Acting Against Counterfeits in Tanzania: The Commercial Options

This page is the counterfeit enforcement operating file: the routes open to a proprietor here, the order they run in, and who owns each hand-off. It is not a trade-mark filing manual and not a substitute for an advocate on record.

• Licensed buying before a brand goes on the bag: raw cashewnut buying licence
• The commodity brands worth faking: avocados and cashews
• Ground under a processing plant: agricultural land access
• Sector licences carrying their own parts rules: aviation and transport approvals

As at 14 September 2026. Confirm the forms at fcc.go.tz and the register at brela.go.tz; this file rests on the Merchandise Marks Act, Cap. 85 and its 2025 Regulations, the Trade and Service Marks Act, Cap. 326 and the Fair Competition Act, Cap. 285.

Two offices: Cap. 85 at the Commission, Cap. 326 at BRELA

Cap. 326 gives the Registrar of Trade and Service Marks at BRELA the register. A mark entered there runs seven years from the filing date and renews for ten years at a time. Enforcement against fake goods sits in the Merchandise Marks Act, which the Fair Competition Commission administers through the Chief Inspector. Cap. 285 gives the same Commission its consumer-protection arm, and the Fair Competition Tribunal hears appeals from what it decides.

Cap. 326 registers nothing in Unguja or Pemba. A proprietor selling there files under the Zanzibar Industrial Property Act, 2008 at the Business and Property Registration Agency. Where the same goods move both ways, both registers and both revenue desks, TRA and ZRA, belong in the file before an inspector moves.

Before the process: the channel a non-citizen may not own

Wholesale and retail distribution sits on the reserved list at GN No. 487A of 2025. A foreign proprietor therefore rarely holds the channel in its own name: it appoints a locally owned distributor, licenses the mark to it, and keeps registration and recordation in the proprietor’s name. That split decides who may complain, whose store may hold seized stock, and who signs the affidavit.

A foreign proprietor files through an agent with an address for service here, and applications and complaints are signed on a power of attorney, notarised and legalised where the proprietor sits.

Recordation since 1 December 2025: Forms FCC 1 and FCC 2

The Finance Act, 2025 inserted section 11A into the parent Act. Regulations made under section 25(2)(f), published as GN No. 352F on 30 June 2025, commenced on 1 December 2025 and made the record a condition of importing branded goods to the Mainland. Application goes on Form FCC 1 with the registration certificate, proof of proprietorship or a licence from the proprietor, and the importer’s particulars; Form FCC 2 carries the entry. Determination takes twenty-one days, with five more for the Chief Inspector to communicate it.

Validity is one year under regulation 5(2), renewable annually. Keep record, certificate and customs entry in one pack: each desk asks for the other two, and the record is the only one of the three an importer cannot borrow from a sister company.

Five routes, five hand-offs

They stack. One consignment can be held at Dar es Salaam, seized under Cap. 85, prosecuted by the DPP and sued on commercially at the same time. The evidence pack is identical; only the standard of proof and the remedy change.

Detention at the port and at the inland borders

Counterfeit goods are prohibited imports under the East African Community Customs Management Act, 2004, so Customs holds the power already. What an officer needs is a reason to look. The recorded mark, a written notice to the Commissioner for Customs and Excise naming authorised importers, tariff headings and the suspect consignment, and a guide an officer can apply on the apron (hologram, batch format, print registration, cap seal) turn suspicion into a hold. Entries pass through TANCIS; a notice quoting no heading and no bill of lading is filed and forgotten.

Cost then sits on the rights holder: storage and demurrage run at the terminal while samples are examined and the importer is heard. Dar es Salaam is not the only gate; Tunduma, Horohoro, Namanga, Kabanga, Sirari and the Tanga and Mtwara ports each need their own notice. Cargo in transit to a neighbour is a separate argument, and transit does not make a fake genuine.

The complaint to the Chief Inspector

A complaint is a document, not a telephone call. It names the mark and its registration number, the record and its expiry, the premises by plot and street, the trader by name and TIN, the product by pack size and batch code, and attaches the trap purchase with its fiscal receipt and the sample itself.

Seized goods are exhibits. Chain of custody (who lifted them, where they were stored, who signed for them) decides more of these cases than the fake itself.

