VAT on foreign digital services in Uzbekistan

A foreign provider of digital services to individuals in Uzbekistan pays VAT at the 12% rate (Article 258 of the Tax Code). The provider or a foreign intermediary registers, calculates tax from a VAT-inclusive price and files quarterly. When an Uzbek company buys the service, the buyer withholds and pays the tax.

In brief:

• when an individual pays the provider directly, the foreign provider accounts for VAT; when a foreign intermediary collects payment, the intermediary closest to the customer does so;
• any one indicator (Article 241 of the Tax Code) is sufficient to establish Uzbekistan as the place of supply: residence, the bank or payment operator, network address, or telephone country code;
• the rate is 12% (Article 258 of the Tax Code), and the tax base includes VAT;
• the registration application is due within 30 calendar days (Article 279 of the Tax Code); the return and payment are due by the twentieth day of the month after the quarter;
• a foreign provider should separate B2C from B2B from the first sale, record the Uzbekistan indicators and link each payment to the relevant service.

Updated: 04 September 2026

Which services are treated as digital services

For VAT purposes, a digital service is provided automatically over the Internet using information technology. The Tax Code lists 14 categories (Article 282 of the Tax Code):

• rights to use software, including games, databases, updates and additional features, including through remote access;
• rights to use electronic books and publications, information and educational materials, images, musical works and audiovisual works;
• online advertising and the provision of advertising space and time;
• online placement of offers to buy or sell goods, services and property rights;
• automated marketplaces and other technical, organisational or information facilities that enable sellers and buyers to make contact and enter into transactions;
• establishing or maintaining an online presence, supporting websites and pages, giving other users access to them and allowing users to modify them;
• automated remote software support and administration of information systems, websites and pages;
• storage and processing of information where the person supplying the information can access it online;
• real-time computing capacity for hosting information in an information system;
• domain names and hosting;
• automatically generated information, automated data search, selection and sorting, real-time stock-market reports and automated translation;
• searching for or providing information about prospective buyers;
• access to search engines;
• website statistics.

SaaS, cloud storage, hosting, digital-content subscriptions, online advertising accounts and automated marketplace fees will therefore commonly fall within the list because of how they are delivered. The name of the agreement does not decide the issue. What matters is the service’s actual content and whether its delivery is automated.

What is not a digital service

The Internet is also used to arrange conventional supplies, so an online order alone does not turn a transaction into a digital service. The Code expressly provides four exclusions (Article 282 of the Tax Code):

• goods or services are ordered online, but delivery or performance takes place without the Internet;
• software, a computer game or a database is supplied on physical media;
• consulting is provided by email;
• Internet access is provided.

A borderline case is classified by the method of performance. Downloadable software or automated access to a cloud service is within the digital-services rules, while an individual expert opinion sent by email is expressly excluded. For a mixed agreement, identify the principal and ancillary elements separately: the place of an ancillary service follows the place of the principal service.

When Uzbekistan is the place of supply

For a service supplied to an individual, Uzbekistan is the place of supply if at least one statutory indicator is present. The complete list of indicators (Article 241 of the Tax Code) covers the following cases:

• the customer is resident in Uzbekistan;
• the bank of the account used to pay, or the payment-system operator through which payment is made, is in Uzbekistan;
• the customer’s network address used for the purchase is registered in Uzbekistan;
• the international country code of the telephone number used to purchase or pay for the service was assigned to Uzbekistan.

The indicators do not all have to match: one is enough. In practice, a provider should retain the card or payment-provider country, billing address, IP address and telephone country code with the order identifier. Where indicators conflict, the law does not prescribe a hierarchy, so the accounting system should preserve the source data and the basis for the classification used.

Who pays VAT in B2C and B2B transactions

The rule depends primarily on the customer’s status. For sales to individuals, the foreign legal entity (Article 278 of the Tax Code) is the taxpayer where Uzbekistan is the place of supply. The obligation follows from the first qualifying supply; this special chapter does not set a separate turnover threshold.

If the customer is an Uzbek legal entity or a foreign legal entity operating in Uzbekistan through a permanent establishment, the customer is the tax agent. The foreign seller does not include that transaction in its B2C calculation. The Uzbek company determines the base, calculates and withholds VAT, and remits it as tax agent.

How VAT works through a marketplace or intermediary

An intermediary accounts for B2C VAT when it participates directly in settlements with individuals under a mandate, commission, agency or similar agreement. In a chain, the intermediary becomes the tax agent (Article 278 of the Tax Code) if it participates in settlement directly with the individual, even if it has no direct agreement with the developer or content owner.

