Tax Code of Uzbekistan: Structure, Taxes and Where to Read the Text

When it was adopted and from what date it applies

Law No. ZRU-599 was adopted by the Legislative Chamber on 9 December 2019, approved by the Senate on 14 December 2019 and signed on 30 December 2019. Formally it amended the 2007 Tax Code approved by Law No. ZRU-136 and approved its new version. It is this version — with all subsequent amendments — that has applied since 1 January 2020.

• The Law entered into force on 1 January 2020 (Art. 6 of Law No. ZRU-599).
• Tax reliefs provided for by the 2007 Code remained in effect until 1 April 2020.
• The unified social payment, the unified tax payment and the fixed tax were replaced by social tax, turnover tax and fixed-amount personal income tax.
• Sections VI and VII (transfer pricing and controlled foreign companies) and Chapter 5 (consolidated group of taxpayers) came into effect on 1 January 2022.

Structure: General and Special Parts

The General Part (Sections I–IX, Chapters 1–30) sets the rules for all taxes. The Special Part (Sections X–XXI, Chapters 31–72) sets out each tax: taxpayers, object, base, rates, tax period, payment and reporting procedure.

• Section I — general provisions: principles, tax system, participants, key terms, elements of a tax (Art. 1–75)
• Section II — tax accounting and tax reporting (Art. 76–84)
• Section III — fulfilment of tax obligations: payment, deferral, offset and refund, late-payment penalties, enforced collection (Art. 85–125)
• Section IV — taxpayer registration and TIN (Art. 126–134)
• Section V — tax control, inspections and tax monitoring (Art. 135–175)
• Sections VI–VII — transfer pricing and controlled foreign companies (Art. 176–209)
• Section VIII — tax offences and liability (Art. 210–229)
• Section IX — appeals against acts of tax authorities (Art. 230–236)
• Sections X–XX — individual taxes, levies and turnover tax (Art. 237–470); Section XXI — special rules for foreign investment, special economic zones, production sharing agreements, lawyers, notaries, certain territories and Islamic finance transactions (Art. 471–483)

Which taxes the Code establishes

Article 17 names ten taxes and Article 18 the special tax regimes. The main rates in force in 2026:

• VAT — 12%; 0% for exports and other transactions under Chapter 36 (Section X, Art. 258)
• Excise tax — ad valorem, specific or combined rates (Section XI, Art. 289)
• Profit tax — 15%; 20% for banks and certain sectors; dividends — 5% (Section XII, Art. 337)
• Personal income tax — 12%; dividends and interest — 5% (Section XIII, Art. 381)
• Social tax — 12%; budget organisations — 25% (Section XIV, Art. 405)
• Property tax on legal entities — 1.5% (Section XV, Art. 415)
• Land tax — base rates per hectare by region; for agricultural land — 0.95% of the standard value (Section XVI, Art. 429)
• Water use tax — in UZS per cubic metre (Section XVII, Art. 445)
• Subsoil use tax — percentages by type of mineral (Section XVIII, Art. 452); special rent tax — at least 25% (Section XVIII¹, Art. 454⁵)
• Turnover tax — a special regime: 4%; 1% for individual entrepreneurs and the self-employed (Section XX, Art. 467)

General Part provisions businesses need every day

• Tax is calculated under the legislation in force when the obligation arose. Tax legislation has no retroactive effect: acts mitigating liability do, while other acts improving the taxpayer's position do so only if expressly provided (Art. 4).
• Time limits in days are counted in working days unless set in calendar days (Art. 5).
• If an international treaty of Uzbekistan establishes different rules, the treaty rules apply (Art. 2).
• The limitation period is three years after the end of the tax period (Art. 88).
• Late-payment penalty — 1/300 of the Central Bank refinancing rate for each calendar day of delay (Art. 110).
• Types of tax inspections — desk audit, field inspection, tax audit and transfer pricing audit (Art. 137).
• Decisions of tax authorities may be appealed to a higher tax authority or to the court (Art. 231).

Where to read the official text

The Code was officially published in the National Database of Legislation on 31 December 2019; the current text with all amendments is on the lex.uz portal. There the Code is available in Uzbek, in both Cyrillic and Latin script, under the title «Ўзбекистон Республикасининг Солиқ кодекси», and in Russian.

In the Russian text, amendments of recent years are marked as an "unofficial translation" with a link to the official Uzbek text, so contentious wording should be checked against the Uzbek version. Amended provisions show which law introduced the amendment, many also the date of entry into force, and a link to the previous version opens the text as of the required date. For reviewing past periods this matters more than the current version: the provision in force when the obligation arose applies (Art. 4).

How amendments are made

The Code is amended by laws. Tax legislation consists of the Code and those acts whose adoption it expressly provides for (Art. 2); an act that contradicts the Code may be repealed by the body that adopted it or declared invalid by a court (Art. 3). Amendments are issued several times a year: in 2026 the Code was amended, in particular, by laws of 5 February (No. ZRU-1117), 27 March (No. ZRU-1126), 17 April (No. ZRU-1131), 13 July (No. ZRU-1158) and 5 August (No. ZRU-1162), while a major package of amendments — Law No. ZRU-1108 of 25 December 2025 — mostly applies from 1 January 2026.

Article 4 determines when an amendment takes effect: new taxes, abolition of reliefs and other changes that worsen the taxpayer's position — no earlier than three months after official publication; rate changes — from the first day of the month following the month of publication, unless the act specifies a later date; other acts — from the day of publication. What specifically changed in 2026 for individual taxes is covered in a separate article on our blog.

Typical mistakes when working with the Code

• relying on an outdated version from third-party sources rather than the text on lex.uz;
• applying a new provision to a past period without checking whether it was in force then (Art. 4);
• missing a deferred effective date: for some amendments it is stated separately — for example, a provision of Law No. ZRU-1158 applies from 25 July 2026;
• overlooking the clause "also applies to relations arising from …": such a provision also applies to an earlier period;
• counting time limits in calendar days where the Code means working days (Art. 5).