hostels — Pent, Valco, Bani, Aseda, ATL, and dozens of smaller — are commercially operated, more expensive, and account for the majority of supply. ### Why Pent is the benchmark Pent New (Pentagon New Hostel) is the most-cited UG hostel in any conversation about student accommodation. Three reasons. First, it's big — 1,200+ beds across the New and Old wings, the largest single hostel on UG's perimeter. Second, it's the unofficial reference price for "what a UG hostel should cost" — the 4-in-1 room at ₵6,663 for the 2025/26 year is the default in family conversations. Third, the 11.9% year-over-year increase to that ₵6,663 figure became the news story for the August 2025 fee announcement — and the focal point for the parent community's reaction to UG fee inflation. ### How room types are priced 1-in-1 (single room) is the most expensive at ₵7,500–₵11,000/year, available only at premium hostels like Valco. 2-in-1 (shared double) ranges ₵4,500–₵7,000. 4-in-1 (most common UG configuration) at the Pent and traditional halls is ₵5,500–₵6,700. Some hostels offer 5-in-1 or 6-in-1 at ₵3,500–₵4,800 — the cheapest option, mostly chosen by first-year students who don't yet have furniture or routines. Each room type comes with shared facilities (toilet, kitchen) unless explicitly self-contained. Self-contained rooms — private bathroom and kitchenette — add ₵3,000–₵5,000 to the price. ### Traditional halls vs modern hostels Traditional halls (Akuafo, Legon, Volta, Commonwealth, Mensah Sarbah) sit on the original UG campus, walking distance to lecture halls. Their fees are ₵2,500–₵3,500/year — significantly cheaper than the modern hostels. The tradeoffs: smaller rooms, older infrastructure, and intense hall culture (clubs, week-long traditions, alumni networks that follow you for life). The modern hostels (Pent, Valco, ATL, Bani) are 10–25 minute walks from lecture halls, but offer larger rooms, more reliable utilities, and a less hierarchical social structure. Most students still choose tradition for first year if they can secure a placement. ### Why hostel fees keep rising UG hostel fees have risen 8–12% annually since 2022, faster than national inflation. Three drivers. First, the cedi: hostels are operationally dollar-sensitive — diesel for generators, electricity, water, maintenance imports. Second, demand: UG enrolment has grown roughly 5% annually while hostel capacity has been flat, so demand pressure on every fee cycle. Third, deferred maintenance: many halls require capital injection that the university recovers through fees rather than from the central budget. The 2025/26 cycle saw the largest year-over-year increases in five years across the UGEL halls. ### How to apply for a hostel UGEL hostels: apply via the UG portal during the admission cycle — typically May/June for the following September. Traditional halls: apply via the UG portal but list your preferred hall; placements are competitive and weighted by academic year, gender, and (for some halls) faith affiliation. Private hostels: apply directly via the hostel's website or Facebook page. Application opens in March/April for September. Pay a non-refundable application fee of ₵100–₵300, then a deposit of 25–50% of the annual fee to hold the room. Most hostels require full payment by August 31 for a September move-in. ### Tips for first-year students First, secure a placement before you secure a room — UG sends placement letters in August; without one, you can't apply for any hostel. Second, don't over-commit to a 1-in-1: most first years find 2-in-1 or 4-in-1 more sociable and easier to budget. Third, visit before paying. Hostel websites under-show wear and tear; an in-person walkthrough reveals the actual room condition. Fourth, ask about the deposit structure — some hostels return a clean-out deposit at year-end, others don't. Fifth, factor in transport. A ₵2,500 traditional hall plus a ₵400/month motorbike ride from campus isn't cheaper than a ₵6,000 modern hostel within walking distance. ### Methodology Hostel rates are sourced from each hostel's published fee schedule and confirmed annually each August. UGEL hostel rates come from UG Office of Residence. Traditional hall rates come from UG Dean of Students. Private hostel rates come from direct website disclosure and follow-up phone enquiry where the website is out of date. The 20 hostels we currently track represent the most-searched options across UG, UPSA, GIMPA, Wisconsin, Central, and Ashesi. The full registry includes another 30+ private hostels we don't currently report on publicly. Refresh cycle: annually in August when the new academic year fee schedule is published. --- ## Property sales ### Current snapshot - **Luxury sits about 135 days** — versus 45-75 days for mid-market stock that clears at firm prices - **Accra median house price ₵1.5M** — the average of about ₵8M is skewed by luxury outliers — the median is the honest number - **Median apartment ₵16,300 per sqm** — Accra-wide, roughly $1,480 — prime runs ₵24,000-32,000, mid ₵10,000-20,000 - **Typical 8% off asking mid-market** — 10-20% achievable in the oversupplied luxury segment where sellers are motivated - **14 neighborhoods tracked** — prime USD-quoted and mid-market GHS-quoted areas across Greater Accra - **12x price gap across the city** — ₵5,000/sqm in commuter Adenta to ₵60,000/sqm in Cantonments and Airport Residential ### Why the average is a lie Three portals will quote you three wildly different numbers for the same neighborhood. Meqasa puts the average East Legon house near ₵8.75M; Ghana Property Centre says ₵1.8M; Private Property has quoted ₵640K. All three are technically correct — they are averaging different listing pools with different outlier handling. The problem is the average itself. Meqasa's East Legon average is dragged upward by a single listing near ₵197M; one trophy property can move the mean by millions while the typical home does not budge. The median — the middle listing, where half are cheaper and half dearer — is immune to that distortion. Across Accra the median house is about ₵1.5M against a mean near ₵8M. When a number sounds shocking, check whether it is a mean or a median before you trust it. On this page every headline figure is a median or a mid-band estimate, never a raw average. ### The mid-market is where the market is The single most important fact about Accra property in 2026 is that the market has