Uganda VAT standard rate
Uganda VAT standard rate is 18 percent, in force since 1 Jul 2005. It was 17 percent before that. Last checked against the official source on 7 Aug 2026.
Standard value-added tax rate.
| Current value | 18 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2005-07-01 |
| Official source | Value Added Tax (Rate of Tax) Order, 2006 (SI 2006 No. 29), para 3 — 'the rate of tax for (a) every taxable supply... (b) every import... (c) ...imported services, is 18% of the taxable value' — made under s. 78 VAT Act (Cap. 349), Statutory Instruments Supplement No. 16 to Uganda Gazette No. 39 Vol. XCVIX of 30 June 2006, deemed in force 1 July 2005 |
| Last verified | 2026-08-07 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Stable for 21 years (raised from the original 17% of 1996). The VAT (Amendment) Act 2026 (effective 1 July 2026) changed exemption/zero-rating schedules and doubled the registration threshold to UGX 300m annual turnover, but did not touch the 18% rate. Rate changes, if any, come via annual Tax Amendment Acts effective 1 July. CITATION CORRECTED (2026-08-07): the previous citation named the VAT (Rate of Tax) Order 2005 (SI 51/2005) but linked a URA agro-processing sector page that merely mentions the rate. The 2005 Order is real — the Uganda Gazette of 8 June 2005 lists it in its contents — but its SI supplement text is not in any online gazette copy, so it is unverifiable; the operative, verifiable instrument is the 2006 Order (SI 29/2006), which re-prescribed 18% with retroactive commencement 1 July 2005 (hence effective_from is unchanged). Later chain checked in the gazettes: SI 21/2007 was a special 5% residential-dwellings rate, revoked by SI 30/2009; no general-rate order since. ACCESS: ulii.org sits behind a Cloudflare JS challenge (403 to non-browser fetches; a real browser passes) — the Order was read in a browser session, and the surrounding gazettes are freely fetchable from archive.gazettes.africa. Do NOT cite ULII's consolidated VAT Act for the rate: it is the 31.12.2000 revision with unapplied amendments.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1996-07-01 | 17 | VAT introduction rate (Economic Policy Research Centre VAT… |
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/ug/vat
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/ug/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/ug/vatOther Uganda series: Bank of Uganda central bank rate · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage (statutory, archaic) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Statutory late-payment interest · Personal income tax brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Zambia · Algeria · Angola · Benin · Botswana · all 34