Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Uzbekistan plans to abolish import duties on mobile phones after joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Preliminary estimates suggest the move could reduce smartphone prices for consumers by nearly 5%. Farhod Olimjonov, head of a department at Uzbekistan’s Customs Committee, announced this at a press conference on 11 November.
He said that, as part of negotiations on WTO accession, Uzbekistan had agreed with other countries on alternative customs duty rates. These include setting the import duty on mobile devices at zero.
Olimjonov noted that scrapping the duty would reduce state budget revenue, but not by the full amount of current customs payments on imported phones.
“If the budget currently receives 2 trillion soums from phone imports, this amount will decrease after the rates are set at zero — not by 2 trillion soums, but by 300–400 billion soums. At the same time, mobile devices will become 5% cheaper for the public. However, VAT will remain,” the Customs Committee representative said.
Thus, after Uzbekistan joins the WTO, mobile phone imports will be subject to a zero customs duty, while value-added tax (VAT) will remain in place.
According to the Customs Committee, 4.1 million mobile devices were officially imported into Uzbekistan between January and October 2026, one million more than in the same period last year.
Customs payments from these imports totalled 2 trillion soums over the ten months, more than doubling year on year.
In particular, 452,000 Apple devices were officially imported into the country from the beginning of 2026. Budget revenue from their imports reached 756.6 billion soums, 6.2 times higher than in the same period of 2025.