The Commercial Division: injunction, search order, damages

A registered proprietor sues for infringement under Cap. 326. An unregistered but established get-up is protected by passing off, which is a tort, and a suit founded on tort runs three years under the Law of Limitation Act, Cap. 89. The file goes to the Commercial Division of the High Court. A temporary injunction under Order XXXVII of the Civil Procedure Code, Cap. 33 holds the position; an order made without notice reaches the stock before it moves.

Damages need arithmetic rather than indignation: displaced volume, margin per unit, invoices proving both. An account of profits substitutes the infringer’s ledger for yours where his margin was the fatter one. Most such suits settle at mediation on an undertaking, delivery up and a payment.

The sequence

1. Register at BRELA in every class the goods occupy: a class 5 certificate does not reach a class 1 pack sold off the same shelf.
2. Record the mark with the Commission on Form FCC 1 before ordering stock, allow the twenty-six days, and diarise renewal eleven months out.
3. Lodge the border notice at Customs, and refresh it whenever the importer, the heading or the pack changes.
4. Buy the fake through a third party and receipt it: the purchaser has to be somebody who can attend court, not a staff member of the distributor you suspect.
5. Compare and write up the differences, genuine against sample, photographed, by somebody able to testify to having done it.
6. File the complaint, the suit, or both: the Chief Inspector for seizure and prosecution, the court for injunction and damages.
7. Attend the seizure and the inventory, and sign nothing uncounted.
8. Close the channel: terminate the distributor who stocked it, notify the other desks, and reissue the identification guide to the trade.

The evidence file

• BRELA certificate and current renewal receipt, in the proprietor’s exact name
• The recordation entry, its expiry date, and the importers named on it
• Power of attorney for a foreign proprietor, notarised and legalised, with the agent’s address for service
• Distribution or licence agreement showing who may import and who may sell
• Trap-purchase fiscal receipt, the sample sealed and labelled, photographs of pack, batch code and seal
• Bill of lading, commercial invoice, packing list and the TANCIS entry number
• Company TIN, BRELA extract of the complainant, NIDA number or passport of the signatory

Illustrative arithmetic, not a quotation

A registered agro-chemical brand sells one-litre packs to the trade at TZS 42,000 against a landed cost of TZS 27,000: a gross margin of TZS 15,000 a litre. Twelve thousand counterfeit litres enter through an inland post and undercut at TZS 25,000.

• Displaced margin over the season: 12,000 × TZS 15,000 = TZS 180,000,000.
• Held at the border: the full TZS 180,000,000 stays with the proprietor, against sampling, storage and disposal costs.
• Found after distribution: 4,000 litres still in the warehouse preserve TZS 60,000,000; the 8,000 already sold become a claim of TZS 120,000,000, every sale to be proved and each inside the three-year limitation.

The gap between the third and fourth lines is the whole argument for recording early and lodging the notice before shipment.

Where the file stalls

• A record lapsed at twelve months, so the container berths with no entry behind the border notice.
• Trap purchase paid in cash with no receipt: no seller, no date, no premises a court accepts.
• A complaint describing “a shop in Kariakoo” with no plot number, no TIN and no batch code.
• Seized stock parked in the distributor’s own store on an unsigned inventory, worthless as an exhibit by trial.
• An order taken without notice on thin evidence, discharged on the return date, and the undertaking called in.
• Destruction ordered, disposal unsupervised, and the same batch back on a shelf within the month.

Mandate-holders this file does not replace

Product class overrides the general route. Medicines and medical devices go to TMDA under Cap. 219; food, cosmetics and standards marks to the Tanzania Bureau of Standards; fertiliser to TFRA, pesticides to TPHPA, certified seed to TOSCI; handsets and their identifiers to TCRA; label artwork and packaging design to COSOTA under the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, Cap. 218. BRELA owns the Journal and renewals; the Commission owns the record and its inspectorate; Customs owns detention and condemnation; the Director of Public Prosecutions decides whether a prosecution follows, never the complainant. Zatra prepares the pack, sequences those desks and coordinates agent and distributor. It does not practise law, prosecute, seize goods or grant a record, and no outcome is guaranteed.

What to confirm before you act

• Classes on the certificate against goods actually sold, and the next renewal date
• Record expiry, and whether the importer named on it is still the importer you use
• Form FCC 1’s current revision and fee on the Commission’s site, and the live tariff lines on tra.go.tz
• Whether a sector regulator owns the product class ahead of the Commission
• The distributor’s standing under GN No. 487A of 2025 before the channel is signed
• Notarisation and legalisation of the power of attorney, before the advocate needs it