Fiscal Intelligence and Reform Lab · Project 5
Every stage has a fare.
Paying tax in Uganda is a ride with stages. At each one the law asks something of you, and every stage has a fare: not the tax, but the time and money it takes to comply.
- UGX 3m
- a year to comply, for the median firm
- Over 20%
- of turnover, for the smallest firms
- 21 stages
- on three routes; 18 required by law
Photo: “Skyline of Kampala”, Flöschen, CC BY-SA 3.0
Take the ride
Three routes, drawn along real Kampala roads: KCCA's route A3 runs from the Old Taxi Park up Jinja Road past Lugogo to Nakawa, where URA has its head office. Each stage is a step a taxpayer must take; 18 of the 21 are required by a section of an Act we have read and quote. The city is real too, built from OpenStreetMap: its streets, its buildings and the hills under them.
- Scroll to drive: 7.5 km of road, so the ride runs as a time-lapse
- Drag to look around, or change the camera
- Press a building's name to see what the law does there
Which journey?
Route A3 · Old Taxi Park to URA House, Nakawa
Who is riding?
Selling UGX 150m a year is below the UGX 300 million threshold: registration is not yet required under s. 7(2). They still have to watch for the day it is: that is stage 1. A year of complying with all their taxes costs about UGX 1,530,000 without an agent and UGX 3,930,000 with one, at the survey's median hours, wage and fee: up to 2.6% of what they sell modelled. Their presumptive income tax, keeping no records, is UGX 900,000 a year (Income Tax Act s. 4(5), Schedule 3): the fare can be more than the tax.
- Required by law
- 1 of 6
- Boxes on board
- 0
- Deadlines
- 0
- Hand-offs
- 0
STAGE 1 OF 7 · You
Watch turnover against the registration threshold of UGX 300 million a year
Required by law
VAT Act s. 7(2), as amended by the VAT (Amendment) Act 2026
STAGE 2 OF 7 · You
Apply to the Commissioner General for registration, with the prescribed evidence of identity
Required by law
Tax Procedures Code s. 3(1) and (2), Cap 343 p. 9
STAGE 3 OF 7 · URA
Register the person and issue a TIN; a 2025 amendment makes the national identification number or company registration number the TIN, from a date the Minister is to appoint
Required by law
Tax Procedures Code s. 3 and s. 4, Cap 343 p. 9; Act 11 of 2025 ss. 1 and 2
STAGE 4 OF 7 · You
Where specified by the Commissioner General, issue e-invoices or e-receipts or use an electronic fiscal device for every transaction (EFRIS)
Required by law
Tax Procedures Code s. 92(1) to (3), Cap 343 p. 43
STAGE 5 OF 7 · You
Set up EFRIS: onboarding, device or system-to-system integration, product codes
URA's system
URA EFRIS system (public guides to be cited in G3)
STAGE 6 OF 7 · You · DEADLINE 15 DAYS AFTER THE MONTH
Lodge the monthly VAT return within fifteen days after the end of the tax period
Required by law
VAT Act s. 31(1), Cap 344 (23 Dec 2024) p. 23
379 boxes on the form, loaded on the roof rackSTAGE 7 OF 7 · You · DEADLINE 15 DAYS AFTER THE MONTH
Pay the VAT due, on the date the return must be lodged
Required by law
VAT Act s. 32(1)(a), Cap 344
URA House, Nakawa. The end of the line.
On this route, 6 of 7 stages are required by law; the form carries 379 labelled boxes. For a presumptive taxpayer, a year of complying comes to about 2.6% of sales (modelled).
The conductor's fare chart
The same ride costs every passenger about the same hours. As a share of what each one sells, it is a different fare. The passenger you chose above is still aboard.
FARE CARD · MODELLED defaults: Lees (2025) medians
UGX3,930,000a year to comply
2.6% of this passenger's turnover
Hours are held the same for every passenger, because Lees finds time does not rise much with firm size (p. 4). Measured: the median firm pays UGX 3m a year, about 2% of turnover (p. 11).
What a ride costs, measured
FARE · MEDIAN FIRM
UGX 0
a year to comply, about 2% of turnover
FARE · SMALLEST FIRMS
> 0%
of turnover; under 1% for the largest
FARE · LABOUR
0 h
a month; a fifth of an owner's time
FARE · ABOVE THE TAX
0%
of income tax filers pay more to comply than they owe
Lees, A. (2025), Beyond the Tax Bill: Measuring Tax Compliance Costs for Ugandan Firms, ICTD Working Paper 223, pp. 4, 11, 35, 58. Survey of nearly 2,000 firms in Kampala, Mbale, Lira and Mbarara, July to November 2023, matched to URA returns.
Nothing to declare, still a fare
Firms that file a nil return, declaring no tax at all, report a median compliance cost of UGX 2,760,000 a year, and about half pay an agent to do it. Over a third of the firms surveyed had last filed a nil return.
MeterUGX 0
The toll before the hearing
To object to an assessment you must already have filed the return and paid the tax under it (Tax Procedures Code s. 26(3)), and pay 30% of the tax assessed, or the undisputed part if greater, until the dispute ends (Tax Appeals Tribunals Act s. 15(1)). If URA does not decide within 90 days, you may treat the objection as allowed (s. 26(7)).
The timetable is out of date
URA's own return forms are long and layered. The company income tax return has 627 labelled boxes and keeps 25 hidden versions of its sections; the monthly VAT return has 379. And 10 of the 14 forms we measured still cite the Acts by their chapter numbers from before the 2023 revision: the PAYE form sends employers to “section 116” for withholding, which is now section 126.
Six ways to shorten the route
- Correct the forms' references to today's chapters and sectionsSafeguard: none touched
- A one-line nil return for firms with nothing to declareSafeguard: URA still gets a declaration it can audit
- Pre-fill the income tax return from VAT returns and EFRIS dataSafeguard: the taxpayer still certifies it, and must be able to correct it
- Raise and index the small-business thresholdsSafeguard: URA would know less about small firms
- Grade the 30% deposit, or let it be paid in instalmentsSafeguard: the deposit deters objections lodged only to delay
- One form per period instead of hidden versionsSafeguard: past periods still need their old forms
None of these is URA policy; options 3 and 4 are among Lees's recommendations. Method, sources and tests: Fiscal Intelligence and Reform Lab. The routes follow KCCA's public transport route chart (A3, Old Taxi Park to Nakawa); places are named only where confirmed. Hero photograph: “Skyline of Kampala” by Flöschen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. The taxi is “2005 Toyota HiAce” by ActsOfDoge (Sketchfab). The 3D city: buildings, roads, land use, mapped trees and lamps © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), elevation from Mapzen Terrain Tiles, hills drawn 1.4 times their height. The showpiece buildings are modelled from public photographs and published floor counts, not surveys. Added for illustration: heights of the buildings with none mapped (estimated from their footprints), roofs and paint, poles and wires, extra trees, the crowds and traffic, and the stage posts and the toll, which stand evenly along the road and not where the law happens.