Mobile Money in Tanzania: Agent Line or Till Number

This page is the mobile-money counter operating file: which counter you are opening, who carries the licence behind it, and which desk owns each duty. It is not an application guide for a payment licence, and not a tariff sheet.

• Businesses that need their own licence: bureau de change and money transfer
• The receipt duty on the merchant side: EFD receipt rules
• The tax identity behind every counter: TIN registration

As at 14 September 2026. Open bot.go.tz for the payment-systems instruments and tra.go.tz for the tax rows; the provider’s agent policy sits above both.

Two counters that look identical from the street

An agent converts cash into electronic value and back. Notes come in and a handset balance rises; a withdrawal empties the drawer. Nothing is sold. Float moves one way, cash the other, and commission is earned on the turn.

A merchant does the opposite. A till, a Lipa number, takes payment for goods already supplied and settles to a bank account. Something is sold, so a receipt duty and, above the threshold, output tax attach. Most shops run both: an M-Pesa line, Airtel Money, Mixx by Yas, HaloPesa, and a till behind the counter. Filed as one business, the arithmetic collapses.

The licence you are looking for belongs to the provider

The electronic-money issuer is the licensed person. Its licence, trust-account obligations and systems approvals sit with the central bank under the 2015 statute and the regulations beneath it. An agent applies to nobody and is issued nothing. The provider answers for your counter, which is why it, not a public desk, inspects the shop, approves signage and can suspend the line.

Agent banking is a separate route in the same shopfront: a licensed bank appoints an outlet to serve its own customers under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act, 2006 and the agent-banking regulations, and the bank carries that approval file. The central bank is a Union institution, so a payment licence covers the whole United Republic, while licensing, value added tax and the council levy stop at the channel. Island premises answer to BPRA and ZRA.

Whether a foreign shareholder may own the agency

Settle this before the shop is rented. GN No. 487A of 2025 closes a list of business categories to non-citizens, and a locally incorporated company majority-owned or controlled from outside is reported not to cure the reservation. Small-scale retail distribution of the kind an agency resembles is the territory that Order occupies. Read it against your object clause before anyone signs.

The line itself rides on a registered subscriber number, and registration under the communications statute and its SIM regulations runs through the National Identification Authority record, or passport and permit for a non-citizen. Networks add unpublished residency rules on top. A till is softer: a foreign-owned company trading lawfully in goods can generally collect on a merchant number, because taking payment for your own supply is not agency.

Float is your capital; the customer balance is not

Customer electronic value is backed by a trust account the provider maintains at a licensed bank. That pool never enters your books. Float is different: working capital bought from the network, and an asset of your business.

The counter fails on whichever side empties first: cash-in drains electronic value and builds notes, cash-out does the reverse. An agency with one rebalancing run a day turns customers away twice a day. Losses arrive as reversals, disputed deposits and handset swaps, so keep the printed record and the drawer log. The provider’s customer due-diligence duty under the Anti-Money Laundering Act Cap. 423 is discharged at your table by your staff, and a weak entry there becomes grounds to terminate.

The order the desks actually take

1. Fix the legal person first: a sole proprietorship keeps the presumptive door open; incorporating closes it and brings audited accounts.
2. Take the tax identity: TIN registration with TRA under the Tax Administration Act Cap. 438, in the name that signs the contract.
3. Licence the premises: business licence under the Business Licensing Act Cap. 208 from the municipal or district council, in the correct class.
4. Apply to the provider, not a regulator: agent application through the network, then a shop survey covering safe, signage and staff.
5. Read the tariff schedule before signing: commission table, float terms, reversal liability and suspension grounds are contract, not statute.
6. Open the settlement and float account: bank onboarding with beneficial-ownership evidence, usually the longest wait.
7. Register the fiscal device: before the till goes live, not after the first inspection.
8. Calendar the recurring duties: provisional instalments, returns, the quarterly council levy and licence renewal.