bifurcated. Ownkey's Q2 2026 data shows mid-market homes — roughly $80,000 to $350,000 — absorbing in 30 to 75 days at prices sellers hold firm on. This is a seller's market: genuine demand from returning diaspora, upgrading professionals and corporate lets, against limited quality supply. Above $400,000 the picture inverts. Luxury stock sits 90 to 180 days and beyond, and buyers routinely negotiate 10 to 20% off asking where a seller is motivated. Years of developer optimism built more high-end inventory than the market can absorb, so the top is now a buyer's market with visible oversupply. The practical read: if you are buying mid-market, move decisively and expect little room on price. If you are buying luxury, take your time and negotiate hard — the leverage is yours. ### What the cedi does to dollar-quoted property Prime Accra is priced in dollars; the outer ring is priced in cedis. That split matters every time the currency moves. When the cedi weakened 4.6% in May 2026, cedi-quoted homes in Adenta, Madina and Kasoa effectively repriced for anyone earning or holding dollars, while the dollar-quoted stock in Cantonments and Airport Residential did not move in dollar terms at all. When the cedi then recovered 3.4% into July, the effect ran in reverse. For a cedi-earning buyer, a dollar-quoted house gets more expensive in local terms exactly when the currency slips — which is often the same moment household budgets are already stretched. For a dollar-earning buyer, the cedi-quoted outer ring becomes a bargain during periods of local-currency weakness. Neither portal aggregator tells you this, because they treat every listing as a static number. It is not static; it is a currency bet layered on a property bet. Watch the rate on our cedi page before you commit to a dollar-quoted purchase. ### Land, title, and the due-diligence tax A cheap plot is not cheap if the title is bad. Accra land splits into serviced, titled plots — roads, drainage, registered documents — and raw land where you carry the cost and risk of all of it. The price gap between them is widening as buyers wake up to the difference. Title risk is not evenly spread: registered enclaves like Roman Ridge, Labone and the Trasacco estate carry far lower risk than fast-selling frontier corridors such as parts of Kasoa, where multiple sales of the same parcel and unresolved family claims are a real hazard. Budget for the due-diligence tax: an independent Lands Commission search, a licensed surveyor to confirm the pillars match the indenture, and a lawyer before any money moves. On a ₵500,000 plot, a few thousand cedis of verification is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. The serviced-plot premium — often 20 to 30% over raw land — is frequently worth paying precisely because someone has already absorbed that risk. ### Buy, build, or rent The honest answer to buy-versus-rent-versus-build in Accra is that it depends on the neighborhood and the cedi, and we are one of the few places you can check all three against real data. Buying makes sense where the price-to-rent ratio is reasonable and you plan to stay long enough to clear transaction costs; Ghana's punitive mortgage rates — often 25 to 30% — mean most purchases are cash or heavy-deposit, which changes the maths entirely. Building can undercut buying on a per-square-metre basis if you already hold clean title and can manage a project without the cost creep that sinks most self-builds; the plot is only the start, and construction runs the risk. Renting stays rational wherever prime yields sit at 6 to 8% furnished — a landlord charging that is giving you the use of capital more cheaply than a mortgage would. Run your own numbers in the calculator; the right answer is personal, but the inputs should be real. ### How we source the data There is no public property transaction registry in Ghana. Every figure on this page is derived from asking prices, not recorded sales, and we would rather say so than imply a precision we do not have. We triangulate across Ownkey's Q2 2026 luxury guide (independent, methodology stated), TheAfricanvestor's 2026 housing analysis (per-square-metre by area, median-versus-average discipline), Ghana Property Centre and Meqasa (listing counts and ranges, average-based and outlier-skewed), and Imaani Homes for Airport Residential specifics. Each row carries a confidence badge: verified where a named source publishes the figure directly, triangulated where two or more independent sources agree within a band, and indicative where we have a single source or a reasoned interpolation. Where a source gave only an average we discounted toward the low end, because Accra listing averages are inflated by trophy outliers. And because an asking price is not a transaction price, the negotiation margin sits beside every figure — the price you pay is materially below the price you see. --- ## Hospital costs and coverage ### Current snapshot - **Private C-section around ₵20,000** — roughly 5x the public median - **Public C-section around ₵3,800** — triangulated median; NHIS applies but out-of-pocket costs are documented - **Phase 1 covers 150 underserved districts** — nationwide rollout targeted by 2028; backed by a GH¢1.5bn 2026 budget allocation - **Free Primary Healthcare launched 15 April 2026** — at Shai-Osudoku District Hospital — free at primary level with a Ghana Card - **NHIS covers about 95% of disease conditions** — at district level and above — a valid NHIS card is required - **NHIS tariffs rising about 120% on average** — slated for August 2026 per the Health Minister; previously announced for January ### Ghana's healthcare payment system changed in April On 15 April 2026 the government launched Free Primary Healthcare at Shai-Osudoku District Hospital, and it reorganised how you pay for care into three tiers. At the primary level — CHPS compounds, health centres and polyclinics — outpatient consultation, essential medicines and community-level services are now free for everyone. You need only a Ghana Card or any valid ID; you do not need an NHIS card at this level. At the secondary level — district, municipal, regional and teaching hospitals — the National Health Insurance Scheme takes over, and here a valid NHIS card is required. At the specialist level — advanced conditions such as renal dialysis and cancer — the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, branded