Customs Clearing Agent Licence: Who Actually Needs One

This page is the customs agent licensing operating file: who must hold the licence, what TRA and TASAC each demand before issuing and renewing it, and why a serious importer almost never applies. It is not a tariff classification manual and not a schedule of port charges.

• Importer of record versus the agent: the clearing and forwarding restriction
• A sector licence on the same cargo: fertilizer dealer classes
• The export-side competent authority: fish export licensing
• When the consignment turns out to be fake: acting against counterfeits

As at 14 September 2026. Licence conditions and fees are stated at tra.go.tz and registration conditions at tasac.go.tz; this file rests on EACCMA and on the Tanzania Shipping Agencies Act of 2017.

The licence belongs to the agent, not to the importer

The Commissioner for Customs and Excise at the Tanzania Revenue Authority issues the customs agent licence under EACCMA. It authorises one thing: transacting customs business in another person’s name: the entry, the amendment, the request for release, the acquittal of a transit bond. An importer buying and receiving its own goods does none of that.

Declarations are lodged in TANCIS, TRA’s customs system, and the credentials carrying an agent code are issued against the licence. A company with a TIN can hold a TANCIS account for its own records; it cannot sign an entry as agent for anyone, a sister company included, unless it is licensed itself.

Customs is a Union matter, so one licence covers Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Mtwara, the inland stations and the island ports: nobody takes a second customs licence to clear at Malindi. What stops at the channel is the regulator of the trade itself. TASAC’s mandate is Mainland; an agency business working on the islands answers to the Zanzibar Maritime Authority, and the Zanzibar Revenue Authority assesses the non-Union taxes on that consignment.

Reserved for citizens before it is licensed

Order matters. Clearing and forwarding sits among the activities Tanzania reserves for its own citizens, and the schedule in force is GN No. 487A of 2025. Read the entry itself, not a summary of it, before anyone drafts a shareholders’ agreement.

TASAC applies its own citizenship and shareholding test under its 2017 Act. This page publishes no percentage for it: the condition has moved more than once, and TASAC states the live one. A foreign-controlled group that wants Tanzanian cargo moved does not hold the agent licence; it contracts a licensed Tanzanian firm, stays the importer of record, and keeps the customs liability attached to goods it owns.

TASAC registers the business, TRA licenses the declaration

Two Acts, two desks, in that order. The Tanzania Shipping Agencies Act, 2017 makes TASAC the regulator of shipping agency, freight forwarding and clearing business; its certificate is what makes the firm a lawful operator in the trade. The customs Act makes TRA the licensor of the person permitted to transact at the customs boundary.

Association membership is the third string. TAFFA, the Tanzania Freight Forwarders Association, is the usual body, and proof of standing goes into the renewal pack. The association also sits behind the staff qualification: the East African Customs and Freight Forwarding Practising Certificate, the EACFFPC, is examined regionally through FEAFFA together with the revenue authorities of the partner states.

Which desk holds what

What Form C.20 asks for

TRA states the agent conditions in United States dollars on its licensing page: USD 50 lodged with the application and not refunded, then USD 400 when the applicant passes the interview. Security is a TZS 100,000,000 customs bond. Staffing is two employees in charge of clearance, each holding a diploma or certificate in customs management from a recognised institute or five years of experience in the work, with the EACFFPC behind them.

The pack that is accepted at the counter carries:

• Form C.20, completed and signed by a director.
• Certificate of incorporation with the memorandum and articles, shareholding legible.
• TIN certificate and, where turnover requires registration, the VAT certificate.
• Current business licence, the lease and a sketch plan of premises an officer can inspect.
• TASAC registration certificate and the association membership certificate.
• Practising certificates, academic certificates and curricula vitae for both clearance staff.
• The executed bond from a bank or an insurer TRA accepts.
• Tax clearance certificate and identification for every director.

The sequence the desks take

1. Fix ownership first. Check the reserved-activity entry, then incorporate or restructure at BRELA so the register matches it.
2. Register at TASAC. The regulator’s certificate precedes the customs application in practice, and is demanded at every renewal.
3. Recruit and certify the clearance staff. Two named people, qualified, each with a current practising certificate.
4. Join a recognised association. TAFFA standing is the proof TRA asks to see.
5. Arrange the security. A bank or insurer executes the bond; underwriting takes far longer than filling in the form.
6. Lodge Form C.20 with the application fee at the customs office for the station where the firm will work.
7. Sit the interview, pay the licence fee and collect the licence with the agent code for TANCIS.
8. Diary the renewal in the eleventh month, with the TASAC certificate already in hand rather than being chased.

