URA TAX BOOM! Telecom Collections Shoot 79% to Shs1.59Trn as Digital Net Seals Revenue Leakages

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has scored a major revenue collection breakthrough, with taxes from telecom services, value-added services and mobile money jumping 79% to Shs1.59 trillion in five years.

The surge is being attributed in part to URA’s growing use of digital technology to independently verify transactions, strengthen compliance and clamp down on revenue leakages in Uganda’s rapidly expanding digital economy.

URA data shows that combined Value Added Tax (VAT) and Local Excise Duty (LED) collections from the telecom sector increased from Shs836 billion in FY2019/20 to Shs1.59 trillion in FY2024/25.

The increase translates into an additional Shs754 billion collected over the period, representing average annual growth of about 12%.

The massive rise comes as Uganda seeks to mobilise more domestic revenue to finance development programmes and reduce reliance on borrowing.

DIGITAL EYES ON TELECOM CASH

The growth in collections coincides with URA’s deployment of the Telecom Monitoring System (TIMS) and Data Monitoring System (DMS), supplied by technology company Global Voice Group (GVG).

The systems have become a key source for URA in validating and reconciling tax declarations submitted by telecom operators.

Since URA began drawing on the data in FY2020/21, VAT and Local Excise Duty collections from telecom services have continued to rise.

Instead of relying entirely on figures declared by telecom operators, TIMS/DMS provides URA with independent transaction data that can be compared against tax returns.

This enables tax officials to identify discrepancies and possible under-reporting, strengthening enforcement while ensuring that businesses account for the taxes legally due.

5 BILLION TRANSACTIONS MONITORED

The scale of URA’s digital monitoring operation is massive.

TIMS/DMS platforms monitor more than five billion telecom-related transactions every month through three major modules: Traffic Monitoring, Airtime Revenue Monitoring and Mobile Money Monitoring.

As of November 2025, the systems were monitoring nine major tax lines for URA.

These include VAT on telecom products and mobile-money fees, excise duty on prepaid and postpaid airtime, excise duty on Value-Added Services and the 0.09-cent excise duty on incoming international calls.

The digital monitoring has effectively given URA greater visibility into one of the country’s biggest and fastest-growing economic sectors.

By cross-checking actual transaction activity against declarations, the Authority is better positioned to detect revenue gaps and pursue businesses that may be under-declaring their taxable activities.

URA’S DIGITAL REVENUE DRIVE

The telecom figures underline the growing importance of technology in URA’s revenue mobilisation strategy.

As more Ugandans embrace mobile money, smartphones, digital services and telecom-based transactions, the Authority is increasingly using technology to ensure that growth in the digital economy translates into growth in government revenue.

The Shs1.59 trillion collected in FY2024/25 demonstrates the potential of digital monitoring to strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation without necessarily relying solely on new taxes.

With billions of transactions flowing through Uganda’s telecom and mobile-money networks every month, URA’s digital systems are giving tax officials an increasingly powerful tool to track economic activity, identify anomalies and plug revenue leakages.

The latest figures represent another major boost for URA’s push to modernise tax administration and ensure that Uganda collects the revenue needed to fund its development priorities.