Tanzania

DeFi Intel Research Desk2026-07-14Africa

Is crypto legal in Tanzania? (2026)

Partially — crypto is not authorised for the financial sector, though it is taxed and court-enforceable in Tanzania. Current status: Not authorised (BoT 2019 notice) — but taxed & court-enforceable. Oversight sits with Bank of Tanzania (BoT). Full details — governing law, licensing, tax and dated enforcement history — follow below (last reviewed 2026-07-14).

Framework: Tanzania has no dedicated virtual-asset or VASP-licensing law. The operative instruments are the Bank of Tanzania's Public Notice on Cryptocurrencies (November 2019), the Bank of Tanzania Act, 2006, and — for tax — the Income Tax Act as amended by the Finance Act, 2024.

In its November 2019 Public Notice on Cryptocurrencies the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) advised the public "against trading, marketing and usage of virtual currency because doing so is contrary to existing foreign exchange regulations," and — citing Sections 26 and 27 of the Bank of Tanzania Act, 2006 — reiterated that the Tanzanian Shilling is the country's sole legal tender and that virtual currencies "are not legally authorized in Tanzania." The notice is an administrative warning rather than a statutory ban, and no VASP-licensing regime has since been enacted. That stance sits in tension with a June 2021 directive from President Samia Suluhu Hassan urging the central bank to "prepare" for cryptocurrency and blockchain, which launched the BoT's CBDC research programme. In December 2024 the High Court of Tanzania (Commercial Division), in Yellow Card Tanzania Ltd v Nyamwero Michael Nyamwero (Commercial Case No. 12171 of 2024, judgment 13 December 2024), rejected a defence that a crypto-related settlement deed was illegal, reasoning that because virtual-asset service providers pay taxes their transactions cannot be declared unlawful — the first judicial recognition that crypto dealings are enforceable despite the 2019 notice.

Tax treatment

Tanzania taxes digital assets even though it does not authorise their use — a contradiction noted by tax advisers. The Finance Act, 2024 (effective 1 July 2024) amended the Income Tax Act to introduce a 3% withholding tax on payments made for the exchange or transfer of a digital asset to a resident by a person who owns a digital-asset exchange platform or facilitates such transfers. This was the first statutory recognition of digital assets and virtual-asset service providers in Tanzanian law. "Digital asset" is defined broadly as "anything of value that is not tangible, including crypto-currencies, token codes, numbers held in digital form and generated through cryptographic means," and non-fungible tokens. General income tax on crypto business income (mining, trading, services) and capital-gains treatment of disposals apply under commentary, but the crypto-specific published rate is the 3% withholding tax; other rates are pending verification against a primary source.

• Digital-asset transfer withholding tax: 3% (Finance Act 2024, effective 1 July 2024)
• Capital-gains rate (crypto-specific): Pending verification — general CGT rules apply
• Holding-period rule: Pending verification

Travel rule applicability

Status: no dedicated VASP travel rule. Tanzania runs an AML/CFT regime under the Anti-Money Laundering Act and its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). It was placed on the FATF "grey list" (increased monitoring) in October 2022 and removed on 13 June 2025 after remediating strategic deficiencies. Because there is no VASP-licensing framework, no crypto-specific FATF Recommendation 16 (travel rule) obligations — originator/beneficiary data on virtual-asset transfers — have been implemented for crypto businesses. Specific transfer-data thresholds are pending verification.

Notable enforcement actions

• November 2019. The Bank of Tanzania issued its Public Notice on Cryptocurrencies, cautioning the public against trading, marketing and using virtual currencies as "not legally authorized."
• December 2024. The High Court (Commercial Division) in Yellow Card Tanzania Ltd v Nyamwero Michael Nyamwero held that crypto transactions are enforceable and awarded the plaintiff USD 1.193 million, notwithstanding the 2019 notice.
• 2025. Government officials publicly reiterated that cryptocurrency use remains illegal and should be avoided, citing money-laundering, terrorism-financing and fraud risks. No published criminal-prosecution or fining actions against exchanges are grounded here — pending verification.

Public licensed CASP list

Tanzania operates no VASP-licensing regime, so there is no official public register of licensed crypto-asset service providers to mirror. Domestic licensees: none (no framework). Activity is instead served by peer-to-peer trading and offshore exchanges — Chainalysis records Sub-Saharan Africa as one of the fastest-growing crypto regions, with Tanzania among its active retail/P2P markets. Where a regulator later publishes a CASP register, DeFi Intel mirrors it quarterly. Submit primary-source licensee data to research@defi-intel.com.

Comparison to neighbours

Compare Tanzania crypto regulation with three geographically adjacent jurisdictions:

Doing business in Tanzania — practical notes

Serving Tanzanian residents in 2026 means navigating a contradiction: the BoT's 2019 notice deems virtual-currency use unauthorised and there is no licence to obtain, yet the Finance Act 2024 requires 3% withholding on digital-asset transfers to residents and the High Court has treated crypto deals as enforceable. Firms should expect constrained banking access, AML/KYC obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and continued regulatory uncertainty pending any framework that may follow the BoT's completed CBDC work. The central bank finalised a digital-shilling ("CBDC") study in 2025 and, as of September 2025, was awaiting a government directive; Governor Emmanuel Tutuba said the findings must first be reviewed by government bodies to decide whether a legal framework is needed, and Director Kennedy Komba stressed that a CBDC, unlike Bitcoin, is centrally issued and government-backed. The CBDC remains in the research phase with no launch date. Verify current BoT and Tanzania Revenue Authority positions before structuring.

Methodology and sources

This profile was researched and updated by DeFi Intel's research desk on 2026-07-14 from the primary and secondary sources listed below, including the Bank of Tanzania's own notice, a High Court judgment, the Finance Act 2024 as summarised by tax advisers, and FATF/FIU records. Claims that could not be verified against a source are omitted or marked "pending verification" — we do not republish unverified third-party datasets. Submit corrections and primary-source links to research@defi-intel.com.

Sources

• Bank of Tanzania — Public Notice on Cryptocurrencies (November 2019)
• The Citizen — BoT awaits government directive on digital currency after completion of study
• Afriwise — Tanzania: Court's decision on virtual assets (Yellow Card Tanzania Ltd v Nyamwero)
• EY — Tanzanian Finance Act 2024 (3% digital-asset withholding tax)
• Financial Intelligence Unit — Tanzania removed from the FATF grey list (13 June 2025)
• CBDC Tracker (HRF) — Tanzania digital-shilling research status
• Chainalysis — Sub-Saharan Africa crypto adoption (regional context)