Uber Exits Tanzania again

Uber has officially exited the Tanzanian market, ceasing all ride-hailing operations on 30 January 2026 after nearly ten years of effort to establish a foothold in the East African nation. The company informed Tanzanian riders via its app that services would no longer be available, offering thanks for their support and expressing regret for the disruption caused by the shutdown.
This departure marks the end of a protracted regulatory conflict with the Land Transport Regulatory Authority (LATRA), Tanzania’s transport regulator, which has taken an unusually interventionist stance toward ride-hailing platforms.
At the heart of the dispute were pricing and commission controls that sharply limited Uber’s ability to deploy its global business model. LATRA imposed guide fares per kilometre and per minute, mandated minimum prices, and capped the commission platforms could take from drivers. In 2022, a commission cap of 15 per cent (well below Uber’s standard global rate of around 25 per cent) and the removal of booking fees led Uber to temporarily suspend services. A regulatory adjustment in 2023 restored commission rates to around 25 per cent and reintroduced booking fees, prompting Uber’s brief return. But efforts to craft a lasting compromise ultimately failed, and the company opted for a full exit this year.
The regulatory framework effectively treats ride-hailing platforms like traditional taxi services, stripping them of dynamic pricing tools and many of the flexible revenue levers they use elsewhere. Uber argued that without the ability to set prices and adjust commissions freely, it could not sustain the incentives and investment needed for scale.
Uber’s struggle in Tanzania illustrates the wider tension between global gig-economy models and sovereign regulatory authority in emerging economies. Governments like Tanzania’s have sought to protect drivers and strengthen consumer safeguards by limiting fees and exerting tight control over pricing. Local drivers, in some cases, welcomed these protections as a remedy to what they viewed as exploitative pricing structures.
However, from Uber’s perspective, these conditions made the business environment “not friendly” to its operational model. The friction has played out for years, with initial entry in June 2016, a suspension in April 2022, a return in early 2023, and now the definitive exit in 2026.
Uber’s departure leaves the Tanzanian ride-hailing space populated by competitors already adjusted to LATRA’s rules, such as Bolt and local players like Littleride (Little) and Paisha, which have tailored their cost structures to fit the regulatory regime. These platforms are widely expected to remain in operation since they have established compliance and pricing models that align with state conditions.