This report is prepared by TERI for research and strategic-information purposes only. It is not investment, legal, tax or financial advice and does not state the position of the Government of Tanzania. Recommendations are analytical proposals; figures marked "TERI calculation" are illustrative arithmetic on the cited data and should be independently verified before use in decision-making. Reform references R1–R25 point to the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 register.
This page is the diversification counterpart to TICGL/TERI's Gold Dependence and Tanzania's Economic Future report. That report asks what gold can and cannot deliver toward the 2030/31 target; this one asks the same question of Tanzania's three main services engines — tourism, transport and digital/professional services — plus two adjacent low-risk sectors, horticulture and mobile money. Read together, the two reports cover the two sides of the same diversification question: reducing concentration in gold, and building up the alternative that is already close to half of export earnings.
01 — OverviewExecutive Summary
Services receipts — payments Tanzania earns from foreigners for travel, transport, financial, ICT, professional and other services — reached US$8.14 billion in the year to June 2026 (+14.4%) and US$8.03 billion in the year to July 2026, up from US$7.26 billion a year earlier. On a calendar-year basis they rose 9.2% to US$7.48 billion in 2025 from US$6.85 billion in 2024. This is equivalent to roughly 41% of Tanzania's combined goods-and-services exports (US$19.92–19.99 billion) — larger, on this measure, than gold alone (≈28–47% depending on the denominator used; see the companion gold-dependence report). The report answers three questions directly.
What is contributing most, and why?
Travel and tourism remain the largest single component (US$4.41bn in 2025), resting on globally unique assets. Transport and logistics is the fastest-growing (+29.7% to US$3.22bn), driven by Tanzania's role as the sea gateway for six landlocked neighbours. Other services (finance, ICT, professional) stay under 10% of the total but carry the highest long-run upside.
Why is this lower risk than gold?
Services receipts do not deplete like an ore body, are not set by one global commodity price, and carry a larger employment and domestic-linkage multiplier per dollar. But "lower risk" is relative, not zero — each engine has its own real exposure.
What needs fixing?
Five priorities: enforce the 30-day VAT-refund rule; integrate port, SGR and dry ports as one logistics platform; measure tourism and transport by net value retained; build a digital-export strategy; extend the same logic to horticulture and mobile money.
Services receipts are not a hypothetical alternative to mineral exports — they are already close to half of Tanzania's foreign-exchange earnings, growing faster in percentage terms than gold in the most recent data, and carrying a materially larger domestic multiplier per dollar earned. The single most important discipline for the next five years is measurement: moving from gross arrivals and gross tonnage to net value retained, and treating horticulture and mobile-money-enabled finance as part of the same low-risk, high-multiplier growth story as tourism and logistics — because all four reach ordinary Tanzanians, and none of them can run out.
Headline numbers
| Indicator | Value | Source / status |
|---|---|---|
| Total services receipts, year to June 2026 | US$8.14bn (+14.4%) | BoT Monthly Economic Review via TanzaniaInvest |
| Total services receipts, year to July 2026 | US$8.03bn | BoT; travel US$4.29bn (+1.6%), transport US$3.22bn (+29.7%) |
| Services receipts, calendar 2025 | US$7.48bn (+9.2%) | TICGL/TERI working note, from US$6.85bn in 2024 |
| Services share of total goods + services exports | ≈ 41% | TERI calculation: 8.14 / 19.92 (year to June 2026) |
| Travel (tourism) receipts, 2025 | US$4.41bn (+13%) | Business Report Sep 2026; 2.29m international arrivals (+7.1%) |
| Transport receipts, year to June 2026 | US$3.22bn (+29.7% to US$3.2215bn by Jul) | BoT |
| Transit cargo through Tanzanian ports, 2025 | 14.25m tonnes (+55% vs 2024); DRC 51% of total | Tanzania Ports Authority via The Chanzo / The Guardian, Jul 2026 |
| Mobile-money accounts / transactions, 2025 | 87.05m accounts; 6.31bn transactions | Business Report Sep 2026 (TCRA) |
Read this alongside TICGL/TERI's gold-dependence report
Gold dominates Tanzania's export headlines, but services receipts already earn nearly as much foreign exchange, with a lower risk profile. Read the two reports together for the full diversification picture.