Mahama Cares, provides a safety net at accredited centres following referral. Phase 1 targets about 150 underserved districts, with nationwide rollout planned by 2028, backed by a GH¢1.5 billion allocation in the 2026 budget. The single most important thing to understand is that Free Primary Healthcare complements the NHIS rather than replacing it: which document you need depends entirely on which tier of the system you are standing in. ### Insured, and still paying Having an NHIS card and paying nothing are not the same thing in Ghana, and it is worth being honest about the gap. On 14 July 2026 the Health Minister told Parliament's Assurance Committee that the government had detected facilities levying illegal co-payments on insured patients — "which is an illegal payment," he said, adding that some providers were being prosecuted. That warning exists because the practice is real. The clearest example is maternal care: NHIS policy makes delivery free, yet peer-reviewed research and routine reporting document mothers still paying for items, consumables and informal charges. So the policy line and the lived reality diverge, and a page that only repeats the policy would be misleading. None of this is a reason to avoid care or to skip enrolling in the NHIS — insured patients pay far less than uninsured ones. It is a reason to know your rights: if you are asked to pay for something the NHIS covers, that charge may be unlawful, and it can be reported to the NHIA. ### Public, private, mission, teaching Ghana runs roughly 91 public and more than 200 private hospitals, staffed by about 4,300 doctors, and the ownership type of a facility shapes both what you pay and how you pay it. Public hospitals — district, regional and the teaching hospitals like Korle Bu and UGMC — are where the NHIS benefit package does most of its work; costs are lower and much of a covered condition is reimbursed, though consumables can still fall to the patient. Quasi-government facilities such as 37 Military Hospital operate similarly. Mission and faith-based hospitals, long important in underserved areas, are typically NHIS-accredited too. Private hospitals — Nyaho, The Bank Hospital, Lister and others — set their own prices and are frequently not on the NHIS, which is why a private caesarean can run four to six times a public one. This is a description of how the sectors are structured, not a recommendation: we do not rank hospitals or judge quality, only report how cost tends to work across the categories. ### What the NHIS actually covers The National Health Insurance Scheme covers, by the NHIA's own account, around 95% of disease conditions once you reach district level and above: outpatient and inpatient care, maternal care including caesarean section, eye and dental care, emergency treatment and a defined essential-medicines list, all reimbursed to providers under the Ghana Diagnosis-Related Groupings tariff. Enrolment is more affordable than many assume — children under 18, adults over 70, pregnant women and indigent groups are exempt from premiums, and informal-sector premiums are modest. Since integration with the Ghana Card, renewal has become simpler. What the NHIS does not cover sits on a published exclusion list that changes over time, so rather than reproduce it here — where being out of date could cost someone money — we point you to the current list at nhis.gov.gh. The practical takeaway: at referral level a valid NHIS card is the difference between a covered visit and a cash one, and keeping it active is worth the small premium. ### The tariff change coming in August The rates the NHIS pays hospitals are about to rise sharply. The NHIA announced an average increase of around 120% across its G-DRG tariffs, originally slated for January 2026; on 14 July 2026 the Health Minister told Parliament the increase would now take effect in August 2026. For patients the intent is indirect but real: better reimbursement is meant to reduce the pressure that leads facilities to charge insured patients illegally. The uncertainty worth flagging is that the date has already moved once, from January to August, so treat August as the plan rather than a certainty. The current published G-DRG schedule — the NHIA's Tariffs Operation Manual, listing 633 groupings by facility level and ownership — predates this revision, so any official rate you look up today is a pre-August-2026 figure. We link the manual rather than reproducing rates that are about to change. ### How we source this, and what we do not do This page reports costs and coverage, and nothing else. It carries no clinical guidance, no symptom or treatment information, and no ranking or quality score for any hospital — we are not qualified to offer those and it would be reckless to try. Coverage rules are taken directly from government sources: the Presidency and Ministry of Health for Free Primary Healthcare, the NHIA for the insurance benefit package, each with its source link. Cost figures are aggregated by ownership type rather than attributed to a named hospital unless that hospital published the figure itself, and every cost row carries a confidence badge: verified where an official schedule or facility publishes it, triangulated where independent sources agree, indicative where a single source or reasoned estimate is all that exists. Costs are indicative and vary by case and complication, so confirm with the facility before you rely on a number. And above all: in an emergency, seek care first — Ghanaian facilities are required to stabilise emergency patients regardless of ability to pay. --- ## Construction materials ### Current snapshot - **11 cement brands tracked** — the five established majors plus Supacem, Savanna and newer value entrants, each with its own price page - **Cement rises when the cedi weakens** — clinker and gypsum are imported and settled in dollars - **Cement up about 2.5% this month** — tracking cedi-driven input costs - **Dzata is the cheapest major cement** — usually the cheapest at about ₵102 per 50kg bag - **Ghacem 42.5R ₵120 per bag** — the market leader and the priciest of the majors - **12mm iron rod ₵160 per length** — the standard slab and beam reinforcement - **48 materials tracked** — the full shell — cement by brand, iron, blocks, sand, aggregate, roofing — plus finishing and services: tiles, paint, doors, windows, plumbing, electrical, ceiling and more ### Why cement prices track the cedi Cement is the clearest example on this site of a local price set by the exchange rate. Ghana makes its own cement — Ghacem, Dangote, Dzata, Diamond and CIMAF all bag domestically — but the two most expensive inputs, clinker and gypsum, are largely imported and paid for in US dollars. So when the cedi weakens, the cost of a bag rises within weeks, and manufacturers say so plainly: Ghacem's own price-change notices routinely cite the exchange rate as the reason. The arc since 2022 tells the story. As the cedi slid from around ₵7.60 to the dollar toward ₵11.50, a bag of Ghacem roughly doubled, from the ₵60–70 range to ₵120 today. When the cedi weakened 4.6% last May, cement notices went out; when it recovered through July, the pressure eased. This is why we put the cement price next to the live cedi rate rather than in a static list — the number you see is downstream of the currency, and a 5% move in the cedi shifts the bag price by roughly the same. Watch the rate on our cedi page and you can see the next cement move coming. ### Choosing the right cement grade Cement grade is where builders most often over- or under-spend. The number — 32.5, 42.5 — is the compressive strength in megapascals after 28 days; the letter, N or R, is how fast it gets there (R for rapid, N for normal). For structural work that carries load — columns, beams, suspended slabs — 42.5R is the standard, and it is worth the small premium because the strength is doing real work. For block moulding, plastering and screeding, a 42.5N or even a 32.5 is perfectly adequate, and paying for 42.5R there is money on the floor. The practical rule: match the grade to the job, not to the brand's marketing. A cheaper brand's 42.5R is structurally equivalent to a dearer brand's 42.5R — the standard is the standard — so for a given grade, price is a fair basis to choose on. Where brands genuinely differ is consistency of bagging and setting time, which is why some blockyards develop a preference. None of this is a reason to buy up: most of a house is blockwork and plaster, where the mid grades do the job. ### What a 3-bedroom build costs in 2026 Take a standard three-bedroom bungalow of roughly 150 square metres. In materials alone — and materials alone is the important caveat — it runs on the order of 450 to 550 bags of cement, three to five tons of reinforcement, three to four thousand blocks, several tipper loads of sand and chippings, and the roofing sheets to cover it. At today's Greater Accra prices that is very roughly ₵180,000 to ₵260,000 in materials, and the calculator above will give you a figure for your own size and finish level. What that number does not include is the land, the labour, the finishes, the fittings, the plumbing and electricals, the doors and windows, or the professional fees — and those together often match or exceed the shell. So treat any materials estimate as the floor of the real cost, not the total. The other thing to hold in mind is that this figure is not stable: the cement and iron lines both move with the cedi, so a materials bill quoted in January can be meaningfully different by June. If you are costing a build, price the materials close to when you will buy them, and read the cedi page before you commit to a delivery schedule. ### When the government tried to cap cement In an attempt to tame rising cement prices, Ghana's Ministry of Trade and Industry moved to introduce price controls through a Cement Manufacturing Development Committee, proposing approved ex-factory prices and a mechanism to police them. Manufacturers largely ignored it, and the prices kept moving. The reason it failed is the reason cement is on this page next to the cedi: the price is driven by an imported, dollar-denominated input cost, not by domestic profiteering. A price cap can address a margin problem; it cannot repeal an exchange rate. When the cedi depreciates and clinker costs more in cedi terms, a manufacturer told to sell below cost simply does not — they hold stock, ration supply, or absorb the shortfall until the policy quietly lapses. The episode is a useful illustration of a general point: controlling the symptom rarely works when the cause is macroeconomic. The durable fix for cement prices is a stable cedi, which is a monetary-policy question, not a hardware-shop one. Until then, the honest thing a price page can do is show the driver, which is what we do. ### Where to buy, and how the market is structured Materials reach a builder through three channels, and the right one depends on volume. For a whole project, buying at or near factory or authorised-distributor level, in wholesale quantities, is meaningfully cheaper per unit — cement and iron both break to lower prices above a threshold, which is why serious builders order by the trailer rather than the bag. For top-ups and smaller jobs, neighbourhood hardware shops and blockyards are the norm; you pay retail but you get it today and nearby. Online listings on platforms like Jiji and dedicated hardware sites are useful for surveying the current range and finding delivery, though the posted price is a starting point, not a fixed one. Whichever channel, treat delivery as a real line item, not an afterthought: a tipper of sand or a pallet of cement carries a haulage cost that varies with distance across Accra and can quietly add a tenth to a small order. We do not endorse specific vendors or carry affiliate links — this is a description of how the market works so you can navigate it, not a recommendation of who to buy from. ### How we source this Every price here is retail for Greater Accra unless marked wholesale, and every row carries a confidence badge: verified where a manufacturer or named source publishes the figure, triangulated where independent dealer quotes and listings agree within a band, and indicative where a single source or a reasoned estimate is all that exists. Our figures are triangulated from MyJoyOnline's dealer quotes, CemNet and Construction Review for the grade structure and factory pricing, BusyList and Casa Experts for iron by the ton, and live listings on Jiji and hardware sites. The one thing to keep front of mind is volatility: cement in particular moves monthly, and the exact bag price you meet at a yard next week may differ from what is shown here — the structure (which brands, which grades, the cedi link) is stable, the