The customs duty on imported mobile phones will be reduced to zero once Uzbekistan joins the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Farhod Olimjonov, head of a department at the Customs Committee, announced this at a press conference on November 11.
According to the official, Uzbekistan agreed on alternative customs duty rates during negotiations with other countries as part of its WTO accession process. These include reducing the import duty on mobile phones to zero.
“If the budget currently receives 2 trillion soums from phone imports, this amount will decrease once the rates are reduced to zero — not by 2 trillion, but by 300−400 billion soums. However, mobile devices will become 5% cheaper for consumers. VAT will remain in place,” Olimjonov said.
Over the first 10 months of this year, 4.1 million mobile phones were officially imported into Uzbekistan, one million more than during the same period last year. Customs revenue from their imports more than doubled to 2 trillion soums.
Of these, 452,000 were Apple devices imported since the beginning of the year. They generated 756.6 billion soums in budget revenue, 6.2 times more than in 2025.
The English version of this material was generated with the assistance of AI translation tools and may differ slightly from the original text.
