Five tax-related bills received presidential assent without objection and have been in force since 1 July 2026. We read each signed Act against both the Bill as tabled and the Minister’s Budget Speech, and flag two places where the final law differs materially from what has been contained in the earlier position.

1. Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, 2026

Section 3 of the assented Act substitutes ‘three hundred million’ for ‘one hundred fifty million’ in section 7(2) of the principal Act. The UGX 250 million figure that circulated widely during the bill stage, including in earlier client communications, did not survive to the final text. The Minister’s own Budget Speech confirms Shs 300 million as the figure Parliament approved, projected to cost Shs 349 billion in foregone/administered revenue. A business with UGX 280 million turnover, which would have had to register at the UGX 250 million figure, in fact does not have to.

1. Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Act, 2026

Beyond the EFRIS penalty increase (double the tax due, or ten currency points, whichever is higher) and the write-off of tax debt outstanding as at 30 June 2016, the signed Act contains a second, more time-limited relief; a renewed interest and penalty waiver on 2025 arrears if paid by 30 June 2027

Section 47D waives interest and penalty outstanding as at 30 June 2025, provided the taxpayer clears the underlying principal tax by 30 June 2027. This as has been in the past and per our last publication on the same is a genuine planning window, any client carrying interest/penalty exposure from before mid 2025 should quantify the saving from clearing principal now against the cost of capital to do so.

1. Stamp Duty (Amendment) Act, 2026

The Bill originally included doubling stamp duty on land and property transfers from 1.5% to 3%. However, in the final Act, only a monthly-filing obligation for financial services providers on stamp duty collected (with a 2% simple-interest penalty per month for late filing), a five-year document-retention requirement, and flat registration or transfer fees for motor vehicles of Shs 30,000 for a motorcycle, tricycle or quadricycle, and Shs 200,000 for any other motor vehicle were firmed up.  The general ad valorem duty on land and property transfers is untouched and remains at its pre-existing rate.

For property transactions and real estate dealers specifically, this removes a planning assumption many clients had already built into their operations and budgets for FY2026/27. There is no need to accelerate or defer land transfers to avoid a doubled rate, because no doubled rate was enacted.

1. Lotteries and Gaming (Amendment) Act, 2026

The Act harmonises the gaming tax at a flat 30% of total stakes less payouts across betting and gaming operators, replacing the previous tiered structure. This is separate from the 15% withholding tax on player winnings, which sits in the Income Tax Bill and is, in fact, the one clause of that bill still being finalized. Uganda’s betting and gaming turnover reached an estimated USD 2.17 billion in FY2025/26, up from roughly USD 136 million four years earlier, the tax base this measure now applies to has grown roughly sixteen fold in that period.

1. External Trade (Amendment) Act, 2026

This Act exempts imports of vaccines, medicines, medical supplies, pesticides, rodenticides, acaricides and insecticides from the infrastructure levy and the import declaration fee, a straightforward cost reduction for pharmaceutical and agro-input importers. It also more than doubles the environmental levy on imported used clothing and other worn articles, from 15% to 30% of CIF value, projected to raise Shs 40 billion. For the mitumba or second-hand goods trade a significant informal and semi-formal sector across Kampala and regional towns this is a direct, immediate cost increase with no transition period; it took effect on 1 July 2026 alongside everything else in this Act.

1. This Year’s Expected Position on Income Tax and Excise Duty

These are the two bills that touch the broadest cross-section of our clients, PAYE, rental income, withholding taxes, the new minimum tax, and the excise increases on fuel, alcohol, cement, sugar and cooking oil. Both completed all three parliamentary readings as part of the FY2026/27 package, and both were returned by President Museveni, unsigned, on 14 July 2026, but in each case over a single, narrowly drawn clause, not the substance of the bill. We treat everything below, other than those two clauses, as the tax framework REDMOND TAX & ADVISORY expects to govern FY2026/27, and we say so explicitly at each point where a figure is not yet finally settled.

1. Why we treat this as settled, with two exceptions

Under Article 91(4) of the Constitution, the President has 30 days to assent to a bill once it reaches him. If he declines, he must return it to Parliament with a statement of his objections; Parliament then either accommodates them and re-passes the bill (ordinary majority) or overrides them (two-thirds majority), after which it is presented for assent again. Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa confirmed the President acted squarely within this timeline: ‘The Constitution is very clear, 30 days from the date it is presented to him or her.’ This is a routine step in the process, not a rejection of the bills.

1. This has happened before; and it resolves within weeks, not months

In July 2022, President Museveni returned that year’s Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill, objecting to Parliament’s rejection of a proposed 40% (or Shs 4,000/kg) duty on polymer and plastic sacks and bags, and to the reinstatement of a 20% excise duty on sugar confectionery that had been removed in 2019/20 after manufacturer complaints. Parliament reconsidered the bill within about three weeks of the return. Strikingly, the live objection in both 2022 and 2026 centres on plastics excise policy, a recurring, narrow flashpoint, not a sign that excise bills as a whole are in doubt. More broadly, the return-and-reconsider mechanism is a routine part of Uganda’s legislative process, the President used it on the Higher Education Students’ Financing Bill and the National Commission for UNESCO Bill in 2024 (both re-passed within about two months) and, most visibly, on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2023. On this basis, we treat re-passage of both 2026 tax bills as the expected outcome, with only the two flagged clauses genuinely open.

1. Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2026; expected position

The President’s objection was narrow. He opposed the withholding tax on betting and gaming winnings as drafted, because it exempted winnings from licensed land-based casinos while taxing online betting winnings. He did not object to any of the bill’s other twelve provisions.

The exemption creates opportunities for tax avoidance and revenue leakage. There is no justification for exempting one category while taxing the other. H.E President Yoweri Museveni, in his memorandum returning the Bill.

We treat the following twelve provisions as this year’s expected income tax position, and flag the one clause still open:

1. Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill, 2026; expected position

The President’s objection here was to a single rate: the increase in excise duty on single-use plastics from 2.5% (or USD 70/tonne) to 25% (or USD 1,500/tonne). He did not object to any of the bill’s other rate changes.

Viable alternatives to plastic packaging are not yet readily available in Uganda. The increase would impose significant cost pressures on manufacturers engaged in the production and use of single-use plastics. President Yoweri Museveni, in his memorandum returning the Bill

Uganda’s plastics sector supports an estimated 350,000 workers against a recycling rate of only around 21%, which is the tension the President’s objection sits on top of; expect either a lower rate or a phased path to 25% rather than the full jump in one step. We treat the remaining nine rate lines shown below as this year’s expected excise position.

The Bill as originally tabled proposed cement at Shs 1,000 per 50kg bag and sugar at Shs 300 per kilogram however by the time the Minister described the measures Parliament had actually approved, in the June Budget Speech, the figures had been scaled back to Shs 750 per 50kg bag for cement and Shs 200 per kilogram for sugar. We treat the Budget Speech figures, not the originally tabled ones, as this year’s expected position.

1. What this means for users of this outlook

Treat every provision above other than the two flagged clauses as the operative basis for FY2026/27 planning, payroll, pricing, contracts and provisioning. For the betting-winnings withholding rate and the single-use plastics rate specifically, keep as placeholders until the amended clause is confirmed, since the final number may differ from the table above even though the direction (a withholding tax; a higher plastics excise) is not in doubt.