Tanzania Tax Deadlines: Every TRA Due Date

The monthly cycle: the 7th, 10th, 20th and 25th

Most Tanzanian taxes are monthly, and the month just ended is settled in the first three and a half weeks of the next one. The dates are short but they are not the same date: payroll and withholding taxes are due first, on the 7th; VAT withheld by a withholding agent follows on the 10th; VAT and digital service tax fall on the 20th; excise is last, on the 25th. A business that pays everything on the 20th is late on three of those returns.

Quarterly and annual income tax

Income tax runs on a different clock. A taxpayer who must file a statement of estimated tax payable does so within three months of the start of the year of income, and pays the estimate in up to four instalments. For an individual, whose year of income is the calendar year, those four dates are 31 March, 30 June, 30 September and 31 December. The final return follows within six months of the end of the year of income — 30 June for a December year end — and the self-assessed tax is due on the same date as the return. A company with a different accounting period moves both sets of dates with it.

One-off deadlines that are easy to miss

Some of the most expensive deadlines are not recurring at all. They attach to a registration, a transfer or a dispute, and they do not appear on any monthly calendar. The two shortest are the 15 days to apply for a TIN after starting a business and the 14 days to apply for VAT deregistration after permanently ceasing taxable supplies. The stamp duty clock is 30 days from execution of the instrument, and capital gains tax on land or buildings has no fixed date at all: it is paid before the title is transferred, because the Registrar of Titles will not register the transfer without TRA's certificate.

What a missed deadline costs

TRA prices lateness two ways. A late return attracts a penalty for each month, or part of a month, that the failure continues: the higher of 2.5% of the tax assessed (less what has already been paid towards it) or a fixed number of currency points — five for an individual and fifteen for a body corporate. One currency point is 20,000 TZS, so the fixed floor is 100,000 TZS for an individual and 300,000 TZS for a company. A late payment, separately, attracts interest at the statutory rate compounded monthly. The statutory rate is the Bank of Tanzania's prevailing discount rate, which is why this guide does not print a percentage for it.

How to pay, and what to keep

For Neema's hardware shop in Dodoma the month has three separate payment dates, not one. Returns and payments go through TRA's taxpayer portal (IDRAS), which issues a control number that is paid at a bank or through TISS, or through the mobile-money channels the tax pages list. A payment is not complete because the return was filed: the control number has to be paid by the due date, and a filed return with an unpaid bill is still a late payment. Keep the payment receipts with the return and the supporting records, because TRA requires records to be kept for five years from the end of the year of income. For PAYE and SDL the employer also keeps wage sheets and salary vouchers, which are the evidence behind the monthly figure.

When a date falls on a weekend or public holiday

TRA's tax pages do not publish a rule that shifts a due date falling on a weekend or a public holiday, and this guide will not invent one. The safe course is to file and pay on the last working day before the date, keep the receipt, and if a payment cannot be made in time, contact the tax region before the deadline rather than after it. A late objection is harder to recover than a late payment: the notice must be filed within 30 days of service of the decision, an extension must be applied for within seven days before the deadline expires, and the extension cannot exceed 30 days.

Gaming returns are not monthly for every operator

TRA's gaming page gives two different cadences. Its prose says returns for land-based and internet casinos are filed weekly, while the table on the same page gives weekly for a land-based casino and monthly for an online casino, with monthly for sports betting, SMS lottery, national lottery, slot routes and forty-machine sites. The table is the more specific statement, and it is the one this page follows: land-based casino weekly, everything else monthly. An operator should confirm the cadence for its licence with its tax region before relying on either.

The mistakes that cost the most

The recurring errors are paying everything on the 20th, which is late for PAYE, withholding tax and SDL; treating the final return date as the payment date when the self-assessed tax is due on the same day; missing the 15-day TIN window because the business licence seemed like the first step; and assuming a filed return settles the bill. A fifth is assuming the presumptive regime removes filing altogether — a presumptive taxpayer with an assessed amount above 50,000 TZS a year may pay by instalments, but the assessment still has to be dealt with.

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Tanzania Tax Deadlines: Every TRA Due Date FAQs