What the agent’s entry makes the importer liable for

The customs Act treats what a duly authorised agent does as done by the owner of the goods. The tariff code, the declared value, the exemption claimed and the origin certificate attached are the importer’s statements, made by someone else’s hand. When post-clearance audit reopens an entry long after the container was emptied, the demand follows the cargo to its owner.

Two habits follow. The written authority should name the consignment and the bill of lading rather than bless a year of unread entries. And the owner keeps a copy of every declaration, assessment notice and release order, because audit asks the owner, and a dismissed agent rarely produces a full file two years later. Where a transit bond is acquitted late, the security is called against the agent while the duty stays with the cargo.

Illustrative arithmetic: one container, two invoices

Take a consignment with a customs value of TZS 200,000,000 falling in the 25% band of the East African Community Common External Tariff. Import duty is TZS 50,000,000. Value added tax under the VAT Act Cap. 148 is charged at 18% on value plus duty: 18% of TZS 250,000,000, which is TZS 45,000,000. The two together are TZS 95,000,000, advanced by the agent against the importer’s account.

The agency fee is a different invoice. On a fee of TZS 3,000,000, VAT adds TZS 540,000 and the importer withholds 5% on the service line under the Income Tax Act Cap. 332 (TZS 150,000) paying TZS 3,390,000 and remitting the withholding. Nothing is withheld on the TZS 95,000,000: a disbursement recovered at cost is not a service fee. Agents who put both on one document invite withholding across the whole of it, then argue the point for a quarter. Illustrative arithmetic, not a quotation; the tariff band and the withholding row both move by Finance Act.

Where this file stalls

• The security. Insurers underwrite a nine-figure customs bond against a balance sheet, not a business plan; a thin company is asked for cash cover or a bank guarantee, and the application sits.
• Borrowed staff. Two certificate holders on paper who are employed elsewhere. The names are checked against other licensed firms.
• A TASAC certificate that expired mid-year and is discovered in the week of renewal.
• A premises inspection arriving at a reception desk shared with three other firms.
• Importers who appoint by WhatsApp, issue no written authority, then cannot show who declared what on whose instruction.
• Applications filed at one station while the firm works at another, so the file and the officers never meet.

What has moved

Three things matter to an application opened in 2026. TRA cites the 2023 revised edition of the customs Act on its licensing page, so work from the consolidated text and not a 2004 download. The Common External Tariff has carried a fourth band with a maximum rate of 35% since 1 July 2022, which moves the duty a forwarder quotes from memory on finished goods. And TASAC registration has hardened from a trade formality into a stated renewal condition, so a dispute with the regulator now costs the customs licence too. For the 2027 round, TRA closes new customs agent applications on 31 October 2026: see customs licences for 2027.

Mandate-holders this file does not replace

TRA Customs owns the licence, the entry and the post-clearance audit. TASAC owns the agency registration and the conduct rules attached to it. The Tanzania Ports Authority owns the terminal, the storage clock and the charges accruing while an entry is unresolved. The Tanzania Bureau of Standards, the Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority, the Government Chemist Laboratory Authority and the plant and animal health desks each hold a clearance of their own on the cargo, and no agent licence substitutes for one. BRELA owns the register proving who owns the applicant. Zatra prepares, structures and coordinates the pack; it issues no licence and does not practise law.

What to confirm before you act

• Whether the activity is open to your ownership at all: the reserved-list entry first, then TASAC’s condition.
• The current fees, which TRA publishes in dollars and revises without notice.
• Whether your bank or insurer will in fact execute the bond, and against what security.
• That both clearance employees hold a current certificate and are not already named on another firm’s licence.
• For island operations, ZMA’s requirements, which a Mainland registration does not answer.
• If you are only importing: none of the above. Appoint a licensed firm and hold the written authority.

Free handbook

Exporting from Tanzania

The permit, the proceeds and the port decide the rest.

• The ten exports that carry a tax or levy, each against its instrument
• The permit each product needs: crop boards, COPRA, TPHPA, minerals, fish and forest produce
• Customs in TANCIS, proceeds within 90 days, zero rating and the refund

Download the handbook

Handbook 02 · 92 pages · PDF · free, no sign-up