Read: Gold Dependence & Tanzania's Economic Future →1. The Size and Shape of Services Receipts
Rising faster than gold, on a broader baseServices receipts reached US$8.14 billion in the year to June 2026 (+14.4%), and US$8.03 billion in the year to July 2026, up from US$7.26 billion a year earlier. In the first half of FY2025/26, services brought in US$4.01 billion against US$3.76 billion a year earlier. Unlike mineral exports, services receipts are earned by people, skills, brands, infrastructure and networks that do not deplete with use.
Services Receipts Trend
Composition of Services Receipts, Year to June 2026 (Total US$8.14bn)
1.1 Composition and what is driving each component
| Component | Share (≈) | Why it is contributing what it is contributing |
|---|---|---|
| Travel & tourism | 54–59% | Unique natural and cultural assets (Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar); average spend per visitor rose 19% to US$289 per night on the Mainland in 2025, indicating a shift toward higher-value tourism, not volume alone. |
| Transport & logistics | ≈ 40%, fastest-growing | Structural geography: Tanzania is the primary sea corridor for six landlocked neighbours. Transit cargo grew 55% in 2025, driven overwhelmingly by a 73% surge in DRC-bound cargo, now 51% of all transit cargo. |
| Other services (finance, ICT, professional, business, construction/engineering) | < 7% | Domestic base is strong (87m mobile-money accounts, 6.3bn transactions in 2025; DSE market cap +79% y/y) but very little of this activity is yet sold across borders as an export — the segment with the largest unexploited potential. |
Figures for the tourism/transport/other-services split are drawn from TICGL/TERI working notes and are broadly, though not exactly, consistent with BoT's published travel and transport lines; treat percentage splits as indicative pending a fully reconciled BoT services breakdown (see Section 11).
02 — Largest EngineTravel and Tourism: Real Strength, Real Leakage Risk
Tourism earnings reached US$4.41 billion in 2025 (+13% from US$3.90bn in 2024), from 2.29 million international arrivals (+7.1%, over 150% of 2019 pre-pandemic levels). Government's broader arrivals count, including regional and land-border visitors, reached 5.9 million by December 2025 against an 8-million target by 2030. Tanzania was named Africa's Leading Destination for 2025 and again recognised at the 2026 World Travel Awards Africa Gala, with Serengeti and Zanzibar retaining regional accolades.
Tourism: Arrivals and Receipts
2.1 The leakage problem
Gross tourism receipts overstate the foreign exchange that actually stays in Tanzania. Leakage occurs through imported food and beverages, foreign-owned airlines, international booking platforms, foreign tour operators, imported equipment and profit repatriation by foreign-owned properties. The policy objective should therefore not be arrivals alone, but:
- Spending per visitor and average length of stay.
- Local procurement and local ownership shares in hotels and lodges.
- Domestic employment generated per visitor.
- Dispersal of visitors beyond the Northern Circuit into under-served regions.
- Net foreign exchange retained, after imports and repatriation, not gross receipts.
2.2 Risks specific to tourism
- Global shocks: pandemics, security concerns, recession in source markets, airline disruptions, and the Middle East-linked energy-cost pass-through already visible in 2026 inflation data.
- Connectivity and visa friction: the October–November 2025 internet shutdown (estimated at over US$238 million in economy-wide cost) is exactly the kind of episodic disruption that damages a booking-dependent, reputation-sensitive sector disproportionately.
- VAT-refund delays hit tour operators and hotels particularly hard, because they pay import duties and input VAT well before earning foreign exchange from a booking season months later.
3. Transport and Logistics: Fastest-Growing, Most Structurally Advantaged
A durable geographic advantage, with concentration riskTransport receipts reached US$3.22 billion in the year to June 2026 (+29.7%) and US$3.2215 billion by July 2026. This is underpinned by a genuine structural advantage rather than a cyclical one: Tanzania's ports (Dar es Salaam and Tanga) and the Central Corridor (road, rail, Lake Tanganyika ports) are the shortest practical route to the sea for the DRC, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and, to a lesser extent, Uganda.
3.1 Why the DRC corridor matters so much
Total transit cargo through Tanzanian ports rose from 9.19 million tonnes (2024) to 14.25 million tonnes (2025), a 55% increase, while cargo destined for or originating in the DRC alone rose 73.2%, from 4.18 million to 7.24 million tonnes — 51% of all transit cargo. Total cargo through Dar es Salaam port (transit and domestic combined) rose 21.5% to 33.71 million tonnes in FY2025/26, with containerised cargo (the highest-value category) up 31.6%. Tanzania has responded by acquiring land in the DRC for a dry port to speed clearance along the Central Corridor.
