Last reviewed: September 2026. Based on the mining law and the local content regulations issued under it, as amended in 2019, 2022 and again in September 2025.
Tanzania’s mining framework requires that Tanzanians participate in the sector, not merely watch it. For a foreign company, this is not an obstacle to be worked around; it is a structural feature that determines how your entity is owned, who supplies you, and who works for you.
Equity participation in the licence holder. Where a non-indigenous company is awarded a mining licence, an indigenous Tanzanian company must hold at least 5% equity participation in it. The Minister may determine the ratio case by case, so treat 5% as the floor rather than the answer.
Joint ventures for suppliers, and what changed in 2025. A non-indigenous company seeking to supply goods or services to a licensee, contractor, subcontractor or the state corporation must form a joint venture with an indigenous Tanzanian company, which must hold at least 20% equity in that joint venture.
The September 2025 amendment tightened this significantly. The indigenous partner must now be wholly owned, 100%, by Tanzanian citizens, and must already operate in the same line of business as the goods or services being supplied. Before the amendment, an “indigenous” company needed only 20% Tanzanian ownership, which allowed a company that was 80% foreign-owned to serve as the local partner. That route is closed.
The joint venture agreement must be submitted to the mining authority, setting out the shareholders, the share participation of the indigenous company, and the strategy for transferring technology and know-how to it.
Twenty goods and services reserved outright. A 2025 provision requires the mining authority to publish a list of goods and services that may be provided only by companies 100% owned by Tanzanians. Twenty such items were announced in January 2025. If what you supply is on that list, no joint venture route exists: the work is reserved. We check the current list before advising on a supply business.
Employment and management. The definition of an indigenous Tanzanian company also carries staffing requirements: Tanzanian citizens in at least 80% of executive and senior management positions and 100% of non-managerial positions. Licensees must submit local content plans covering employment, training, succession from expatriate roles and procurement, for approval by the mining authority, and must notify it of proposed sole-sourced contracts above a prescribed value.
The direction of travel is not subtle. The mining authority reports that procurement from Tanzanian companies rose from TZS 1.85 trillion (62% of the total) in 2018 to TZS 4.41 trillion (88% of TZS 5 trillion) in 2024, and Tanzanian employment in mining from 95% to 97%. Anyone planning a supply business here should assume these requirements tighten further rather than relax.
An indigenous Tanzanian company is one genuinely owned and controlled by Tanzanian citizens. The requirement exists precisely because arrangements in which a local name sits on paper over a foreign-controlled business were common. Regulators look at who actually controls the company, who funds it, and who takes the profit. The practical consequence: find a local partner with real capability and give them a real role, or expect the structure to be challenged. A nominee arrangement reliably creates problems later, usually at the worst moment — when a licence is up for renewal or a dispute is under way.
Seen correctly, the requirement solves problems a foreign operator has anyway. A capable local partner handles what is difficult to run from abroad: community and local government relationships, workforce recruitment and industrial relations, movement of samples, equipment and people, procurement from local suppliers who must be found and vetted, and the compliance reporting expected of licensees. Companies that treat local content as a box to tick end up with a partner who adds nothing and costs a share. Companies that treat it as a procurement decision end up with a partner who reduces their operating risk.
Establish the current percentages in writing from the mining authority, not from an article. Have a mining lawyer review the structure before shares are issued, because unwinding later is expensive. Check that your intended partner is genuinely indigenous under the current definition, and that they have the capacity they claim. And require that the joint venture agreement is approved by the mining authority before any work starts, because performing first and papering later is how companies end up outside the regulations without intending to be.