Documents the file needs

• Certificate of incorporation or business-name certificate from BRELA, or BPRA for an island shop
• Memorandum and articles whose object clause names the trade
• TIN certificate for the entity and for each director or the proprietor
• Tenancy agreement or title document, with landlord consent where the lease requires it
• Identity card or passport with residence permit for every signatory, plus photographs, and a current business licence matching the trading address
• Bank statements evidencing float capacity, and the settlement account details
• A subscriber line registered in the business name, never in a staff member’s name

Commission, and the tax taken before you see it

Providers pay agent commission net. Tax is withheld at source under the withholding regime in the Income Tax Act Cap. 332 and remitted against the TIN on the contract. Your monthly statement is the evidence trail: reconcile it to the withholding certificate each quarter, because that certificate carries the credit you set against the year. Ask TRA whether the deduction for your class is final or on account; assuming final is how a first assessment shocks.

The base is the commission, not the money that crossed the counter. A resident individual whose annual turnover does not exceed TZS 100,000,000 sits in the presumptive table of the First Schedule to Cap. 332. A company does not: 30% on chargeable income, audited accounts, and provisional tax on the last day of the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth months.

Service levy under the Local Government Finance Act Cap. 290 is 0.3% of turnover net of value added tax, payable quarterly to the council that licensed you, profitable or not. Whether commission is taxable or exempt follows the financial-services rows of the VAT Act Cap. 148: settle that with TRA first.

The merchant side: a phone payment is still a sale

The receipt duty does not depend on how the customer paid. A taxable supply requires a fiscal receipt under Cap. 148, and the device system is how the revenue authority sees it. A till collecting daily beside a machine that never prints is the commonest inspection finding, and the mismatch shows from the desk.

Registration for value added tax is compulsory once turnover exceeds TZS 200,000,000 in a year, or TZS 100,000,000 in six consecutive months; till receipts count towards that test, and the standard rate is 18%. Confirm the live schedule on tra.go.tz. The network also deducts a merchant service charge from settlement: a commercial term, not a statutory one. Price it in.

What successive Finance Acts did to the levy

A levy on electronic money transactions was introduced in 2021 by amendment to the payment-systems statute, with the scale set in the National Payment Systems (Electronic Money Transaction Levy) Regulations, 2022. Later Finance Acts cut the rates and narrowed the base, at one point removing person-to-person transfers and leaving withdrawals bearing the charge. It has moved more than once, so no figure appears here. The network deducts and remits it: neither your commission nor your tax, and it must never enter your income. The charging provision sits in Union legislation, so it does not stop where a council licence does.

Illustrative arithmetic: one counter, two files

A sole proprietor earns TZS 900,000 of commission a month, or TZS 10,800,000 a year: below TZS 100,000,000, so the presumptive table is in play for an individual, where the same trade inside a company would face 30% on profit and a full audit. Council levy at 0.3% of TZS 10,800,000 is TZS 32,400 for the year, or TZS 8,100 a quarter.

The same shop sells goods through a till at TZS 45,000,000 a month inclusive of tax: TZS 540,000,000 a year, past the registration test. Output tax for the month is TZS 45,000,000 × 18 ÷ 118 = TZS 6,864,407, leaving a taxable value of TZS 38,135,593. Council levy on that net figure is TZS 114,407 monthly, TZS 343,221 in the quarter. Illustrative arithmetic, not a quotation. One bank account, two bases, and float belongs to neither.

Where this file stalls

• Transaction volume reported as turnover, producing an assessment against a figure that was never income
• Settlement sent to a director’s personal wallet, so the company statement never shows the trade
• A contract in the trading name, a licence in the proprietor’s name, and a TIN belonging to a third party
• Sub-agents recruited by a master agent but never registered upstream, leaving reversal liability on the head contract
• Renewal missed because the council file sits under a trading name nobody monitors

Mandate-holders this file does not replace

The central bank owns the payment licence and the trust-account rules. TRA owns tax registration, returns, levy collection and the device system on the Mainland; ZRA owns the island equivalents. BRELA owns the legal person and its beneficial-ownership register, BPRA in Zanzibar. The council owns the business licence and the service levy. TCRA owns subscriber registration. The Financial Intelligence Unit owns the reporting chain under Cap. 423. The provider owns the agent contract and can close a line commercially, without a hearing. Zatra prepares, structures and coordinates this file; it does not issue approvals, practise law or audit.

What to confirm before you act

• Whether your intended activity appears on the live reserved list, before a foreign investor signs
• The current levy scale and which transactions carry it, from the revenue authority
• Commission table, float terms, suspension grounds and reversal liability, in the signed agreement
• Whether withholding on your commission class is final or creditable, and which council collects the levy
• Whether till turnover has crossed the registration test