Tanzania has opened its treasury bills and government bonds market to foreign investors of any nationality, scrapping rules that previously limited participation to buyers from the East African Community, the Southern African Development Community and the Tanzanian diaspora, according to TanzaniaInvest. The Bank of Tanzania said the move is meant to “deepen domestic financial markets and strengthen Tanzania’s standing as an investment destination.”
The reform took effect through Government Notice No. 206 of 2026, published in the Government Gazette on July 17, 2026, with the central bank formally announcing the change on August 6, 2026. Non-resident investors can now access the securities through approved Central Depository Participants, with the previous geographic restrictions fully eliminated.
The opened market spans four treasury bill maturities of 35, 91, 182 and 364 days, with a minimum bid of 500,000 Tanzanian shillings, and seven treasury bond maturities ranging from two to 25 years, with a minimum bid of 1,000,000 shillings. The reform builds on a December 2024 shift to market-determined bond coupon rates, aimed at improving price discovery and drawing more investor interest.
Tanzania’s domestic debt stood at roughly $14.99 billion as of June 2026, about 29.6 percent of the country’s total national debt of $50.6 billion. Opening the market to all foreign buyers is intended to widen the pool of demand for that debt and reduce the government’s reliance on domestic lenders to finance its borrowing needs.
The liberalization comes as African governments take contrasting approaches to attracting foreign capital: Tanzania is loosening entry rules for investors even as Uber’s exit from Nigeria and Uganda underscored the operating risks multinational firms face elsewhere on the continent, highlighting how capital-market reforms and on-the-ground business conditions do not always move in the same direction.
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