01 — OverviewExecutive Summary
Two numbers about Tanzania's tax base are both accurate, and both keep making headlines for opposite reasons. The first: TRA's cumulative taxpayer register — everyone ever issued a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) — has grown from around 70,000 at TRA's founding in 1996 to over 8.1 million by mid-2026, a milestone TRA itself celebrated at its 30th anniversary. The second: the number of "active" registered taxpayers — those the Ministry of Finance counts as actually filing and paying in a given period — fell from 3.36 million in 2021/22 to 2.18 million in 2024/25, a decline of roughly a third, even as formalisation campaigns continued over the same period.
This report, building on TICGL/TERI's earlier tax-policy research, digs into what sits underneath both numbers: how a shrinking "active" base and a growing "registered" base can be simultaneously true, why TRA's revenue collections have kept setting records regardless, and what the gap means for Tanzania's Dira 2050 ambitions to widen its domestic revenue base.
- The register keeps growing because it almost never shrinks. A TIN, once issued, is rarely cancelled — so the cumulative count rises even when many holders stop filing.
- "Active" is a stricter, shrinking flow measure. Reported active-taxpayer snapshots show a consistent downward trend across three independent citations between 2021/22 and 2024/25.
- Revenue has grown anyway — TZS 32.26 trillion in 2024/25, TZS 37.95 trillion in 2025/26 — driven disproportionately by large taxpayers, customs, and digital administration, not by growth in the number of small active filers.
- Compliance infrastructure lags registration: 88 percent of business-TIN holders were not registered for Electronic Fiscal Devices as of July 2024, per the Controller and Auditor General.
Read this alongside TICGL's full tax-policy study
This piece is a deep dive into one finding from TICGL/TERI's August 2026 report on tax policy under Dira 2050 — which asks whether MSME formalisation can realistically fund Tanzania's US$1 trillion ambition, or whether formalisation and domestic-revenue mobilisation need to be pursued as two separate jobs.
Read: The Price of Formalisation — Tax Policy, MSME Growth & Domestic Revenue under Dira 2050 →For the wider structural picture, see What's Next for Tanzania's Economy? The Policy Gaps Keeping $1 Trillion Out of Reach by 2050, which sets the domestic-revenue question in the context of Tanzania's full Dira 2050 financing gap.
02 — The Core TensionRegistered vs Active: Tanzania's Two Taxpayer Numbers
Ask "how many taxpayers does Tanzania have?" and the honest answer is: it depends which of two very different numbers you mean.
📇 Total Registered (TIN Holders)
- 8.1 million+ as of mid-2026 — up from 70,000 at TRA's 1996 founding
- A cumulative stock: once a TIN is issued, it is rarely cancelled, even if the holder stops trading or filing
- Grew from 4.46 million (2021/22) to 6.27 million (2023/24) to roughly 7.7 million (late 2025), per NBS Tax Statistics data and subsequent reporting
- Reflects registration drives, digital onboarding, and formalisation campaigns pulling more people and businesses into the system
✅ "Active" Taxpayers (Filing & Paying)
- 2.18 million in 2024/25 — down from 3.36 million in 2021/22
- A flow measure: counts who is actually filing returns and making payments in a given period
- An intermediate snapshot of 2.82 million was cited by Tanzania's Vice President as of 2024, consistent with a continuing downward trend
- Ministry of Finance and senior officials have publicly linked the decline to overburdening of the existing taxpayer pool
Think of the register as a bathtub that almost never drains: TINs flow in continuously through new registrations, but very few flow out through cancellation, even for businesses that have closed or gone dormant. "Active" status measures something different — who is actually turning up to file and pay in a specific tax year. It's entirely possible, and is exactly what Tanzania's data shows, for the bathtub to keep filling while the share of taxpayers actively transacting with TRA in any one period shrinks.
03 — The DataThe Decline in Active Taxpayers: Three Data Points, One Direction
Three independent public citations, spaced roughly a year apart, all point the same way. In April 2025, Tanzania's Vice President expressed concern that registered active taxpayers had dropped from 3.36 million in 2021–2022 to 2.82 million in 2024, urging renewed efforts to expand the base. TICGL/TERI's own August 2026 tax-policy research, citing Ministry of Finance data, put the 2024/25 active count at 2.18 million — continuing the same downward trajectory into the most recent fiscal year on record.
