Investment & TISEZA

TISEZA Investor Service Providers: Who May Represent You

By CFE. Joseph Magweiga Marwa · Reviewed by Advocate Yona Habiye · Published 2026-09-10 · Last reviewed 2026-09-10 · 18 min read

This page is the representation file: who the 2025 ISP guideline allows to file, what the evaluation asks for, and how that status differs from a zone contractor or a sector advocate. It is not a TISEZA registration how-to and not a fee table.

• Investor registration scope — TISEZA investor registration
• What the 2025 Act changed — Act operating guide
• Application fees, including the ISP row — TISEZA fees 2026

The source in hand is TISEZA’s Investor’s Service Providers (ISP) Guidelines 2025. Administration sits with the Department of Investment Facilitation. The policy becomes effective after Board or Ministry approval — the printed booklet does not stamp a commencement Gazette number on the page we have. Confirm that the live website still treats the booklet as operative before you refuse a non-ISP courier.

What an ISP is for

TISEZA’s own framing is a register of licensed, experienced individuals and firms who can take a prospective or already-registered investor through the One-Stop Facilitation Centre. The guideline’s task list is specific:

• BRELA company registration;
• bankable business plans and feasibility studies;
• TISEZA certificate, registration and EPZ/SEZ licence forms;
• bi-annual project progress reports for monitoring;
• business and operating licences;
• work and residence permits;
• land acquisition, derivative rights and related land matters;
• tax procedure and access to investment tax incentives;
• TBS and TMDA standards where those mandates apply;
• utilities — power and water;
• accountancy and audit for registered investors;
• legal advice on investment, provided the ISP is allowed to give it under other Tanzanian law;
• acting as TISEZA’s focal person on the projects they represent.

The last two bullets are the compliance trap. An ISP certificate does not turn a consultant into an advocate, an auditor or an engineer. Section 1.2.14 of the guideline says other supportive services are allowed only where the ISP is separately registered to perform them under Tanzanian law. A TISEZA ISP who drafts a High Court pleading is still practising without a practising certificate. Zatra’s TISEZA desk coordinates; it does not replace those licensed hands.

The rule that changes the counter

Clause 2.7.1 is the sentence investors miss. All submissions and follow-up of investor services at the Authority shall be made by TISEZA-registered ISPs only. Applications for facilitation services are to be supported by the ISP registration certificate.

Clause 2.7.2 then opens a second door: a company with in-house staff who meet the qualification criteria in clause 2.3 may apply for ISP registration to process their own documents. A foreign parent that wants its group counsel to file must put that counsel through the same evaluation, not through a letter of introduction.

TISEZA employees are strictly prohibited from being engaged in these services. A “friend at the Authority” is not an ISP.

What the application actually contains

The form is prescribed as TISEZA-2. The document pack printed in the guideline is:

• covering letter;
• BRELA certificate of registration;
• valid business licence;
• tax clearance;
• TIN certificate;
• evidence of business premises, subject to physical verification;
• two recent passport photographs of directors;
• list of professional employees with CVs, academic and professional certificates, professional-board registration where applicable, and national IDs;
• three referees from the most recent consulting work.

Minimum competence printed in clause 2.3: the individual, firm or foreign resident must already be registered and licensed for the service applied for; proven experience in that specialisation; at least a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) among firm members, with a master’s as an advantage; knowledge of investment-promotion practice; experience directing investment-related policy work; and no professional or disciplinary conviction.

Evaluation is by an ISPs Committee chaired by the Director of Investment Facilitation, with four members appointed by the Director General. The Committee visits the premises. The pass mark is eighty per cent. Successful applicants receive an offer letter, pay the prescribed registration fee, take a one-year certificate, and must attend TISEZA facilitation training at least once during the certificate’s life. Semi-annual progress reports are required. The Authority publishes the approved list.

Fees — only what is printed, nothing invented

The guideline says a successful applicant pays an initial non-refundable application fee, then a registration fee and an annual renewal, and that training fees also apply. It points at “the table below.” In the scan in hand that table did not extract as readable figures. The GN No. 466 Second Schedule, dated 9 July 2025, does print one related line: TZS 300,000 for an application to register an investment service provider (Part G). Later registration and renewal amounts are not invented here. Confirm the live offer letter and the fees page.

Part P of the same Gazette schedule — annual dues for contractors, consultants and other agency businesses inside a zone — is a different register. Do not pay a zone-contractor row thinking it is an ISP certificate.

Disputes, disqualification and what “registered” does not mean

A dispute between an investor and an ISP is first negotiated, then mediated by the ISPs Committee, then left to the courts or administrative tribunals. Professional misconduct, false information or a finding of unfitness leads to revocation.

Publication of the approved list is the investor’s control. If a name is not on the live TISEZA list, treat the person as unregistered for one-stop submissions, however complete their business card. Registration is not a warranty of outcome. TISEZA still decides the underlying certificate or licence. BRELA, TRA, Immigration, the Lands machinery and every sector board still decide their own instruments.

