Report contents
SSA · Developing
Tanzania
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 30 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +0 |
| Inflation 3.4% · unbanked 40% · remittances 1.4% GDP · capital controls 0.84 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.273 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.909 |
| Livability score | 0.325 |
Raw 30/84 = 0.357 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.27, from five components: inflation 3.4% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 40% of adults, remittances 1.4% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.84 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.91. Livability score 0.325, rank #66 of 79.
Three findings
A court that ruled crypto trading is not illegal
In Yellow Card Tanzania versus Nyamwero, the High Court held in 2025 that the absence of a legal framework does not make crypto unlawful, and awarded the plaintiff 1.193 million dollars, reasoning that an asset which is taxed cannot be illegal. Combined with the Finance Act 2024's 3 percent withholding tax on digital-asset transfers, the first legal recognition of virtual assets, this gives Tanzania a tax sub-score of 3 despite having no licensing regime.
Tax-first recognition without a VASP framework
Tanzania has expressly brought virtual-asset activity under its anti-money-laundering rules while issuing no VASP (virtual asset service provider) licences, a hybrid posture: formal AML coverage, no licensing, and a revenue authority that treats crypto as taxable income. Roughly 2.3 million Tanzanians hold crypto and stablecoin usage is growing 53 percent year-on-year, faster than Kenya.
Connectivity is the binding constraint, not regulation
Unique-user internet penetration is just 29.1 percent, dropping the access sub-score to zero, against a state regulator's inflated 85.3 percent active-SIM figure. No direct merchant gateway analogous to Kenya's Tando or South Africa's MoneyBadger had launched by the cutoff, leaving the market P2P-only (peer-to-peer trading between individuals) and mobile-money-dominated, with crypto remittances a niche 1 to 3 percent of a small 650 million dollar corridor.
In one line
"A Tanzanian court settled the question its lawmakers had not: an asset the state taxes cannot be an asset the state forbids. The recognition is real; the bandwidth to use it, with under a third of the country online, is the harder gap."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 3/4, trending liberalising. The Finance Act 2024's 3 percent withholding tax, the High Court's affirmation that trading is not illegal, and pro-crypto signals from President Samia all point toward a formal VASP framework on Kenya's model, likely in 2026 to 2027. The 2019 central-bank warnings remain technically in force but are unenforced and contradicted by the legislative and judicial branches.