The legal framework
Tanzania's gold export sector sits under one law and four institutions. The Mining Act (Cap. 123) is the primary instrument, amended by the Finance Act 2024 and the Finance Act 2025. The Mining Commission administers mining rights. The Tanzania Revenue Authority collects tax. The Tanzania Minerals Audit Agency (TMAA) audits export volumes. The Bank of Tanzania oversees the foreign exchange side of each transaction.
Gold exports reached approximately USD 3 billion in 2024, Tanzania's largest export commodity that year (source: TanzaniaInvest, November 2024).
The Mineral Dealer's Licence
A company that wants to buy and export gold applies to the Mining Commission for a Mineral Dealer's Licence (MDL). It must be registered with BRELA, hold a TRA tax number, and pass a due diligence review. For a corporate applicant, at least 25% of the shares must sit with Tanzanian citizens and one director must be Tanzanian (source: Rive & Co, September 2025).
Primary Mining Licences, the artisanal and small-scale category, have been reserved for Tanzanian citizens since 2024. A foreign buyer cannot hold one. It can only reach that gold through a licensed MDL holder, or through a Technical Support Agreement approved by the Mining Commission (source: Rive & Co, May 2026). The MDL holder buys from licensed miners or brokers and applies for a transaction-specific export permit once the royalty is paid.
What it costs
The standard export route carries a combined fiscal burden of roughly 9 to 10% of gross value (source: Rive & Co, May 2026, cited above). The main components:
Paid to TRA before export clearance
On gross value at point of sale
Ministry of Minerals, per consignment
Finance Act 2025, Mining Act s.113A
These are the seller's obligations, settled in cash before the export permit is issued (source: Clyde & Co, August 2025). A buyer funding an advance against export costs needs this breakdown to size it correctly.
How the export actually happens
This is the sequence a licensed dealer follows on the ground, and it is worth knowing because every step generates a document a buyer can ask to see.
The dealer sources gold from a licensed miner or broker, usually at a Mineral and Gem House or a designated buying station. The gold is fire-assayed to confirm purity and weight, either by TMAA or an approved laboratory, and the assay report sets the value against the daily LBMA benchmark price. The dealer pays the miner or broker in Tanzanian shillings, settled by bank transfer (source: Cymbell Attorneys, April 2023).
Before any gold leaves the country, the dealer clears its obligations with the TRA and the Mining Commission: royalty, inspection fee, and the levies described above. Only once those are paid does the Mining Commission issue the export permit, naming the licence holder, the declared quantity and purity, and the destination (source: Mining Commission, Tanzania). The consignment is then packaged and moved under secure, insured transport, typically air freight for export volumes, with customs clearance handled at the point of departure. Payment from the international buyer to the exporter is settled according to the terms agreed between the two parties, which is where the practice varies.
Structuring payment: the options, and why they differ
There is no single Tanzanian rule for how a buyer pays an exporter. It is a commercial negotiation, and the structure depends on the exporter's own terms, the size of the shipment, and whether the two parties have worked together before. A buyer's team unfamiliar with commodity trade should expect to see one of the following, or a combination:
Advance payment. The buyer pays part or all of the value before the gold ships. This is common when the buyer is new to the exporter and has no track record to point to. It puts the risk on the buyer, so it should always be paired with independent verification of the exporter's licence and a clear delivery timeline in writing.
Escrow. A neutral third party, often a bank, holds the buyer's funds and releases them to the exporter once the agreed documents (export permit, assay report, airway bill) are confirmed. This is the more balanced option for a first transaction, since neither side is fully exposed while the shipment is in transit.
Letter of credit (LC). The buyer's bank commits to pay the exporter once it receives compliant shipping and export documents. This is standard practice in commodity trade generally and gives both sides a documented, bank-mediated process, but it requires correspondent banking relationships on both ends and takes longer to set up than a wire transfer.
Bank guarantee. Either party's bank guarantees performance or payment as a backstop to the underlying contract, without the full documentary process of an LC. Exporters sometimes ask for this when they want assurance the buyer can pay before committing gold to a shipment.
Shipping or customs bond guarantee. A bond, typically arranged through a bank or insurer, guarantees that a shipment will be re-exported or that duties will be paid if it is not. In practice, exporters and their banks reserve this structure for counterparties with an established trading history. A first-time buyer should not expect to be offered a bond-backed deal and should plan for advance payment, escrow, or an LC instead.
The point for a buyer's team to take away: ask the exporter directly which structure they require before negotiating price or volume. It is set by the seller's terms and conditions, not by a fixed national procedure, and knowing the options in advance avoids a stalled negotiation later.
How a buyer engages, in practice
Foreign equity in small-scale mining is capped, and PMLs are off limits to non-citizens. The route that works is a commercial off-take agreement with a licensed MDL holder, the entity that holds both the sourcing relationships and the export licence.
To check who you are dealing with, the Mining Commission's portal at madini.go.tz confirms licence status, and TMAA can confirm export history directly. Both are free to use before any money moves.