The rule requires an examination of the payment flow as well as the name shown to the user. If a platform collects the customer’s payment, retains its fee and remits the balance to the provider, its role as a direct participant in settlement must be assessed. If a payment service provider only transmits money and does not act under an intermediary agreement, payment processing alone does not automatically make it the tax agent.

Before sales begin, intra-group and platform agreements should state who supplies the service, who receives the money and who refunds the customer. With several intermediaries, these facts identify the single entity closest to the customer and prevent the same transaction from being taxed twice.

How a foreign company registers

The foreign provider registers if it settles directly with individuals; otherwise the foreign intermediary acting as tax agent registers. An application must be submitted within 30 calendar days (Article 279 of the Tax Code) from the start of digital services. The same period applies to a deregistration application after services cease. Registration and deregistration are free of charge (Article 126 of the Tax Code).

The administrative regulation provides for an online application through the website. It must be accompanied by a copy of the registration document from the company’s jurisdiction of incorporation, translated into the state language or English. Notarisation is not required, and the tax authority is prohibited from requesting other documents.

When the required documents are complete, registration takes place within three business days. The foreign company then receives a taxpayer identification number and uses its personal taxpayer account to file returns and exchange documents with the tax authority.

How to calculate VAT and determine the tax base

For B2C services, the tax base is the actual price of the digital service including VAT. The quarterly base follows the time payment is received (Article 280 of the Tax Code), including a partial payment. The date on which access begins or a subscription ends does not replace the receipt date when revenue is allocated between quarters.

If the price is expressed in foreign currency, it is converted into Uzbek soums at the Central Bank rate on the last day of the month (Article 280 of the Tax Code) in which full or partial payment was received. Each payment belongs to its own month, so instalments for an annual subscription may be converted at different rates and fall in different quarters.

Because the base already includes the tax, VAT is extracted from the amount received as price × 12 / 112. This differs from an agreement in which the price excludes VAT and tax is added on top.

Example. After the foreign-currency payment is converted under the statutory rule, the VAT-inclusive subscription price is UZS 1,120,000. At the 12% rate (Article 258 of the Tax Code), VAT is 1,120,000 × 12 / 112 = UZS 120,000, and the price net of VAT is UZS 1,000,000.

The base may be adjusted (Article 257 of the Tax Code) following a full or partial return, rejection of services, a change in price or volume, or a contractual discount. The adjustment is made in the period of the event on the basis of supporting documents, generally within one year. Because no B2C invoice is issued, the foreign provider should link the credit note, payment refund and original transaction.

When to file and pay VAT

The foreign provider files the prescribed return electronically through its personal taxpayer account. If that account is temporarily unavailable, documents and information are sent through telecommunications channels. The return is due by the twentieth day (Article 281 of the Tax Code) of the month following the expired quarter, and payment is due by the same deadline.

An internal closing calendar should finish before the legal deadline so the provider can reconcile payments, place-of-supply indicators, refunds, intermediary transactions and currency conversion. Filing and payment are separate obligations even though they share a deadline.

Are invoices required and what records must be kept

A foreign company registered under the special digital-services rules does not issue invoices (Article 47 of the Tax Code). For these supplies it also does not maintain purchase registers, sales registers or journals of invoices received and issued.

That exception does not remove the need to substantiate the calculation. Tax returns and documents needed to calculate and pay tax must be kept for three years (Article 22 of the Tax Code) after the calendar year in which payment was due. A practical file for a digital provider will usually include payment records, customer-country indicators, the exchange rate used, refunds, intermediary reports and copies of filed returns.

The law does not prescribe a special data format for an IP address, bank indicator or telephone code. The system should therefore retain the source value, the date it was obtained and its link to the transaction, rather than only a final country flag.

What an Uzbek business customer must do

An Uzbek legal entity purchasing a digital service from a foreign provider acts as tax agent. It determines the base for each transaction and must calculate, withhold and remit (Article 255 of the Tax Code) VAT whether or not it is itself registered for VAT.

If the contract price includes VAT, tax is extracted from the gross amount. If the foreign provider quotes a price excluding VAT, the customer calculates and pays VAT in addition to the service price. The payment document evidencing VAT payment permits an input credit under the general VAT rules.

Example. A foreign provider invoices an Uzbek company the equivalent of UZS 1,000,000 excluding VAT. The tax agent calculates 1,000,000 × 12% = UZS 120,000 and pays that amount to the budget. If the agreed UZS 1,120,000 amount already includes VAT, the tax component is 1,120,000 × 12 / 112 = UZS 120,000.