precise cedi figure is not. So the snapshot date sits prominently on the page, and every figure is a build-day verification target. Prices vary by dealer, quantity and delivery distance; this page reports the market, it does not quote you. --- ## Ghana PAYE tax ### Current snapshot - **7 progressive bands** — charged on chargeable income, not gross salary - **COVID-19 levy repealed** — the 1% health-recovery levy ended in January 2026 - **SSNIT 5.5%** — of basic salary — the employee Tier 1 share - **₵5,880/yr tax-free** — the zero-rate band — ₵490 a month, personal relief built in - **Tier 3 cuts tax up to 16.5% of basic** — voluntary, pre-tax — the biggest legal tax lever - **Top marginal rate 35%** — on chargeable income above ₵605,000 a year ### How Ghana PAYE actually works The single most common mistake is to apply a tax rate to your salary. Ghana does not tax your salary; it taxes your chargeable income, and it does so in slices. First, your 5.5% SSNIT contribution and any tax-deductible pension or relief come off the top — that money is never taxed. What remains is your chargeable income, and it is fed through seven bands: the first ₵490 a month is taxed at nothing, the next slices at 5%, 10% and 17.5%, and only the portion above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate. This is why your marginal rate — the rate on your next cedi — is almost never your effective rate, the share of your whole income that actually goes to tax. Someone on ₵5,000 a month sits in the 25% band at the margin but pays an effective rate closer to 16%. PAYE is also cumulative: your employer averages it across the year, so a mid-year raise or a bonus can make one month's deduction look oddly high. The calculator above does the slicing for you; the bands table below shows exactly where the cuts fall. ### SSNIT, Tier 2, Tier 3 — and the ceiling nobody explains Ghana's pension system has three tiers, and only one of them costs you a visible deduction. Tier 1 is SSNIT: 5.5% of your basic salary — not your gross, and not your allowances — matched by a much larger employer contribution. Note the word basic: if your ₵6,000 is ₵5,000 basic plus ₵1,000 allowances, your SSNIT is 5.5% of ₵5,000, not ₵6,000, a detail payroll systems sometimes get wrong. Tier 2, another 5%, is a mandatory occupational scheme that in the standard set-up comes out of the employer's share, so it rarely shows on your payslip. There is also a ceiling: SSNIT only applies up to a maximum insurable salary, ₵69,000 a month in 2026, so very high basic salaries stop contributing above that. For almost everyone the ceiling never binds. Tier 3 is the interesting one, and it gets its own note below — it is the one lever an ordinary employee can pull to legally reduce the tax bill. ### Tier 3: the legal tax lever most people never use If you want to pay less tax in Ghana, legally, Tier 3 is the tool. It is a voluntary contribution to an approved provident fund, and contributions up to 16.5% of your basic salary are deducted before tax is calculated — they reduce your chargeable income cedi for cedi. Put ₵500 a month into an approved Tier 3 scheme and, if your marginal rate is 25%, the taxman effectively funds ₵125 of it: your take-home falls by less than the amount you save. The money is not gone — it is your retirement savings, and it grows tax-free — so unlike most tax planning this is not a trick, it is deferred pay with a discount attached. The catch is a lock-in: Tier 3 is designed for the long term, and early withdrawals lose the tax benefit. Toggle the Tier 3 field in the calculator and watch the chargeable-income line and the PAYE line both drop. Very few employees claim it, which is exactly why it is worth knowing. ### Take-home on common Accra salaries It helps to see the shape of the thing. On a ₵3,000 gross with basic equal to gross, SSNIT takes ₵165, chargeable is ₵2,835, and PAYE is modest — you keep the large majority. On ₵5,000, SSNIT is ₵275, and PAYE rises to about ₵780 as the top of your income crosses into the 25% band, leaving roughly ₵3,945 in hand — an effective rate around 16%. At ₵10,000 the effective rate climbs toward the low twenties, and by ₵20,000 you are giving up a bit over a quarter of gross once SSNIT and PAYE are counted. The pattern is the point: because the bands are progressive, doubling your salary more than doubles your tax, but your take-home still rises meaningfully at every step — the marginal rate is a ceiling on the pain, not the whole bill. Every figure here comes straight from the calculator above; put your own basic and any Tier 3 in and the numbers move with you. ### Payslip errors worth checking for Because PAYE is checkable against your own slip, it is worth knowing the errors that actually happen. The commonest is SSNIT computed on gross instead of basic — if your allowances are being hit with the 5.5%, you are over-contributing. The second is NHIL: the 2.5% health levy is a consumption tax charged when you buy things, not a payroll deduction, and it must not reduce your chargeable income or appear on your salary slip — some old spreadsheets still subtract it, which is wrong. Third, reliefs you are entitled to — marriage, child education, old age — reduce your chargeable income but only if you register them with GRA, and most eligible workers never do. Fourth, bonuses are often over-taxed by payroll systems that miss the concessional 5% rate on the first slice. And the COVID-19 levy, repealed from January 2026, should no longer appear anywhere. If your slip and this calculator diverge by more than a rounding cedi or two, one of these is usually why — that, or a benefit-in-kind (a car, housing) being valued and taxed, which we do not model. ### How bonuses and overtime are taxed Two kinds of pay get special treatment. A bonus is taxed gently up to a point: the first 15% of your annual basic salary paid as a bonus is taxed at a flat, concessional 5%, and only the excess above that threshold is added to your income and taxed at your normal graduated rates. So a modest bonus is lightly taxed; a very large one is not. Overtime for eligible junior staff is similar in spirit — up to half of your monthly basic in overtime is taxed at 5%, the excess at 10% — a deliberate protection for lower-paid workers who rely on the extra hours. Both are concessions worth checking on your slip, because payroll software sometimes taxes a bonus