Can You Price and Invoice in US Dollars in Tanzania?
Can a Tanzanian company price and invoice in US dollars? For a supply inside Tanzania, pricing, quoting and invoicing belong in Tanzanian shillings. Since 28 March 2025 the Bank of Tanzania Act, as amended by the Finance Act 2024 and implemented by GN No. 198 of 2025, treats domestic foreign-currency pricing — and refusing payment in shillings — as an offence. A genuine cross-border supply is a different analysis. A statutory threshold an authority itself publishes in USD is not a domestic price. Confirm the live BOT notice. This page publishes no penalty figure for GN 198.
Can a Tanzanian company price and invoice in US dollars?
Law and practice as at 3 September 2026. Fees and forms are current only to the date you confirm them on the mandate-holder portal. Data series, where any appear, are dated in the table below. Figures marked as Zatra analysis are derived by Zatra Consultants Limited from the sources cited and are not official statistics.
Who this is for — and the jurisdiction
Operators who still carry USD price lists, landlords, importers reselling locally, and professional-services firms with foreign clients sitting in Dar es Salaam. This page is Mainland-first. Zanzibar has its own registrar (BPRA), revenue authority, investment authority (ZIPA), labour and land systems. Income tax, customs and excise are Union matters and generally carry across; VAT, licensing and company registration do not. A Mainland filing is not a Zanzibar approval.
Is this activity open to non-citizens?
Anyone may ask this. Whether your activity is open to non-citizens is a separate GN 487A question and does not change the shilling rule on a domestic supply.
The pain point
Files stall when a Dar lease, a local contractor invoice or a software-support contract is still denominated in dollars because “that is how the group bills.” Banks then query the credit, TRA queries the VAT invoice, and the customer is entitled to pay in shillings. The repair is a TZS price list, not a side letter that pretends the dollar figure is “just a reference.”
The framework
The useful split is domestic supply versus genuine cross-border supply — not “we have always billed in dollars.” The shilling rule is a pricing rule, not a ban on holding a foreign-currency account where the bank’s own product allows it.
This page decides the currency on the invoice and the quote. It is not a repatriation guide and not a bank-account-opening checklist.
Who actually holds the mandate
| Institution | What it controls | What it does not replace |
|---|---|---|
| Bank of Tanzania | Foreign-exchange and domestic-currency rules | A TRA VAT class |
| TRA | How the tax invoice is drawn and which currency the return expects | A BOT licence |
| Your bank | Whether it will process the credit as drawn | The legal currency of the supply |
Which currency belongs on which document
| Document | Usual currency | Exception to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Quote or invoice for a supply in Tanzania | TZS | None for a domestic supply — do not “USD X, payable in shillings” |
| Genuine export or cross-border fee | As the contract and bank allow | Evidence it is not a local supply dressed up as an export |
| Authority threshold published in USD | USD as the authority printed it | Say so; it is not your selling price |
The numbers — structure, not a headline rate
Every domestic price on this page is in Tanzanian shillings. Where an authority itself publishes a threshold in USD, that is labelled as an authority figure, not a Zatra price. A cell that says n/d means the figure is not published here because it moves, or because this desk has not opened the live schedule. Do not budget from a remembered number.
| Item | Unit | Period | Institution | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official filing / licence fee | TZS | Confirm live | Mandate-holder portal | n/d — confirm on the day you file |
| Zatra professional fee | TZS | 3 September 2026 | Zatra pricing page | Quoted separately; never mixed into a government line |
| Bank / notary / courier third-party | TZS | As incurred | The receiving bank or officer | Third-party; not a Zatra markup |
The sequence
Read the order as logic, not as a promised calendar. Customer due diligence at the bank, at the registry and at any adviser is part of elapsed time: identity documents, proof of address, source of funds, beneficial ownership, and for a corporate shareholder its own ownership chain. That is not the same file as BRELA beneficial-ownership disclosure.
- Classify the supply — Is the customer, the place of supply and the performance inside Tanzania? If yes, it is a domestic pricing file.
- Rewrite the price list in TZS — Do not print a USD figure and a conversion footnote. That is still foreign-currency pricing.
- Align the tax invoice — The EFD / tax invoice must match the legal currency of the supply. Confirm TRA’s live EFD rules.
- Tell the bank what will arrive — A TZS credit on a local sale should not be narrated as a USD export receipt.
