Tanzania Extends Foreign Currency Restrictions

Following last year’s government directive, Dodoma’s new regulations explicitly ban the use of foreign currency in all but a handful of circumstances.

Tanzania has enacted subsidiary legislation, mandating strict rules on the use of foreign currency in the East African country.

Published in the capital city Dodoma and taking effect on Friday (28 March), Government Announcement 198 was signed on 11 March by Tanzanian Minister of Finance Mwigulu Lameck Nchemba Madelu, who in June last year had cited negative effects of foreign currency when he issued a directive restricting its use.

Also known as the Foreign Exchange Regulations of 2025, they stipulate that [ALB’s translation] “all prices of goods and services in the country shall be declared in Tanzanian shillings” (TZS), the only permitted currency in which transactions may be effected nationwide.

Paragraph 3’s sub-regulation 2 goes further, defining a range of illegal conduct such as involvement in price-fixing activities employing foreign currency. Quoting prices, and obliging, facilitating or even accepting payment in foreign currency are also held to be offences, as is declining settlement in TZS.

Contracts stipulating payment in foreign currency are also outlawed in paragraph 5, with exceptions for where authorisation is granted by the finance minister and the governor of the Bank of Tanzania, the central bank, with a year’s grace period for amending contracts entered into before the 2025 regulations, before such agreements become void.

A published list of exceptions currently lists four permitted activities in foreign currency: payment of government membership dues to regional organisations in the country, transactions carried out with international organisations and embassies, credit facilities extended by financial institutions, and payments at duty-free retailers.

The rules have implications for businesses operating in Tanzania who may have become accustomed to using other currencies such as the US dollar in their daily operations.

In West Africa, Ghana’s central bank and a national financial regulatory organisation jointly published new anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines for the foreign exchange bureau sector.

This story originally appeared in African Law & Business