In sub-Saharan Africa, they experience a persistent gap between the actual tax revenue and their potential, given the efforts made over the last two decades. This paper addresses the following three questions:What is the trends of tax revenue collection in Sub- Saharan African countries? What is the status and drivers of tax potential? and What is the trends and factors on tax effort in Sub- Saharan African countries? Stochastic frontier analysis and secondary panel data from 2000 to 2018 in 23 Sub-Saharan African countries were employed. The results indicate that middle income, resource-intensive, non-oil export, and non-fragile countries' actual tax revenue, tax potential, and effort are superior to the sampled average whereas their counter parts trend is below the sample average. Estimation outcomes shows that GDP per capita, trade openness, agricultural sector, service sector, manufacturing sector and urbanization have a positive effect on tax revenue potential, whereas income inequality, construction sector, inflation and age dependency have a negative effect. The results also reveal that external debt and government stability have a positive effect on tax revenue effort, while official development assistance, population density, and corruption have a negative effect on tax revenue effort. This paper concluded that economic, demographic, and institutional factors are relevant to determine countries ' tax revenue potential and effort, and hence, before developing tax policy, the bodies concerned shall first decide their tax potential and effort.