Active Registered Taxpayers: The Downward Trend, 2021/22–2024/25
Note: these three figures come from separate public citations (Vice President's April 2025 remarks; TICGL/TERI's August 2026 report citing the Ministry of Finance) rather than a single continuous published series, so treat the connecting line as an illustrative trend rather than a precise quarterly series. All three, however, are consistent in direction and rough magnitude.
| Period | Active Taxpayers | Source / Citation |
|---|---|---|
| 2021/22 | 3.36 million | Cited by the Vice President, April 2025 (as the base year for comparison) |
| 2024 (calendar year) | 2.82 million | Vice President's remarks, reported April 2025 |
| 2024/25 (fiscal year) | 2.18 million | Ministry of Finance data, cited in TICGL/TERI's August 2026 tax-policy report |
| Change, 2021/22 → 2024/25 | -35% approx. | Consistent downward direction across both citations |
Whichever exact endpoint one uses — 2.82 million or 2.18 million — the direction and rough scale of the decline are corroborated by two independent sources roughly a year apart, which strengthens confidence that this is a genuine trend rather than a one-off data anomaly or reporting quirk.
04 — The DataThe Register Keeps Growing: 70,000 to 8.1 Million
Set against the active-taxpayer decline, the cumulative TIN register tells an almost opposite story. NBS's Tax Statistics Report series shows the total registered taxpayer count rising every year on record, and TRA's own 30th-anniversary figures put the milestone at over 8.1 million by mid-2026.
Total Registered Taxpayers, 2017/18–2023/24
The Long Run: TRA's Register Since 1996
| Fiscal Year | Registered Taxpayers | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 | 2,739,000 | — |
| 2018/19 | 2,917,000 | +6.5% |
| 2019/20 | 3,181,000 | +9.1% |
| 2020/21 | 4,107,000 | +29.1% |
| 2021/22 | 4,455,000 | +8.5% |
| 2022/23 | 5,494,000 | +23.3% |
| 2023/24 | 6,272,000 | +14.2% |
| ~Dec 2025 | ~7.7 million | continuing rise |
| Mid-2026 | 8.1 million+ | TRA 30th-anniversary milestone |
TRA established
Roughly 70,000 taxpayers on record, annual collections around TZS 207 billion.
NBS-tracked expansion
Register more than doubles, from 2.74 million to 6.27 million, driven by successive registration and formalisation drives.
The active-count divergence begins
Even as the total register keeps climbing, active filing-and-paying taxpayers fall from 3.36 million to 2.18 million.
Register crosses 8.1 million
TRA marks its 30th anniversary; operational offices have grown from 95 to 323, and staff from 924 to 8,790, over the same broad period of expansion.
05 — TICGL AnalysisReconciling the Numbers: Stock, Flow, and What Gets Missed
The headline tension — "taxpayers are disappearing" versus "the register just hit a record 8.1 million" — dissolves once the two figures are read as what they actually measure, but that doesn't make the underlying compliance problem any less real.
1. TINs are sticky by design
A TIN functions as a permanent identity number, similar to a national ID, rather than a subscription that lapses. Businesses that close, individuals who die or emigrate, and duplicate or dormant registrations from earlier drives all remain in the cumulative count unless specifically cleaned up — something TRA's own systems, per the CAG's 2025 audit, do not yet do systematically.
2. "Active" is where the real story sits
The active-taxpayer figures — however imperfectly tracked across different citations — are the ones that actually matter for whether Dira 2050's formalisation and domestic-revenue goals are being met. A shrinking active base, even alongside a growing register, means TRA is working harder to extract the same or more revenue from a narrower, potentially more strained pool of genuinely compliant filers.
3. Both trends can share one cause
Complex procedures and compliance costs can simultaneously push existing filers toward inactivity or informality (shrinking the active count) while registration drives continue adding new TINs faster than genuine compliance grows behind them (expanding the register) — precisely the dynamic TICGL/TERI's Price of Formalisation report flags as a risk of formalisation drives "running in place."
If policymakers cite only the growing 8.1 million register, the taxpayer-base story looks like unambiguous success. If they cite only the falling active count, it looks like unambiguous failure. Neither framing alone is accurate — and a formalisation strategy built on the register number risks overstating how much of Dira 2050's domestic-revenue gap it is actually closing, exactly the caution TICGL/TERI's tax-policy research raises about relying on MSME-focused instruments for material new revenue.
06 — The DataRevenue Keeps Rising — So Who Is Actually Paying?
Despite the active-taxpayer decline, TRA has posted record collections and beaten its target for 24 consecutive months through mid-2026. That is not a contradiction of the taxpayer-decline story — it is a clue to where Tanzania's tax revenue actually comes from.