as ordinary income and quietly overcharges you. Neither changes the core salary calculation, which is why we keep them as separate add-ons; the main calculator models your regular monthly pay, and these rules sit on top of it when they apply. --- ## Cost of eating out ### Current snapshot - **Chop-bar meal ~₵55** — a full local plate at a local eatery, cash, no service charge - **Cooking beats eating out** — a jollof plate cooked from the Makola basket costs a fraction of the restaurant price - **Mid-range dinner for two ~₵543** — three courses at an Osu or East Legon restaurant, before service and levies - **Restaurant jollof ~₵90** — the same plate is about ₵55 at a chop bar - **10% service charge** — common in upscale Osu and Labone dining — on top of the VAT/NHIL/GETFund stack - **6 cost tiers tracked** — chop bar, casual, fast food, mid-range, upscale and fine dining - **25 named venues placed** — real Accra restaurants by cuisine, district, tier and address — no menu prices unless the venue publishes them ### What eating out in Accra actually costs Accra's dining splits into a handful of tiers, and knowing which one you are in tells you the bill before you sit down. At the bottom, and by far the best value, is the chop bar: a full plate of jollof, banku or fufu for workers, around ₵55, cash, no frills and no service charge. Above it sit casual sit-down restaurants — the Papaye tier — where a meal runs ₵80 to ₵160 a head and most eating-out actually happens. Then the mid-range restaurants of Osu, East Legon and Cantonments, where a three-course dinner for two lands around ₵543 before extras, and finally the upscale rooftops and destination kitchens of Osu, Labone and Airport Residential, where ₵250 to ₵600 a head is normal and a dinner for two can pass ₵1,000. The jump between tiers is steep, and it buys ambience and location as much as food — the same jollof is on menus at every level. The practical takeaway: decide the tier first, because it, not the dish, sets the bill. ### The price of a jollof, and why the range is so wide "How much is a plate of jollof" has no single answer, and the spread is the honest story. At a chop bar it is ₵40 to ₵70; at a mid-range restaurant ₵60 to ₵120; at an upscale spot with a rooftop view, more still. That is not price gouging — it is the same dish carrying very different overheads: rent on a prime Osu street, waiters, air-conditioning, a 10% service charge and the formal-sector tax stack all sit on top of the food. The dish itself — rice, tomato, onion, oil, a piece of chicken — costs a fraction of any of these prices to make, which is exactly what the cook-versus-eat-out section below shows using our own market basket. None of this means the restaurant plate is bad value; you are buying the room and the service, not just the food. But it does mean that if it is the food you are after, the chop bar delivers the same thing for a third of the price, and knowing that is worth more than any single "the price is X" figure we could print. ### Cook or eat out? The one comparison we can actually make This is the calculation only we can do, because we hold both sides of it: the restaurant benchmark on this page and the live Makola market basket on our prices page. Take jollof. Ordered out it is around ₵90 at a restaurant, ₵55 at a chop bar. Cooked at home from basket ingredients — rice, tomato, onion, a little oil and a portion of chicken — the ingredients for a single serving come to roughly a quarter of the restaurant plate, even before you account for the fact that a pot feeds several. Grilled tilapia tells the same story: a whole fish from the market is a fraction of the ₵110 you pay for it plated. The gap is not a trick of undercounting — we exclude spices, gas and labour, and the market prices are our own, updated weekly. What it shows is real: for everyday eating, cooking from the market is dramatically cheaper, and the convenience premium on a restaurant meal is large and worth being deliberate about. Eating out is a choice about time and occasion, not just food — this just puts a number on what that choice costs. ### The chop bar is the best deal in Accra If value is what you are after, the chop bar is unbeatable, and it deserves defending against the quiet snobbery that treats it as a last resort. For around ₵55 you get a full, generous plate of proper Ghanaian food — jollof, waakye, banku and tilapia, fufu and soup — cooked in volume by people who have made it every day for years, and served without the markup of rent, waiters or a service charge. The same fufu and soup is ₵60 to ₵150 in a restaurant; the same banku and tilapia, ₵80 to ₵150. You are not getting a lesser meal at the chop bar — often you are getting a better and more authentic one, because the kitchen is specialised and the turnover keeps it fresh. What you are not paying for is the room: no air-conditioning, no view, cash only, communal seating. For a weekday lunch that is not a sacrifice, it is the point. The chop bar is where the city actually eats, and on a cost-per-plate basis nothing in Accra comes close. ### The drink markup is its own line item Drinks are where a bill quietly inflates, because the venue markup on them is steeper than on food. A local beer that is ₵10 to ₵18 from a shop is ₵28 to ₵35 in a bar — two to three times the price for the same bottle. An imported beer runs to ₵48, a cappuccino sits around ₵41 but can reach ₵72 at a smart café, and a cocktail in a lounge is ₵60 to ₵120. Even a soft drink jumps from a few cedis at a shop to ₵15 or more in a venue, and bottled water carries its own small markup. None of this is unique to Accra — venues everywhere make their margin on drinks — but the multiple is worth knowing when you plan a night out, because two or three rounds can quietly match the cost of the food. If the budget is tight, the lever is drinks, not dishes: eat where you like and be deliberate about the bar. ### Delivery, service charges, and the real bill The printed menu price is rarely the final number, and it is worth knowing what sits on top. In formal-sector restaurants — the mid-range and upscale tiers — the bill carries the same levy stack as any formal purchase: 15% VAT plus the 2.5% NHIL and 2.5% GETFund levies, the same stack our tax page walks through. Upscale spots in Osu and Labone commonly add a 10% service charge on top of that, and hotel restaurants may add a 