GN No. 487A of 2025 is separately reported as reserving scheduled activities to citizens. This page publishes no penalty figure. An ISP file that is itself a reserved activity needs an advocate’s reading of that Order before a foreign-owned consultancy treats the guideline as an eligibility grant.

Build sequence

1. Decide whether the investor will use an external ISP or register an in-house officer under clause 2.3.
2. Confirm the person or firm is already licensed for the services they will tick — advocate, planner, tax practitioner — under the other Tanzanian statutes that govern those professions.
3. Assemble TISEZA-2 and the pack above. Budget time for the site visit.
4. Pay only the row on the live offer letter. Keep Zatra’s fee on /pricing/.
5. Use the published ISP list to check the name before you sign a representation letter.

The process as the guideline actually numbers it

Clause 3 says registration runs throughout the financial year. The printed sequence is not a slogan:

1. Invitation notice (Annexure 5) for new and renewal applications, through local media and the TISEZA website;
2. complete form TISEZA-2 with the attachments in clause 2.2;
3. apply to the Director General;
4. evaluation by the ISPs Committee, including a site verification visit;
5. successful applicants informed in writing through an offer letter (Annexure 6) and pay the prescribed registration fee;
6. issuance of the registration certificate (Annexure 3);
7. publication of the approved list through media, promotional materials and the website;
8. mandatory training on investment-facilitation matters during the certificate’s life.

The Committee is chaired by the Director of Investment Facilitation and has four members appointed by the Director General. The pass mark is eighty per cent of the evaluation scores in Annexure 2. A score of 79 per cent is a refusal, not a negotiation. Premises that cannot survive a site visit — a virtual office with no files, no staff, no sign — fail on 2.2.6 regardless of the CVs.

Semi-annual progress reports are required in the prescribed format (Annexure 4). Renewal is not automatic: clause 2.6.2 says the certificate may be renewed upon satisfaction of the quality of services delivered. A silent year is how a name drops off the published list.

In-house versus external — and what “legal advice” is allowed to mean

Two lawful routes sit in clause 2.7. An investor may instruct an external registered ISP. Or a company with in-house staff who meet clause 2.3 may apply for ISP registration to process that company’s documents. Group counsel in Dubai or Johannesburg is not, by that fact, an ISP. Put the named officer through TISEZA-2, or instruct someone already on the published list.

Clause 1.2.12 allows ISPs to “provide legal advice on matters related to investment in Tanzania.” Clause 1.2.14 immediately restricts other supportive services to those the ISP is “allowed and registered to perform… as per other Tanzania Laws and regulations.” Read together, an ISP certificate is not a practising certificate. An advocate still needs a practising certificate. An auditor still needs NBAA status. An engineer still needs ERB. Zatra coordinates; it does not replace those licensed hands. The verification line on this page names Advocate Yona Habiye for statutory reading. It names no external law firm as the ISP.

TISEZA employees are strictly prohibited from these services. A “friend at the Authority” who offers to file for a private fee is the conflict the guideline is written to prevent. Do not use one.

Where representation files actually fail

Filing without an ISP certificate attached once the live one-stop is applying 2.7.1. The guideline’s own words are “shall be made by TISEZA registered ISPs only.” Confirm how the portal is applying that clause on the day you submit. A zonal meeting at Ubungo External does not waive it.

Paying Part P (in-zone agent) and thinking it is Part G (ISP application). Different registers. Different jobs. See the fees page.

Inventing the registration and training amounts. The guideline points at a table that did not extract as readable figures from the scan in hand. GN 466 prints TZS 300,000 as the application. Later amounts wait for the offer letter. This page will not invent them.

Using a revoked or unpublished name. Publication of the approved list is the investor’s control. If the name is not on the live list, treat the person as unregistered for one-stop submissions. Disqualification under clause 4 follows professional misconduct, false information, or a Committee finding of unfitness. Disputes go negotiation, then Committee mediation, then courts or tribunals — not a TISEZA “guarantee” of the underlying certificate.

The printed booklet does not stamp a commencement Gazette number on the pages we have. Clause 8 says the policy becomes effective after Board or Ministry approval. Confirm that tiseza.go.tz still treats the booklet as operative before you refuse a non-ISP courier on the strength of this page alone.

Head office in the booklet is Golden Jubilee Tower, 1st Floor, Ohio Street, Dar es Salaam. Zonal offices are printed for Dodoma, Mwanza, Mbeya, Njombe and Moshi. Those are TISEZA addresses, not ISP certificates. Confirm live; printed emails in older booklets have already drifted.

Currency of this file

The booklet is titled 2025. The Act under which TISEZA exists is Act No. 6 of 2025. Portal practice can tighten “ISP only” without reprinting the booklet. Confirm the live list, the live form number and the live fee letter on the day you instruct a representative.