- Keep cross-border contracts on their own paper — Do not mix a local rent clause into an offshore services agreement.
Documents the file usually needs
Packs differ by class and by the live form. This list is orientation. Exact fields follow the portal on the day you file.
- The contract or offer
- The tax invoice / EFD record
- Bank credit advice
- Any BOT or TRA notice you are relying on
A worked scenario
A Dar professional-services firm bills a resident subsidiary of a Dutch parent USD 4,000 a month for “group support.” The work is done in Msasani. That is a domestic supply. The file is repaired by a TZS engagement letter, a TZS tax invoice and a TZS receipt. The group can still fund the subsidiary in foreign currency as a capital or loan file — that is cluster title 6 and 7, not this invoice.
Figures marked as Zatra analysis are derived by Zatra Consultants Limited from the sources cited and are not official statistics. Timeline days below are planning ranges, not statutory periods, unless a source in the table says otherwise.
Where it goes wrong
- Writing “USD 500, payable in TZS at the BOT rate” on a local invoice
- Refusing a customer who tenders shillings
- Treating a foreign-owned customer as a cross-border supply
- Publishing a USD menu, rate card or website price for a Tanzanian supply
What this page deliberately does not cover
- How to open a USD account
- How to repatriate dividends
- A penalty table for GN 198
What to do next
Write the four facts on one page: the activity in plain language, who owns it, Mainland or Zanzibar, and the first operating step. Open the mandate-holder portal on that list. When the facts are unstable, stop and get the file structured — that is the point of a scoped desk conversation, not a general 'contact us'.
Cluster instrument: The TZS Pricing & Repatriation Pack. Compliant invoicing notes, the bank document list and the repatriation sequence — the cluster instrument, not a substitute for the answer above. The answer above is not gated. If the instrument is not yet live, this cluster is logged as incomplete; the article still stands.
Frequently asked questions
Can I show a USD equivalent on the invoice?
Do not treat a USD equivalent as the price. The legal price of a domestic supply is in TZS. A conversion footnote is how most non-compliant rate cards are still written.
What if the lease was signed in dollars in 2023?
The live rule is about pricing and payment now. Confirm with the bank and an advocate how an existing dollar lease is performed after GN 198. Do not assume a grandfathering clause you have not seen.
Does a TISEZA certificate let me invoice in USD?
No. Investment registration does not rewrite the currency of a domestic supply.
Can I pay a local supplier in dollars if they ask?
A domestic supply is a shilling file. Do not “solve” it by paying cash dollars under the table.
Are salaries in dollars allowed?
Payroll paid in Tanzania for work performed here is a domestic payment. See the cluster title on rent, salaries and supplier contracts. Confirm BOT and the employment contract.
Where do I confirm the current rule?
Bank of Tanzania notices and the Finance Act / GN implementing the shilling rule. Not a law-firm forward.
Is this the same as holding a USD account?
No. Account product and invoice currency are different questions.
Does Zatra quote setup in dollars?
This Insights page does not reprint a fee card. Professional fees are on /pricing/ and stay separate from government charges.
Sources & regulators
Verify before filing: Fees, forms and timelines change. Confirm the current schedule on the linked regulator portal before you budget or submit. Law-firm alerts and Big Four notes are discovery only.
- Bank of Tanzania (BOT) — [en] Foreign-exchange, banking, bureau de change and payment-system instruments. Confirm live circulars and GNs. Accessed 2026-09-03.
- Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) — [en] TIN, VAT, withholding, EFD, customs and tax administration. Confirm the live Finance Act text. Accessed 2026-09-03.
- TRA — Electronic Fiscal Devices — [en] Official EFD orientation. Confirm current EFDMS / Protocol software notices on the day you buy or upgrade. Accessed 2026-09-03.
- Ministry of Finance — Tanzania — [en] Finance Acts, budget and fiscal instruments. Accessed 2026-09-03.
Disclaimer
This article is informational orientation. It is not legal, tax or investment advice and not a government decision. Tanzanian instruments move by Act, Government Notice and portal revision. If a sentence here disagrees with the live mandate-holder, the mandate-holder wins. This page publishes no penalty figure for GN No. 198 of 2025 or GN No. 487A of 2025. Zatra Consultants Limited does not issue licences, permits, tax clearances or approvals.