A tax agent pays VAT at its place of tax registration. If it is not itself a VAT taxpayer, the return for the transaction is due by the twentieth day (Article 273 of the Tax Code) of the month after the period in which the tax was paid.

For accounting purposes, the buyer of a digital product may prepare a unilateral primary document. It may attach an electronic copy of the agreement, offer or licence, the foreign invoice or other electronic document, and payment screenshots or the service’s log reports.

This article does not cover the general input-credit, proportional-credit and VAT-refund rules. The article on VAT in Uzbekistan explains them for a registered customer. Read it after the company has identified its tax-agent obligation for the foreign service.

What penalties apply

A breach of the VAT-registration procedure carries a penalty equal to 5% of the income received (Article 219 of the Tax Code) from the statutory registration date until actual registration, subject to a minimum of UZS 5,000,000. The exposure therefore depends on revenue during the full delay as well as its length.

Failure to pay or underpayment caused by an incorrect calculation or another unlawful act carries a penalty of 20% of the unpaid tax (Article 224 of the Tax Code), unless a specific offence applies. In addition, late-payment interest accrues for each calendar day beginning on the day after the deadline; the daily rate is one three-hundredth of the rate (Article 110 of the Tax Code) of Central Bank refinancing.

The tax authority may compare the return with payment and other available data. For a foreign provider, the central audit trail is the completeness of sales to customers with Uzbekistan indicators, agreement between receipts and the quarterly base, and consistency between an intermediary’s contractual role and the actual payment flow.

What changed in 2026

The special chapter of the Tax Code retains the same core model: the foreign provider or foreign intermediary accounts for B2C, while the customer acting as tax agent accounts for B2B. Administration changed during the current period:

• UP-95 of 19 May 2026 approved new large-taxpayer criteria from 1 July 2026; they include foreign legal entities supplying digital services where Uzbekistan is the place of supply;
• from that date, large-taxpayer status is formally stated in the new criteria, while the rate, quarterly period and B2C filing deadline under the special chapter remain unchanged.

This is a change in administrative category and the administering authority, not in the customer price. It does not move a foreign provider to a monthly B2C period: the special quarterly rule continues to apply.

What to check before the first sale

Before accepting payment, a foreign provider should map the transaction flow: the service being sold, the customer’s status, the indicators connecting that customer with Uzbekistan, the entity receiving the money and the entity making refunds. It should then separate B2C from B2B, identify the provider or intermediary that must register, and configure currency conversion by payment month.

A stable transaction register will support recurring returns if it links the order, payment, country indicators, VAT-inclusive amount, exchange rate and later adjustment. The platform agreement should match the actual payment route. Before services cease, the provider should complete the final return and settle the tax debt, then submit the deregistration application within the statutory period.

Frequently asked questions

Must a foreign SaaS company register from its first sale?

Yes, if SaaS is supplied automatically over the Internet to an individual, Uzbekistan is the place of supply and the foreign provider receives payment directly. The rule follows the start of qualifying services, not a separate turnover threshold. The application must be submitted within the statutory period after services begin. If a foreign platform collects the money, first determine whether that platform becomes the tax agent.

Is an Uzbekistan IP address enough to charge VAT?

Yes. A customer network address registered in Uzbekistan is an independent place-of-supply indicator. It does not have to match residence, the bank and the telephone code. The provider should retain the source IP address, the date it was captured and its link to the order. Where the data conflicts, the law does not rank the indicators, so the actual data and the classification used should be documented.

Is VAT included in the price of a digital service to an individual?

Yes. The special rule defines the B2C base as the actual service price including VAT. Tax is therefore extracted from the amount received and is not added to that amount a second time. B2B differs where the agreement expressly states a VAT-exclusive price: the Uzbek tax agent then calculates VAT in addition to the foreign service price.

Does a foreign service issue an electronic invoice to an individual?

No. Foreign legal entities registered under the special digital-services rules do not issue Uzbek invoices or keep the related registers and journals for those transactions. They must, however, retain the data supporting the tax base and return: payment, customer location, exchange rate, refund and intermediary role. A commercial receipt or order confirmation should not be confused with an Uzbek VAT invoice.

Who pays VAT when an Uzbek company buys the subscription?

The Uzbek customer is the tax agent. It determines the base for each transaction, calculates, withholds and remits VAT regardless of its own VAT status. If the price excludes VAT, tax is added on top. The tax-payment document supports an input credit where the general conditions are met, while the agreement, invoice, payment evidence and service log form the accounting file.