Import Duty Remission in Uganda: Cut Duty on Raw Materials

If your business imports production inputs every month, import duty is one of the biggest recurring lines in your landed cost, the total cost of a product once it reaches your factory, including freight, duty, levies and clearing. Uganda's duty remission scheme, based on Section 140 of the East African Community Customs Management Act (EACCMA) 2004, can cut that line dramatically. Under the scheme, approved manufacturers import qualifying raw materials and production inputs at 0% duty, or at a reduced rate, instead of paying the Common External Tariff (CET), the shared set of import tax rates that EAC member states charge on goods from outside the bloc.

What is import duty remission?

Duty remission is straightforward in concept: the customs authority reduces the import duty you would otherwise pay on approved production inputs, often to zero. The legal anchor is Section 140 of the East African Community Customs Management Act (EACCMA) 2004, read with the East African Community Customs Management (Duty Remission) Regulations, 2008. EACCMA is the shared customs law Uganda applies alongside other EAC member states, which is why the scheme looks similar across the region, although Uganda can also secure concessions that apply only to this country.

URA's 2024 guidance to manufacturers describes two variants:

• Regional duty remission, granted to all EAC partner states for inputs used to make approved goods for home consumption (goods sold inside the country rather than exported to another EAC member state).
• Country-specific duty remission, granted to one partner state, in this case Uganda, on request through the EAC Council of Ministers. These are the concessions that appear in the annual Gazette.

How the rates work: zero on some inputs, reduced on others

Duty remission is not a flat zero across everything you import. URA's 2024 manufacturer training material notes that duties on some raw materials are remitted to zero, while others are reduced, for example, from 25% to 10%. Which rate applies depends on the input and the finished product being made, not on the size of your business.

Sector coverage in the FY2026/27 remissions

The December 2025 EAC Gazette, the official legal notice (Vol. AT 1 No. 38), approved remissions for manufacturers running to 30 June 2026. For the following financial year, Taslaf Advocates' FY2026/27 summary lists proposed zero-duty treatment on inputs for smart electricity meters, motorcycle components, leather and footwear manufacturing, specialised pipes, welding electrodes, kitchenware, lubricants, packaging materials, energy-saving stoves, toothbrushes, roofing tiles, and electronic assembly such as televisions, speakers, blenders, kettles and cookers.

Beyond these specific product lines, the coverage is deliberately broad: food and beverage, packaging, pharmaceuticals, textiles and garments, footwear, furniture, electrical and electronic assembly, metal fabrication, construction materials, and automotive and motorcycle assembly all fall within the scheme. Dedicated sector lists exist for textiles, covering yarns, fabrics, threads and accessories, and for footwear, covering hinges, lock sets, castors, frames and fittings.

There is also a set of EAC regional remissions that are not Uganda-specific; they apply across partner states. These include mobile phone assembly, transformers and switchgear, paper and paperboard manufacturing, sanitary products, agricultural equipment, exercise books and textbooks, deep-cycle and dry-cell batteries, and industrial sugar.

The annual application calendar

Remissions are granted for a 12-month financial year starting from the date the Gazette is published, and the scheme runs on an annual calendar. To be considered, a manufacturer sends an expression of interest, a short formal notice of intent, to the Commissioner Customs at URA, working in collaboration with the Uganda Manufacturers Association. For the first FY2026/27 Gazette, expected in July 2026, the deadline to be considered was 19 June 2026, as URA confirmed at its Jinja engagement with manufacturers in April 2026.

Compliance obligations once the remission is granted

The benefit is real, but it is conditional. URA's 2024 manufacturer guidance is explicit that the scheme is built around quarterly accountability, and non-compliance means paying the duty back.

• File quarterly returns to the Commissioner showing your input-output coefficient (IOC), the verified ratio of raw material to finished product. This proves you imported duty-free only what you actually consumed in production.
• Stay within the gazetted quantities, the official published limits on how much duty-free input you may import in the year.
• Pay the otherwise-remitted duty on any imported inputs above the approved quantity.
• Keep proper records and remain tax-compliant; tax compliance is the precondition for accessing the scheme.
• Remember the condition: if the finished product is sold to another EAC partner state, that sale attracts the normal EAC CET duties and levies. The remission covers home consumption and export promotion, not duty-free goods circulating inside the EAC.

Why this matters for your procurement math

Import duty on raw materials is a direct, recurring cost that lands on every batch you produce. A 0% or reduced rate narrows the gap against imported finished goods and supports import substitution, producing locally what Uganda previously imported, and export competitiveness. URA framed it plainly at its Jinja engagement with manufacturers on 8 April 2026:

Duty remission allows you to import raw materials at a 0% rate, directly supporting low-cost production, import substitution, and export promotion.

If you have not mapped every charge that sits on a shipment, duty remission only moves one line; the rest of the stack still applies. Start with our breakdown of every charge that makes up your Uganda import landed cost to see where remission fits and where it does not.

Practical handling matters too. Our step-by-step guide to clearing a business import through URA customs walks through what happens at the border after a remission certificate is in place.

And if you fabricate or build with steel or aluminium, the new steel and aluminium duties apply independently of any raw-material remission, worth modelling before you commit to import volumes.

None of this is a substitute for checking your specific tariff line and quantities. The benefit is specific to what you make and how you make it, and the rules shift every year with the Gazette. Whether your product qualifies is a classification question, not a generic yes. An independent, vendor-neutral review of your tariff position is often worth it before you commit a year of purchasing, that is the role CONSULTING exists to play.