Transit Cargo Through Tanzanian Ports
DRC Share of Transit Cargo
3.2 The risk in this engine
- Concentration by destination: over half of transit cargo now depends on a single trading partner (DRC); a slowdown in DRC mining exports or a shift of DRC cargo to Atlantic-coast routes would hit Tanzania's transport receipts directly.
- Corridor competition: Dar es Salaam and Tanga compete with Mombasa (Northern Corridor), Beira and Walvis Bay for the same transit cargo; port charges, dwell time and predictability determine which corridor wins.
- Capital intensity: unlike tourism, logistics infrastructure requires continuous large-scale investment (port capacity, rail, dry ports, cold chain) to keep growing.
- If Tanzania remains a pure transit corridor — handling cargo without adding warehousing, insurance, finance, packaging or light assembly — a large share of the value generated by this trade will continue to accrue elsewhere.
Move from transit corridor to regional logistics and production hub: integrating port, SGR, dry ports, warehouses and border posts on one digital platform, and building domestic cargo insurance, trade finance and freight-forwarding capacity rather than leaving these to foreign firms.
03 — Highest CeilingOther Services: Finance, ICT and Professional Services
Financial, ICT, professional, business and construction/engineering services still make up a small share of measured services receipts (well under 10%), but Tanzania already has a strong domestic base to build an export capability from: 87.05 million mobile-money accounts and 6.31 billion mobile-money transactions in 2025 (up from 3.74 billion in 2024), a Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange whose market capitalisation rose 79.1% year-on-year to TZS 35.18 trillion by Q2 2026, and the first offshore Tanzanian-shilling bond, listed on the London Stock Exchange in July 2026.
The gap is that almost none of this domestic financial and digital capability is yet sold across borders as a services export. Software development, accounting and audit, legal services, engineering design, architecture, data processing, customer support (including Swahili-language services), fintech, cybersecurity, market research, and education/health services are all activities Tanzania could export regionally and globally — but this requires deliberate policy; it will not happen as a by-product of domestic digital growth alone.
4.1 What is missing
- A national digital-export strategy with explicit targets for receipts, jobs and exporting firms — digital services currently have no equivalent of the mineral or tourism dashboards.
- Affordable, reliable broadband and power for service delivery: 5G covers only 34.2% of the population and smartphone penetration is 44.7% (June 2026), while the October–November 2025 shutdown showed how connectivity risk can wipe out a season of digital-trade credibility.
- Cross-border payment rails that let small Tanzanian firms receive international payments without prohibitive cost or delay.
- Clear, stable data-protection and cross-border data rules, which international buyers of business-process and data services require before they will contract with a Tanzanian firm.
- Export certification and accreditation for professional-services firms (accounting, engineering, legal) so their qualifications are recognised by regional and international clients.
Mobile Money: Transactions Growth
04 — Risk ProfileWhy Services Carry Lower Risk Than Mineral Exports — And Where That Claim Needs Care
| Dimension | Gold / minerals | Services (tourism + transport + digital) |
|---|---|---|
| Price exposure | Set entirely on global markets; Tanzania is a price-taker with no influence | Price is set more by service quality, positioning and relationships than by a single global benchmark |
| Resource base | Depletes with extraction; finite reserve life per mine | Can expand with skills, infrastructure, brand and reputation — a renewable productive capacity |
| Employment intensity | Capital-intensive; comparatively few direct jobs per dollar of export value | Labour-intensive, especially tourism, retail-linked logistics and BPO; larger multiplier into youth and women's employment |
| External shock channel | Global gold price; largely outside Tanzania's control | Global demand cycles (tourism), neighbouring countries' trade cycles (transport), connectivity and skills (digital) |
| Domestic multiplier | Comparatively low: an "enclave" sector with thin linkages to agriculture, retail or construction | Larger: tourism links to agriculture, construction and transport; logistics links to trade, warehousing and finance; digital services can raise productivity across every other sector |
Lower risk is a relative, not an absolute, statement. Tourism is exposed to pandemics, security incidents and global recession; transport is exposed to the DRC's own commodity cycle and to corridor competition from Mombasa, Beira and Walvis Bay; digital/professional services are exposed to skills shortages, cybersecurity threats and unreliable power and connectivity. A prudent five-year plan should reduce Tanzania's concentration risk — across gold, tourism, transport and digital — rather than assume any single engine is risk-free.
05 — ProjectionFive-Year Outlook, 2026–2030/31
Under FYDP IV and Vision 2050, the government targets 8 million tourism arrivals and a rise in tourism's GDP contribution from roughly 17% to 20% by 2030, alongside continued Central Corridor and port investment (SGR Tabora–Kigoma section, the DP World/Adani Dar es Salaam port PPP, and dry-port capacity) and a target of 30 million tonnes of port throughput by 2030.
| Engine | 2026 baseline | Plausible 2030/31 path (TERI illustrative) | Binding constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tourism receipts | US$4.41bn (2025); arrivals 2.29m (air) / 5.9m (all) | US$6–7bn if spend-per-visitor and length-of-stay keep rising alongside the 8m-arrival target | VAT-refund delays; connectivity risk; global demand shocks |
| Transport receipts | US$3.22bn (Jun 2026), +29.7% y/y | US$4.5–5.5bn if DRC volumes hold and port capacity reaches the 30m-tonne 2030 target | Corridor competition (Mombasa/Beira); DRC-cargo concentration; capital intensity |
| Other (finance/ICT/professional) services exports | < US$0.6bn (implied) | Could double or more from a small base with a dedicated export strategy, but starts from near-zero policy attention | No national digital-export strategy yet; connectivity, skills, payments, data rules |
These are illustrative TERI ranges, not official projections, meant to show the order of magnitude each engine could plausibly reach if current constraints are addressed; they should not be read as forecasts.
2026 Baseline vs Plausible 2030/31 Range, by Engine
06 — RecommendationsPolicy Agenda
Recommendations are cross-referenced to the reform register in the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 (R1–R25) where a matching reform already exists.
7.1 Immediate (0–18 months, to September 2027)
| # | Action | Reform link | Success measure (KPI) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enforce the 30-day VAT-refund rule with priority processing for tourism and logistics exporters, whose input costs are paid well before service-based foreign exchange arrives. | R4 | Refund stock cleared to under TZS 0.3tn by FY2027/28 (Agenda target) |
| 2 | Publish port and corridor turnaround-time targets (dwell time, berth waiting, customs clearance) and write them into the DP World/Adani Dar es Salaam port contract. | R19 | Port dwell time baseline published; 30m-tonne 2030 throughput target tracked annually |
| 3 | Shift tourism KPIs from arrivals to net value retained: spend per visitor, length of stay, local-procurement share, local ownership share, regional dispersal. | — (new indicator) | First net-value-retained baseline published by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism |
| 4 | Launch a national digital and professional-services export strategy with explicit receipts, jobs and exporting-firm targets. | R23 | Strategy published; baseline digital-services export figure established |
| 5 | Extend connectivity-guarantee protections to tourism and digital-services operators explicitly, given the direct 2025 shutdown cost (over US$238m). | R23 | Zero unplanned national shutdowns (Agenda KPI) |
7.2 Medium term (18–36 months, to 2029)
| # | Action | Reform link | Success measure (KPI) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Integrate port, SGR, dry ports, warehouses and border posts on one digital logistics platform (single-window customs, cargo tracking). | R19 | Reduced average dwell time; higher containerised-cargo share (currently 48% of total) |
| 7 | Build domestic cargo insurance, trade finance, leasing and freight-forwarding capacity so transit-corridor value stops flowing entirely to foreign intermediaries. | R13, R14 | Number of Tanzanian-owned firms providing these services; value of locally underwritten cargo insurance |
| 8 | Supplier-development fund for tourism SMEs (food, furniture, construction materials, laundry, maintenance) tied to hotel/lodge local-procurement targets. | R9 (adapted from mining local-content model), R13 | Local-procurement share in tourism reported annually |
| 9 | Affordable cross-border digital payments and export certification for professional-services and BPO firms. | R23 | Number of accredited exporting professional-services firms |
| 10 | TVET and university pipelines aligned to hospitality, logistics, aviation, ICT and professional services, employer-linked rather than curriculum-only. | R20 | TVET enrolment 4.2% → 6% by 2028 (Agenda target) |
07 — Beyond ServicesOther High-Potential, Lower-Risk, High-Multiplier Sectors
Beyond services, several activities combine low commodity-price risk with a multiplier effect that reaches ordinary Tanzanians directly and quickly — smallholder farmers, small traders and mobile-money users — rather than only large capital-intensive projects.
Avocado as the lead case
Tanzania is Africa's third-largest avocado producer (after South Africa and Kenya) and among the top 20 globally, with production estimated at around 190,000–201,000 tonnes and growing 20–30% a year over the past five years. Exports rose from 15,432 tonnes (US$44.3m) in 2021 to 26,826 tonnes (US$77.3m) in 2023, reaching 31,950 tonnes in 2023/24, with the 2025/26 season targeted to exceed 35,000 tonnes and the government's longer-run goal set at 235,000 tonnes of production and 40,000 tonnes of exports by 2026/27. Nearly 90% of the crop is grown by smallholders (Njombe, Songwe, Iringa, Mbeya, Kilimanjaro), and China's recent approval of Tanzanian avocado imports opens a market estimated at US$150 million.
Mobile money and digital financial inclusion
With 87.05 million mobile-money accounts and 6.31 billion transactions in 2025, Tanzania has one of the deepest mobile-money markets in Africa. This infrastructure is a multiplier in its own right: it lowers the cost of moving money to smallholder farmers and small traders, underpins digital lending and agri-finance products, and is the rail on which cross-border digital-services payments could eventually run. The policy gap is that this domestic depth has not yet been converted into export earnings or into materially cheaper credit for the SME and agriculture sectors that most need it.
Avocado Export Growth
Why these belong alongside services in a five-year strategy
- Low commodity-price exposure: horticulture prices are set in differentiated, quality-driven export markets (Europe, India, the Middle East, and now China), not a single global benchmark like gold or cocoa.
- Direct reach to ordinary Tanzanians: nearly 90% of avocado output and the bulk of mobile-money usage sit with smallholders, small traders and individual users, not large capital-intensive firms.
- Renewable, not depleting: soil, orchards and digital infrastructure can be maintained and expanded indefinitely with the right investment, unlike an ore body.
- Formalisation is already underway (COPRA registration, national avocado guidelines, TCRA-regulated mobile money), giving policy something to build on rather than starting from zero.
08 — ComparatorsInternational Examples
| Country | What they did | Lesson for Tanzania | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore | Built services into a genuine export industry: services exports reached S$533.7bn in 2024 (+13.2%), spanning business management, finance, transport and ICT/computer services, on top of its transit-port role. | A transit corridor can be turned into a full logistics-finance-ICT ecosystem, not just cargo handling. | Scale, institutional depth and decades of investment are not directly replicable; the sequencing logic (port → finance → professional services → ICT) is the transferable part. |
| Rwanda | Repositioned tourism around high-value MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions): overall tourism earnings reached US$685m in 2025 (+6%), with MICE receipts of US$94.7m (+11.7%) across 165 international events. | Tanzania's natural-asset base is larger than Rwanda's; adding conference infrastructure, air connectivity and urban hospitality could raise visitor spend without needing more arrivals. | Rwanda's absolute MICE revenue is still modest in dollar terms; the model works best alongside, not instead of, leisure tourism. |
| Mauritius | Used tourism as an entry point to build financial services, business-process services, ICT and offshore business. | Tourism receipts can seed a financial and professional-services sector rather than remain a standalone earner. | Requires deliberate financial-sector and regulatory investment over many years; not an automatic spillover. |
| Kenya (Nairobi) | Built a regional aviation and business hub alongside tourism, positioning Nairobi as an East African corporate and logistics base. | Air connectivity and ease of doing business compound with tourism and transport advantages. | Kenya's Doing Business ranking (56th, last published 2020) was materially ahead of Tanzania's (141st); institutional reform is the binding constraint, not geography. |
| India | Built IT/BPO exports on English-language skills, engineering graduates, technology parks and telecom investment. | Tanzania could start with adjacent niches: Swahili-language customer support, accounting/back-office services, mobile-money technology, agri-data services. | India's scale took decades and a much larger graduate pipeline; Tanzania's realistic near-term niches are narrower. |
| UAE (Dubai) | Combined aviation, ports, free zones, logistics, finance and hospitality into an integrated services hub. | Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Arusha could each specialise (cargo/finance, leisure/MICE, safari logistics) rather than compete for the same role. | Dubai's scale and capital depth are not replicable; the specialisation-by-city logic is the transferable element. |
International comparators combine figures verified in this research round with material carried over from TICGL's earlier working notes; the latter should be re-checked before external circulation (see Section 11).
09 — MonitoringScorecard, 2026–2031
| Indicator | Current status | 2028 milestone (TERI proposed) | 2030/31 target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total services receipts | US$8.14bn (Jun 2026) | ≥ US$10bn | Continue outgrowing goods exports |
| Services share of total exports | ≈ 41% | Maintain or raise | Diversified across tourism, transport, digital |
| Net domestic value retained in tourism | Not yet measured | Baseline published | Rising trend established |
| Transit cargo through Tanzanian ports | 14.25m tonnes (2025) | ≥ 20m tonnes | 30m tonnes (2030, official target) |
| DRC share of transit cargo (concentration risk) | 51% | Monitor; diversify other corridors | No single partner > 45% (TERI proposed) |
| Digital/professional-services export strategy | Does not yet exist | Published and funded | First export-receipts baseline tracked |
| Avocado exports | ≈ 32,000–36,000 tonnes | 40,000 tonnes (official 2026/27 target) | Sustained smallholder income growth |
| Mobile-money transactions | 6.31bn (2025) | Rising trend; export-payments rail built | Cross-border digital-services payments enabled |
| VAT refunds pending (tourism/logistics-relevant) | TZS 1.4–1.5tn (2025, economy-wide) | Below TZS 0.3tn (Agenda target, FY2027/28) | Sustained 30-day compliance |
Proposed Pathway: Key Indicators, Now → 2028 → 2030/31
10 — Data QualityAppendix A: Data Reconciliation and Gaps
| Issue | Figures that differ | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|
| Composition split (tourism/transport/other shares) | TICGL/TERI working notes give tourism ≈ 54–59% and transport ≈ 40%; BoT's published travel and transport lines for the year to June/July 2026 are broadly consistent but not identical | Request or compile a fully reconciled BoT services-receipts breakdown by subsector |
| Services receipts 2023 baseline | Not independently verified in this round; shown as an illustrative TERI figure | Confirm against BoT historical Monthly Economic Reviews before external use |
| Rwanda MICE revenue series | US$84.8m (2024) and US$94.7m (2025) per RDB 2025 annual report vs. US$108m for 2024/25 per a February 2026 PM statement (different reporting periods) | Use RDB's own annual report figures as primary; treat the PM's fiscal-year figure as a secondary data point |
| Avocado 2024/25 production | 201,354 tonnes (Ministry of Agriculture, 2026/27 budget speech) vs. ≈ 190,000 tonnes (trade press estimate) | Use the Ministry figure as primary |
| Singapore services-export figure | S$533.7bn (2024) sourced from a single trade-press citation; not cross-checked against Singapore's Department of Statistics | Verify against Statistics Singapore before external circulation |
"Gold dominates the headlines, but services already earn Tanzania nearly as much foreign exchange — with people, skills, brands and infrastructure that do not run out. The task for the next five years is not to discover a new engine; it is to measure the ones we already have by what they actually leave behind, and to fix the handful of policy gaps — VAT refunds, port turnaround, a digital-export strategy — that stand between today's receipts and a materially larger, more broadly shared services economy by 2030/31."
— TICGL / Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI)
11 — SourcesAppendix B: Sources
This page is built directly from TERI's report "Services Receipts: Tanzania's Lower-Risk Growth Engine" (September 2026), a companion analysis to the Tanzania Business Report (September 2026), the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 and TERI's gold-dependence report. Figures marked "TERI calculation" are arithmetic on cited data.
- TICGL/TERI, Tanzania Business Report, September 2026.
- TICGL/TERI, Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 (information as of 20 September 2026).
- TICGL/TERI, two working notes on services receipts supplied for this analysis (tourism/transport/other-services composition and policy discussion).
- TICGL/TERI, Gold Dependence Policy Report (companion analysis, September 2026), for cross-referenced export-composition figures.
- TanzaniaInvest, summaries of Bank of Tanzania Monthly Economic Reviews (Jun–Jul 2026): tanzaniainvest.com/economy/trade.
- The Citizen / Nation Africa, "Dar port records 17 percent rise in transit cargo" (Jul 2026).
- The Chanzo / The Guardian (Tanzania), "DRC Emerges as Largest Transit Cargo Market for Tanzania Ports" (Jul 2026).
- FreshPlaza / AgriFocus Africa / The Exchange Africa, Tanzania avocado sector reporting (2025–2026).
- Rwanda Development Board 2025 annual performance report; trade.gov Rwanda Country Commercial Guide (2025); Umunota.com (Feb 2026).
- TICGL working notes on Singapore, Mauritius, Kenya, India and UAE services-sector comparisons — carried over from earlier drafts; flagged for verification.
Request the Full Report or a Briefing
This page summarises TICGL/TERI's services receipts report. Institutions, investors, government agencies and development partners may request the full report or a tailored briefing — including net-value-retained methodology and a digital-export strategy outline — directly from TERI.
✉️ Request via economist@ticgl.com →12 — Quick AnswersFrequently Asked Questions
How large are Tanzania's services receipts?
Services receipts reached US$8.14 billion in the year to June 2026 (+14.4%) and US$8.03 billion in the year to July 2026, up from US$7.26 billion a year earlier. On a calendar-year basis they rose 9.2% to US$7.48 billion in 2025 from US$6.85 billion in 2024. This is equivalent to roughly 41% of Tanzania's combined goods-and-services exports — on this measure, larger than gold, which is about 28–47% depending on the denominator used.
What is driving services receipts most?
Travel and tourism remain the largest component (US$4.41 billion in 2025, +13%), driven by unique assets such as the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar. Transport and logistics is the fastest-growing component (+29.7% in the year to June 2026, reaching US$3.22 billion), driven by Tanzania's position as the sea gateway for six landlocked neighbours, above all the DRC, whose transit cargo through Tanzanian ports rose 73% in 2025. Other services remain under 10% of the total but carry the highest long-run potential.
Why are services receipts considered lower risk than gold exports?
Services receipts do not deplete like an ore body, are not set by a single globally-determined commodity price, and have a materially larger employment and domestic-linkage multiplier per dollar earned. But lower risk is relative, not zero: tourism is exposed to global shocks and connectivity disruptions, transport depends on the trade cycles of neighbouring economies (chiefly the DRC), and digital and professional services depend on skills, power reliability and predictable data rules.
What policy changes would grow Tanzania's services economy fastest?
Five immediate priorities: enforce the 30-day VAT-refund rule for tourism and logistics operators; treat the Dar es Salaam port, the SGR and dry ports as one integrated logistics platform with published turnaround-time targets; measure tourism and transport by net domestic value retained rather than gross arrivals or tonnage; build a genuine digital and professional-services export strategy; and extend the same low-risk, high-multiplier logic to horticulture (avocado) and mobile-money-enabled finance.
Where could Tanzania's services economy be by 2030/31?
TERI's illustrative ranges (not official projections) suggest tourism receipts could reach US$6–7 billion if spend-per-visitor and length-of-stay keep rising alongside the 8-million-arrival target; transport receipts could reach US$4.5–5.5 billion if DRC volumes hold and port capacity reaches the official 30-million-tonne 2030 target; and other services exports, starting from under US$0.6 billion, could double or more from a small base with a dedicated digital-export strategy.
Muhtasari kwa Kiswahili
Uchumi wa Huduma wa Tanzania Unaweza Kufikia Wapi Ifikapo 2030/31 — Ikiwa Sera Zitakwenda Sambamba? — Mapato ya huduma yamefikia USD 8.14 bilioni katika miezi 12 hadi Juni 2026 (+14.4%), sawa na takribani 41% ya mauzo yote ya bidhaa na huduma — kwa kipimo hiki, ni makubwa zaidi ya dhahabu. Utalii ni USD 4.41 bilioni (2025, +13%), usafirishaji ni USD 3.22 bilioni (+29.7%), na huduma nyingine (fedha, TEHAMA, kitaalamu) bado ni chini ya 10% lakini zina uwezo mkubwa zaidi wa muda mrefu.
Kwa nini huduma zina hatari ndogo kuliko dhahabu? Mapato ya huduma hayapungui kama madini yanayochimbwa, hayategemei bei moja ya soko la dunia, na yana faida kubwa zaidi kwa ajira na uchumi wa ndani kwa kila dola. Lakini "hatari ndogo" ni jambo la kulinganisha, si la kutokuwepo kabisa: utalii una hatari za matukio ya dunia na kukatika kwa mtandao; usafirishaji unategemea mzunguko wa biashara wa nchi jirani (hasa DRC); huduma za kidijitali zinategemea ujuzi, umeme na sheria za data.
Utalii: Mapato ya utalii ni USD 4.41 bilioni (2025), kutoka wageni milioni 2.29 (+7.1%). Tatizo kubwa ni "leakage" — fedha nyingi zinazoingia hazibaki nchini kwa sababu ya chakula kinachoagizwa, ndege za kigeni, mifumo ya kimataifa ya booking na urejeshaji faida na hoteli za kigeni. Kipimo bora ni thamani halisi inayobaki, si idadi ya wageni tu.
Usafirishaji na bandari: Mizigo ya mpito kupitia bandari za Tanzania iliongezeka kutoka tani milioni 9.19 (2024) hadi tani milioni 14.25 (2025), ongezeko la 55%. Mizigo ya DRC peke yake iliongezeka 73.2%, na sasa ni 51% ya mizigo yote ya mpito. Hii ni fursa kubwa lakini pia hatari ya utegemezi wa nchi moja.
Huduma za kidijitali na kitaalamu: Akaunti za pesa za simu ni milioni 87.05, na miamala bilioni 6.31 (2025). Msingi wa ndani ni mkubwa, lakini karibu hakuna kinachouzwa nje kama huduma ya kimataifa. Tanzania inahitaji mkakati wa kitaifa wa mauzo ya huduma za kidijitali, intaneti ya uhakika, njia za malipo ya kimataifa, na sheria thabiti za data.
Sekta nyingine zenye uwezo mkubwa: Parachichi (avocado) — Tanzania ni mzalishaji wa tatu Afrika, karibu 90% ya uzalishaji ni wa wakulima wadogo, na China imeruhusu uagizaji unaokadiriwa USD milioni 150. Pesa za simu — akaunti milioni 87 na miamala bilioni 6.31 — ni msingi mzuri wa kujenga huduma za kifedha za nje.
Mapendekezo ya TICGL/TERI (hatua tano za haraka): (i) kutekeleza kanuni ya siku 30 za kurejesha VAT kwa watoa huduma za utalii na usafirishaji; (ii) kuunganisha bandari, SGR na bandari kavu kama jukwaa moja la kimkakati lenye malengo ya muda wa kusafisha mizigo; (iii) kupima utalii na usafirishaji kwa thamani halisi inayobaki, si idadi ya wageni au tani tu; (iv) kuanzisha mkakati wa kitaifa wa mauzo ya huduma za kidijitali; (v) kupanua mantiki hiyo hiyo kwa parachichi na pesa za simu.
Hitimisho: Mapato ya huduma si mbadala wa kinadharia wa mauzo ya madini — tayari ni karibu nusu ya mapato ya fedha za kigeni ya Tanzania, yanakua kwa kasi zaidi kuliko dhahabu, na yana faida kubwa zaidi kwa uchumi wa ndani kwa kila dola. Nidhamu muhimu zaidi kwa miaka mitano ijayo ni kupima: kutoka idadi ya wageni na tani za mizigo, kwenda thamani halisi inayobaki — na kutambua kuwa parachichi na pesa za simu ni sehemu ya hadithi hiyo hiyo ya ukuaji wenye hatari ndogo na faida kubwa, kwa sababu vyote vinafikia mwananchi wa kawaida na hakuna kinachomalizika.
- Mapato ya huduma: USD 8.14 bn (miezi 12 hadi Juni 2026), ≈41% ya mauzo
- Utalii: USD 4.41 bn (+13%); Usafirishaji: USD 3.22 bn (+29.7%)
- Mizigo ya mpito: tani milioni 14.25 (2025); DRC 51% ya jumla
- Pesa za simu: akaunti milioni 87, miamala bilioni 6.31 (2025)
Chanzo: TICGL/TERI, ripoti ya Mapato ya Huduma: Injini ya Ukuaji Yenye Hatari Ndogo ya Tanzania, Septemba 2026. Kwa maelezo zaidi wasiliana na: economist@ticgl.com.