TRA Annual Tax Collections vs Target
Where December 2025 Revenue Came From
In December 2025 alone, TRA collected TZS 4.13 trillion, of which large taxpayers contributed roughly TZS 1.9 trillion and customs roughly TZS 1.2 trillion — together well over 70 percent of that month's total — while small and medium traders contributed around TZS 838 billion. This composition is consistent with the study's broader finding: material revenue growth is concentrated among large taxpayers, customs, and administrative efficiency gains, not among the millions of small, actively-registered filers whose numbers have been shrinking.
07 — Supporting DataTax-to-GDP in Context: Progress, But Still Below Regional Peers
Tanzania's tax-to-GDP ratio has been reported at different points between roughly 11.5 percent and 14.9 percent depending on the source, methodology, and fiscal year — reflecting genuine improvement over time as well as differences in how domestic revenue is measured. TICGL/TERI's own Price of Formalisation report puts the 2024 figure at approximately 12.9–13.1 percent. Across nearly every measure, however, Tanzania remains below the Sub-Saharan Africa average, most commonly cited in the 15–18 percent range.
Tanzania's Tax-to-GDP Ratio: The Range Across Sources
Figures vary because different institutions use different fiscal-year definitions, revenue scopes (tax-only vs total domestic revenue), and GDP rebasing assumptions. TICGL reports the range transparently rather than resolving it to a single figure, consistent with the approach in the companion Price of Formalisation report.
08 — Supporting DataThe Informality Gap Behind the Numbers
Underneath both the register and the active count sits Tanzania's large informal sector, estimated at 45–55 percent of GDP and 70–76 percent of the workforce depending on the source and year. The Tanzania Private Sector Foundation has noted that while roughly 70 percent of businesses in Tanzania are privately owned, only about 30 percent are formally registered with TRA — a gap that helps explain why a growing TIN register does not automatically translate into a growing active, revenue-contributing base.
EFD Compliance Among Business TIN Holders
Formal vs Informal Business Registration
The CAG's audit found that of 2,056,723 traders holding a business TIN as of July 2024, 1,813,385 — about 88 percent — were not registered to use Electronic Fiscal Devices, despite EFDs being central to VAT compliance and receipt-based revenue verification. TRA management noted that EFD use is not mandatory for all traders due to turnover- and nature-of-business exemptions, but the audit also found TRA's own information systems could not clearly identify which non-EFD traders were actually exempt versus simply non-compliant — a gap in the very administrative data needed to convert "registered" into reliably "active."
09 — TICGL ViewWhat This Means for Tanzania's Domestic Revenue Strategy
For TRA and the Ministry of Finance
A public "active" taxpayer metric — tracked consistently over time, and reconciled with the total register — would let policymakers monitor the compliance trend directly, rather than relying on periodic public citations that vary in scope and vintage as this report's own sourcing had to work around.
For the formalisation agenda
New registration drives should be judged on whether they convert into sustained active filing, not just TIN issuance. Diagnosing why an existing pool of taxpayers is lapsing into inactivity may matter more for Dira 2050's revenue target than continuing to add new registrations to an already fast-growing stock.
For investors and the private sector
The concentration of revenue growth among large taxpayers and customs, documented above, suggests Tanzania's near-term domestic-revenue gains will keep depending disproportionately on a relatively small number of large, well-administered taxpayers rather than broad-based small-business compliance — a dynamic worth factoring into market-entry and partnership planning.
10 — TICGL RecommendationsClosing the Registered–Active Gap
- Publish a consistent, dated "active taxpayer" series alongside the total TIN register, so the two figures are never read as competing claims about the same thing.
- Audit and clean the TIN database to separate genuinely dormant, closed, or duplicate registrations from taxpayers who are simply non-compliant — the distinction the CAG's 2025 audit found TRA's own systems could not make.
- Diagnose the causes of inactivity among the roughly 1.2–1.4 million taxpayers who appear to have moved from active to inactive status since 2021/22, before launching further large-scale registration drives.
- Close the EFD compliance gap among the 88 percent of business-TIN holders not yet registered for EFDs, prioritising traders TRA's own data cannot currently classify as exempt or non-compliant.
- Evaluate formalisation campaigns on active-filing conversion, not registration counts alone, so success is measured by sustained compliance rather than by how many new TINs are issued.
11 — Quick AnswersFrequently Asked Questions
Is the number of taxpayers in Tanzania rising or falling?
Both, depending on which figure you look at. The total register has grown from about 70,000 to over 8.1 million, but "active" taxpayers — those actually filing and paying — fell from 3.36 million (2021/22) to 2.18 million (2024/25).
How many people are registered with TRA in Tanzania?
Over 8.1 million taxpayers were on TRA's register as of mid-2026, up from about 6.27 million in 2023/24 and 4.46 million in 2021/22.
