Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Uzbekistan will introduce mandatory digital marking of vegetable oil from 1 July 2027. A six-month pilot project began on 1 July 2026, during which marking codes are provided free of charge. The Tax Committee of Uzbekistan issued the clarification in response to critical social media posts questioning the rationale for the measure.
According to the committee, the objectives of the pilot project were set out in Presidential Decree No. UP-36 of 16 February 2024. The pilot period and the date for introducing mandatory marking were established by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 23 of 23 January 2026.
The pilot is intended to help assess manufacturers’ costs, identify suitable technologies and equipment, and determine potential technical difficulties. It will also examine the impact of marking on production costs and retail prices. Once the project is complete, its results, identified problems and proposals from businesses will be compiled. Conclusions and recommendations will then be submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers, taking into account the interests of manufacturers, businesses and consumers.
Mandatory digital marking is currently in place in Uzbekistan for six product categories: alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, beer, household appliances, medicines, and water and non-alcoholic beverages. According to the committee, turnover in these categories increased by an average of 20% in 2025 compared with the previous year.
The average annual number of retail cash-register receipts rose by 50% over the past three years, while the increase reached 23% in the first nine months of 2026, the committee said.
Earlier, the Tax Committee submitted a draft Cabinet of Ministers resolution on vegetable oil marking for public discussion. The consultation period ran until 24 October. According to the draft, marking is intended to prevent the illegal import, production and sale of vegetable oil and enable digital tracking of products at every stage of circulation.
The proposed system would use barcode stickers applied to the inner or outer consumer packaging. Vegetable oil manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retailers would be required to connect to Asl belgisi, Uzbekistan’s national product marking and traceability system. CRPT Turon operates the system.
If the resolution is adopted, CRPT Turon and the Tax Committee must provide manufacturers and importers registered in the system with order management stations that can be accessed remotely by 1 January 2027.
The draft also proposes introducing code aggregation from that date. This involves combining the codes of individual products or boxes into a single code for transport packaging. Selling vegetable oil without a marking code would be considered a violation of trade rules, with tax authorities responsible for enforcement.
Uzbekistan has been introducing digital product marking in stages since 2020. The system initially covered tobacco products and alcoholic beverages, followed by medicines and household appliances, and later non-alcoholic beverages, including drinking water.
The introduction of code aggregation for water and non-alcoholic beverages was previously postponed from 1 April 2026 to 1 April 2027.