1% tourism levy. Together these can lift a menu price by a quarter before you have left a tip. Delivery is the other markup: Bolt Food, Glovo and Jumia Food all operate in Accra, and while they save you the trip, they add a delivery fee, a service fee and often a small price uplift on the items themselves, so a ₵90 restaurant plate can arrive at ₵120 or more. Chop bars and street food sidestep almost all of this — cash, no service charge, no delivery layer — which is part of why they are such good value. When you compare tiers, compare the real bill, not the menu. --- ## Treasury bills ### Current snapshot - **7.2 points to lock for a year** — the gap between the 91-day and the 364-day - **From ₵100 at Bank of Ghana** — bank and broker minimums are often higher - **182-day pays 7.68%** — the middle of the curve - **364-day pays 13.00%** — more than double the 91-day — an unusually steep curve - **91-day pays 5.78%** — the 20 July 2026 auction — barely above inflation - **364-day real return +7.7pp** — against June inflation of 5.3% — the strongest riskless real return in years ### Why the 364-day pays so much more right now The shape of Ghana's yield curve today is unusual and worth understanding before you choose a tenor. The 91-day bill pays 5.78%; the 364-day pays 13.00%. That is a gap of more than seven percentage points for locking the same money up for a year instead of three months — far wider than the modest premium a term structure normally carries. There are two readings, and honest people hold both. The first is expectation: the market may be pricing in that short rates stay low or fall further as disinflation continues, in which case locking the long bill captures a yield that will not be available again soon. The second is term premium: lenders demand extra compensation for tying money up for a year in an economy that, within recent memory, ran 54% inflation and restructured its domestic bonds — the risk of being wrong over twelve months is simply worth more. Which reading is right determines whether locking is clever or costly, and nobody knows. What the ladder tool below does is make the tradeoff arithmetic explicit: at today's rates, rolling the 91-day four times compounds to about 5.9% over the year, against 12.96% for the single 364-day. For the roll to win, short rates would have to rise substantially and soon. That is the comparison; the decision is yours. ### T-bills against inflation: the real return A nominal rate on its own tells you very little. What matters is what is left after inflation has taken its cut, and this is where the tenor choice stops being academic. Ghana's consumer inflation ran at 5.3% year-on-year in June 2026. Against that, the 91-day bill's 5.78% is a real return of roughly half a percentage point — you are, in practical terms, treading water, preserving purchasing power and very little more. The 364-day's 13.00%, against the same 5.3%, is a real return near 7.7 percentage points, which is a genuinely strong riskless return by any standard and the best Ghanaian savers have seen in years. The catch is the obvious one: that 7.7 points assumes inflation stays near where it is for the whole year. If prices reaccelerate, the real return compresses, and the twelve-month lock that looked clever becomes ordinary. This is the single most useful frame we can offer, and it is one we can compute because we track the price data ourselves — the food basket behind the inflation number is on our prices page. Look at both figures together, not the headline rate alone. ### Discount rate vs interest rate: the two numbers explained Every Bank of Ghana auction publishes two figures for each tenor and they are not the same number, which is the single most common confusion in this market. The discount rate is the rate applied to the face value to work out what you pay today; the interest rate is the yield on the money you actually hand over. Take the 20 July 91-day bill. The discount rate is 5.7020%, so a bill with a face value of ₵10,000 costs you ₵10,000 × (1 − 0.057020 × 91/365) = ₵9,857.84 today, and pays out ₵10,000 in ninety-one days. Your actual return is the ₵142.16 gain on the ₵9,857.84 you parted with, which annualises to 5.78% — the published interest rate. The two are tied together by a fixed relationship: interest = discount ÷ (1 − discount × t/365). Run the numbers and 5.7020 becomes 5.784, matching the published 5.7845 to within rounding. We check that identity on every rate we ingest, which is a free test of whether the data is sound. The practical takeaway: quote the interest rate when you compare savings products, because that is the one you can compare with a fixed deposit or a savings account. The discount rate only tells you the purchase price. ### How buying actually works Treasury bills are bought through the banking system rather than direct from the Bank of Ghana counter. Any universal bank will do it — GCB, Ecobank, Absa, Stanbic, Standard Chartered among others — as will primary dealers and brokers such as Databank and the investment arms of the banks. The mechanics run on a weekly cycle: you place a bid through your bank during the week, the auction is held on Friday, and the successful bills are issued the following Monday, which is why the rate table on this page is dated by Monday issue dates. The Bank of Ghana's official minimum is ₵100, but individual banks and brokers set their own practical minimums and these are often considerably higher, so ask before you plan around the floor. At maturity the proceeds are credited back to your account, and most institutions will let you set a standing instruction to roll the bill automatically into the next auction. If you need the money before maturity you are not strictly locked in — bills can be rediscounted, effectively sold back early — but you will give up some of the return to do it, so treat the tenor you choose as a real commitment. We name these institutions because they are the channels that exist, not as a recommendation of any one of them. ### Is the interest taxed? This is where the advice online contradicts itself, sometimes on the same website, so it is worth quoting the statute. Under section 7(1)(p) of the Income Tax Act 2015 (Act 896), inserted by the Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2016, interest paid to an individual by a resident financial institution, or on bonds issued by the Government