Why is the active-taxpayer count falling while total registrations rise?
Registration is a cumulative stock that rarely shrinks; "active" status is a flow measuring who is actually filing and paying in a given period. A taxpayer can hold a valid TIN for years while being inactive.
What is Tanzania's EFD compliance rate?
As of July 2024, about 88 percent of business TIN holders (1,813,385 of 2,056,723) were not registered for Electronic Fiscal Devices, per a Controller and Auditor General audit tabled in April 2025.
Is TRA still collecting more revenue despite fewer active taxpayers?
Yes — TZS 32.26 trillion in 2024/25 and TZS 37.95 trillion in 2025/26, driven disproportionately by large taxpayers, customs, and administrative efficiency gains rather than growth in the active small-taxpayer base.
12 — MethodologySources & Notes
- Ministry of Finance data on active registered taxpayers (3.3–3.36 million, 2021/22; 2.18 million, 2024/25), as cited in TICGL/TERI's "The Price of Formalisation" report, August 2026.
- Vice President's remarks on active taxpayers declining from 3.36 million (2021/22) to 2.82 million (2024), reported by TanzaniaInvest, April 2025.
- National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Tax Statistics Report, 2023/24 — registered taxpayer counts by fiscal year, 2017/18–2023/24.
- Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) 30th-anniversary corporate communications, July 2026 — total register (8.1 million+), office and staffing expansion.
- TRA corporate announcements on 2024/25 (TZS 32.26 trillion, 103% of target) and 2025/26 (TZS 37.95 trillion, 105% of target) revenue performance.
- Controller and Auditor General (CAG) performance audit on Electronic Fiscal Devices, tabled in Parliament 16 April 2025 (EFD non-registration among business TIN holders, as of July 2024).
- Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) remarks on formal vs informal business registration shares, reported April 2025.
- Tax-to-GDP ratio figures compiled from multiple sources (PwC Tanzania, World Bank/Trading Economics, TICGL prior research, and TanzaniaInvest), reflecting the range across methodologies and fiscal years discussed in Section 7.
- This page is an independent analytical summary prepared by TICGL/TERI and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.
Muhtasari kwa Kiswahili
Kitendawili cha Walipa Kodi Tanzania: Milioni 8.1 Wamesajiliwa, Lakini Ni Wangapi Wanaolipa Kweli? Orodha ya walipa kodi waliosajiliwa (wenye TIN) imeongezeka kutoka takribani 70,000 mwaka TRA ilipoanzishwa hadi zaidi ya milioni 8.1 kufikia katikati ya mwaka 2026. Wakati huo huo, idadi ya walipa kodi "active" — wanaolipa na kuwasilisha taarifa zao kwa ukawaida — imepungua kutoka milioni 3.36 (2021/22) hadi milioni 2.18 (2024/25), kulingana na takwimu za Wizara ya Fedha.
Takwimu hizi mbili zinaweza kuwa kweli kwa wakati mmoja kwa sababu zinapima vitu tofauti. Usajili (TIN) ni orodha inayoongezeka tu — mara chache TIN hufutwa hata kama biashara imefungwa au mtu hajalipa kodi kwa miaka. "Active" ni kipimo cha wale wanaofanya malipo na kuwasilisha taarifa kwa wakati fulani — na hapa ndipo tatizo halisi la kupungua kwa msingi wa kodi linapoonekana. Licha ya hali hii, TRA imeendelea kuvunja rekodi za makusanyo — Sh trilioni 32.26 (2024/25) na Sh trilioni 37.95 (2025/26) — kwa sababu ukuaji mkubwa wa mapato unatokana zaidi na walipa kodi wakubwa na forodha, si ongezeko la walipa kodi wadogo wanaofanya kazi kikamilifu.
- Walipa kodi waliosajiliwa (TIN): zaidi ya milioni 8.1 (2026), kutoka 70,000 (1996)
- Walipa kodi "active": milioni 2.18 (2024/25), kutoka milioni 3.36 (2021/22) — punguzo la takribani asilimia 35
- Asilimia 88 ya wafanyabiashara wenye TIN hawajasajiliwa kutumia EFD (Julai 2024, Ripoti ya CAG)
- Ni asilimia 30 tu ya biashara binafsi zilizosajiliwa rasmi TRA, licha ya asilimia 70 kuwa za watu binafsi
Vyanzo: Wizara ya Fedha, Ripoti ya Takwimu za Kodi ya NBS, TRA, na Mdhibiti na Mkaguzi Mkuu wa Hesabu za Serikali (CAG). Uchambuzi umeandaliwa na Idara ya Utafiti ya TICGL / Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI).