DAR ES SALAAM: TANZANIA’s revenue landscape in 2025 has been increasingly shaped by efforts to expand its tax base, with a strong focus on leveraging digital systems to enhance revenue tracking, protection, and optimization.
In the first quarter of the 2025/2026 financial year, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) collected 8.97tri/-, surpassing its quarterly target by over 6 percent and achieving a 15 percent year-on-year growth compared to the same period in 2024.
The success of technology-driven solutions, such as Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS) and the Fuel Marking Programme, highlights the transformative power of digital tools in safeguarding and enhancing national revenue.
The Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS) system has evolved from a basic compliance tool into a robust real-time intelligence platform.
By replacing paper tax stamps with secure, traceable digital markers, regulators can now track excisable goods from the manufacturing stage all the way to the retail shelf.
In the 2024/2025 fiscal year, TRA collected 32.26tri/-, exceeding its target by 3 percent and marking a 16.7 percent increase from the previous year.
Technology-driven compliance measures have played a key role in bolstering the integrity of excise taxes.
The ETS has proven particularly effective in increasing excise and VAT revenue from domestic excisable products. In 2024/2025, excise duty revenues from marked products surged by 94.4 per cent since TRA’s introduction of the ETS program in 2016.
The Fuel Marking Programme is central to safeguarding one of Tanzania’s most crucial revenue streams: petroleum.
The initiative helps protect against adulteration, illicit trade, and tax leakages. According to the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA), compliance rates have remained above 96 per cent, with billions of liters tested and verified using invisible forensic markers that enable immediate checks for authenticity and dilution.
ALSO READ: TZ targets higher mineral revenues with Tanzanite market reforms
This system not only protects consumers but also ensures the integrity of government revenues. Mobile laboratories complement this effort, providing rapid on-site verification in under five minutes and transmitting real-time data to central platforms for timely enforcement actions.
The program also conducts pre-screening of critical quality indicators such as sulfur levels, metals, and trace elements—helping reduce engine wear, cut emissions, and preserve industrial investments.
The power of systems like ETS and fuel marking lies not just in the physical markers, but in the valuable data they generate.
This data is securely collected and used to identify potential anomalies across various sectors, including depots with discrepancies between marker profiles and delivery volumes, districts showing excise patterns that don’t align with legitimate trade, supply chains where products “disappear” between factory and retail, and zones where counterfeit tax stamps are used to misrepresent goods.
This year, TRA intensified its data-led inspections of excisable goods such as alcohol and tobacco, focusing enforcement efforts on high-risk areas rather than conducting indiscriminate field sweeps.
This approach not only saved resources but also significantly increased recovery rates.
Several key initiatives have demonstrated the success of this digital transformation. The Smart Digital Activation System automated manufacturer reporting, reducing errors in ETS declarations and improving compliance and efficiency.
Fuel marker failures prompted targeted re-inspections, with EWURA taking swift action to sanction non-compliant fuel stations and restore consumer confidence.
The expansion of ETS has contributed to a reduction in counterfeit excisable goods, safeguarding legitimate manufacturers and protecting brand integrity.
AI-powered Digital Market Intelligence has enhanced TRA’s ability to anticipate compliance risks, streamline staff deployment, and optimize audit targeting based on data insights.
The Hakiki App, launched by TRA, continues to empower Tanzanian consumers by allowing them to verify the authenticity of excisable goods, fostering greater consumer awareness and promoting safer purchasing decisions.
Each of these successes underscores a critical truth: digital systems create verifiable evidence, and evidence enables more effective enforcement.
By improving compliance and curbing illicit trade, digital systems ensure fairer pricing in the formal market and protect the interests of honest manufacturers.
They also build public trust in regulated goods and services, playing a crucial role in securing revenue for national priorities such as health, education, infrastructure, and social development. Tanzania’s digital transformation of revenue assurance is no longer a distant goal—it is a present-day advantage. Initiatives like ETS and fuel marking have proven that when technology, transparency, and data are integrated, revenue increases, illicit activities decrease, and national systems become more resilient.
This year, one key message has emerged loud and clear: digital tools don’t just monitor revenue; they unlock it.