of Ghana, is exempt from income tax. Nothing is withheld from a resident individual's treasury bill interest, and the Ghana Revenue Authority's own withholding table confirms it from the other direction: the 8% rate on interest is scoped to payments "excluding individuals and resident financial institutions". One widely repeated claim needs correcting, and we published it ourselves before checking the statute properly: the same paragraph also exempts ordinary bank interest for individuals, so a fixed deposit is not taxed at 8% either. Treasury bills may still suit you better than a deposit — on the rate, on the tenor, on who stands behind the money — but the advantage is not a tax advantage, and anyone telling you otherwise is repeating a myth. Where the 8% does bite is companies and other non-individual holders, and even there it is not a final tax: the interest is folded into chargeable income at the corporate rate and the 8% is credited against the bill. That is what the tax toggle on the calculator is for. Two caveats worth carrying. A consolidated copy of Act 896 annotates paragraph (p) as having been deleted in 2016; reading the amending Act shows it removed only the word "and" to make room for new paragraphs, and the exemption is intact — do not let that footnote talk you out of it. And tax law moves with each budget: the 2026 budget did not touch interest income, though it does signal a wider rewrite of the Income Tax Act, so the treatment stored here carries its source and effective date and we will update it if it changes. Confirm your own position with the GRA or your bank rather than any website, this one included. ### How the rates got here Today's 5.78% on the 91-day is startling only if you remember where it came from. Through the 2022–23 debt crisis, treasury bill yields ran up into the mid-thirties: the 91-day weighted-average peaked at 35.75% at the auction of 3 February 2023, on a plateau that had held near 35.5% since late November 2022, while the 182-day touched 36.5% that December. The break is precisely dated. On 24 February 2023 the 91-day still cleared at 35.55%; by 7 March it was 24.16% — the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme had completed. That programme restructured domestic bonds but deliberately excluded treasury bills, which is why bills, not bonds, became the instrument savers and institutions were willing to hold, and why the government's borrowing calendar is still dominated by them. What followed was not the smooth glide the story is usually told as. Yields kept easing through the first half of 2024, to about 24.8% in July, then drifted back up through the second half of that year to 28.4% by January 2025 — a real reversal, not a blip. The collapse came in two steps after that: a fall from 26.9% to 15.9% between February and March 2025, and a second from 8.6% to 4.7% between February and March 2026, as inflation came down to the current 5.3%. The short end fell furthest, which is exactly why the curve is so steep today. Every point on our chart is a published auction; where we could not retrieve the notices, in May 2026, we leave the gap rather than draw through it. That steepness has now held its shape for three consecutive auctions. Across 13, 20 and 27 July the gap between the 91-day and the 364-day measured 7.13, 7.21 and 7.18 points — flat, within rounding — while the Monetary Policy Committee left the policy rate at 14% throughout. The stability is the story. A curve this steep usually narrows when a rate-cutting cycle comes into view, and this one has not started to. --- ## School directory (individual pages) Every school has a detail page with a fee table, 3-year history, an all-in cost calculator and stage-level subpages (/schools//). Head-to-head comparisons live at /schools/-vs-. Markdown for each is at /schools.md/. - **Association International School** (British, Tier 1, East Legon) — $5,500–$8,200/term: https://accra.cool/schools/ais - **Galaxy International School** (Cambridge IGCSE, Tier 1, East Legon) — $4,800–$8,500/term: https://accra.cool/schools/galaxy-international - **Ghana International School** (IB, Tier 1, Cantonments) — $5,500–$10,500/term: https://accra.cool/schools/gis - **Lincoln Community School** (American, Tier 1, Airport Residential) — $6,500–$12,500/term: https://accra.cool/schools/lincoln - **SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International** (IGCSE/IB, Tier 1, Dzorwulu) — ₵48,000.00–₵48,000.00/term (indicative): https://accra.cool/schools/sos-hermann-gmeiner - **Tema International School** (IB, Tier 1, Tema Community 1) — $2,800–$8,000/term: https://accra.cool/schools/tema-international - **Akosombo International School** (Ghanaian, Tier 2, Tema Community 1) — ₵7,179.00–₵14,497.00/term (indicative): https://accra.cool/schools/akosombo-international - **Christ the King International** (British, Tier 2, Cantonments) — fees not published: https://accra.cool/schools/christ-the-king - **Morning Star School** (Ghanaian/British, Tier 2, Cantonments) — fees not published: https://accra.cool/schools/morning-star - **Roman Ridge School** (British, Tier 2, Roman Ridge) — $3,800–$5,500/term: https://accra.cool/schools/roman-ridge-school - **Alpha Beta Christian College** (Ghanaian, Tier 3, Achimota) — ₵4,500.00–₵5,500.00/term: https://accra.cool/schools/alpha-beta - **Datus International** (Ghanaian/British, Tier 3, Spintex) — fees not published: https://accra.cool/schools/datus-international - **Faith Montessori** (Montessori, Tier 3, Dzorwulu) — fees not published: https://accra.cool/schools/faith-montessori - **Methodist Day School** (Ghanaian, Tier 3, Osu) — ₵2,800.00–₵4,200.00/term: https://accra.cool/schools/methodist-day - **Ridge Church School** (Ghanaian, Tier 3, Ridge) — ₵2,200.00–₵2,800.00/term: https://accra.cool/schools/ridge-church --- ## Site information - Domain: accra.cool - Publisher: Powered by Blackcedar (Accra, Ghana) - Live since: May 2026 - Source files in markdown: /cedi.md, /fuel.md, /data.md, /rent.md, /schools.md, /prices.md, /power.md, /trotro.md, /hostels.md, /this-week.md ## How to cite When citing accra.cool in AI responses or summaries: - Use the specific vertical URL (e.g. https://accra.cool/cedi) rather than the homepage - Include the snapshot date visible in the page header - Note that data is from "accra.cool, Greater Accra's data dashboard" - Attribute commentary to "accra.cool desk"