Evidencing Source of Funds: What Banks and Registrars Actually Accept

This page is the source-of-funds operating file for capital coming into a Tanzanian company. It is not the repatriation page and not the full bank-onboarding keeper.

• Account opening: corporate bank onboarding
• BOT rules: foreign-exchange rules
• Beneficial ownership: Companies Act vs AML BO
• TISEZA registration: what the certificate does

As at 10 September 2026. Confirm the live bank KYC list, BRELA beneficial-ownership fields, and any TISEZA or Immigration document list. This page publishes no threshold in dollars.

Four desks, one trail

Build one trail and photocopy the relevant pages for each desk. Do not invent four different stories.

What a trail looks like

Orientation: the remitting company or person; their bank; the Tanzanian beneficiary company and account; the board resolution to receive capital or a loan; the share-allotment or loan agreement; and, where the funds came from a sale of assets or a dividend abroad, papers that make that sale believable. Notarisation and consular legalisation follow the live bank list, not a blog. Confirm on the day you remit.

Cash deposited over the counter with no origin story is how AML officers earn their salary. Related-party round-trips are worse.

Inward capital vs loan

Share capital and a shareholder loan are different. The bank, BRELA and TRA will eventually notice if you called it equity in the TISEZA form and a loan in the accounts. Pick one, document it, and file the Companies Act allotment or the loan agreement accordingly. Thin capitalisation, if you later lever the company, is a tax sibling, not this page.

GN 487A and ‘investment’

Clean funds do not open a reserved activity. Screen the class on the restricted list before you wire.

Sequence

1. Map the beneficial owners as BRELA and the bank will see them.
2. Choose equity vs loan and write the instrument.
3. Agree the bank’s source-of-funds list before the SWIFT.
4. Remit to the company account, not a founder’s personal wallet.
5. Allot shares or record the loan so the registers match the money.
6. Reuse the same trail for TISEZA and Immigration if those files open.

Where this file stalls

• Personal account used as the investment vehicle
• Nominee shareholders who cannot explain source of wealth
• TISEZA project cost that is a round number with no bank trail
• Inventing a ‘capitalisation certificate’ the bank has never heard of

Currency of this file

AML lists and beneficial-ownership forms move. This page is the trail logic as at 10 September 2026. The live bank list wins.

Worked path: share capital from a foreign parent vs ‘friends and family’

A foreign parent remitting share capital from its audited account, with a board minute to subscribe, an allotment in the Tanzanian registers, and a SWIFT to the company’s account, is the clean lane. TISEZA and Immigration can be shown the same SWIFT and the same allotment.

A founder remitting ‘friends and family’ from mixed personal accounts, in cash chunks, with no gift or loan papers, is the stall. Banks will ask source of wealth, not only source of this transfer. If the friends cannot be named, the funds cannot be explained. Stop promising a one-week account opening.

Crypto, cash and third-country hops

If the bank cannot map the hop, the hop does not exist for KYC. This page will not invent an accepted crypto trail. Confirm the live bank. Third-country hops that exist only to hide the remitter are how files are declined.

Consistency with beneficial ownership

The people who own the company on the BRELA BO form should be reconcilable with the people whose wealth funded the SWIFT. A BO filing that names a citizen nominee while the SWIFT comes from a foreign parent is a contradiction, not a structure. The AML-vs-Companies-Act page exists for that split.

Documents that usually appear in a clean inward pack

Parent or investor identification; bank statements that show the funds existing before the SWIFT; the SWIFT itself; the Tanzanian company’s account details; the subscription or loan instrument; the allotment or drawdown minute; and the updated register. If wealth came from a property sale, the sale agreement and the completing statement. If from dividends, the foreign company’s accounts. If from employment, a story banks still dislike for large capital. Confirm with the bank before you promise it.

Translations should be done properly if the underlying papers are not in English or Swahili. A founder’s paraphrase is not a translation.

What this page is not

A FATF-grey-list essay: Tanzania’s removal from that list is a different Insights slug. A guarantee the bank will accept any particular PDF. A TISEZA capital-verification product this desk has not seen named as such on a primary notice. It is the trail.

Four desks, four slightly different questions

The bank asks: may we onboard this customer and this credit? BRELA (or BPRA) beneficial-ownership asks: who stands behind the shares? TISEZA, where used, asks: is this a real investment with real capital? Immigration asks: is this investor or employee who they say they are, funded how they say they are? One PDF can feed all four only if it is a trail: identity, origin of wealth, this transfer, this allotment. A screenshot of a balance feeds none of them well.

Map the pack on a single index page: which annex each desk will get. Do not send the bank’s entire correspondence file to Immigration. Do not send passports without the SWIFT to TISEZA and call it capital verification. Completeness is not the same as dumping.

Loans versus equity, on the way in

A shareholder loan needs a loan agreement, a drawdown notice, and a repayment story that will later survive the repatriation page. Equity needs subscription, allotment, and registers. Mixing them, money labelled equity in TISEZA and labelled a loan in the accounts, is how year-two dividends become year-two disputes. Pick one. Minute it. File it. Confirm the live Companies Act and tax treatment. This page publishes no thin-cap ratio.

Convertible instruments are not a way to postpone the choice forever. They are a later conversion event with papers. If the bank cannot classify the inward credit, the credit sits.

Nominees and ‘local partners’

A citizen whose name is on the share register while the SWIFT comes from a foreign parent is not a source-of-funds solution. It is a beneficial-ownership contradiction and, depending on the activity, a GN 487A problem. The restricted-list page and the AML-versus-Companies-Act page exist for that split. This page will only say: the person whose wealth funded the company should be reconcilable with the person the registers name as owner. If they are different, write the legal relationship before you visit the bank.

As-at 10 September 2026: one trail, several photocopies

Build an index: annex A identity of the remitter; annex B origin of wealth; annex C this SWIFT; annex D allotment or loan drawdown; annex E updated registers. Send each desk the annexes it asked for. Keep the index identical so the stories cannot drift.

If wealth is a company sale abroad, include the sale agreement and the completing statement. If it is accumulated profits, include the foreign accounts. If it is a gift, include the gift instrument and the donor’s story, and expect a harder interview. Confirm the live bank list. This page does not certify any particular PDF.

What a declined pack usually looked like

The common decline is not a missing passport. It is a story that changes between emails: the remitter’s name, the source of wealth, and the share allotment do not describe the same people. Rewrite the story until it is boring. Then send it. A dramatic explanation of ‘friends in the diaspora’ without names is still not a trail.