Fylings Industry Report · 🇹🇿 Tanzania · June 2026
The State of Business Formation in Tanzania 2026
A data report on how 76,670 companies came to be registered in Tanzania — when they formed, where, in which sectors, and how many remain on the register. Built from the official BRELA register as indexed by Fylings.
Executive summary
The headline numbers
Tanzania's formal company base has expanded dramatically over the past 15 years — from a few hundred new registrations a year before 2010 to over 11,388 in 2025. Formation is heavily concentrated in Dar es Salaam, dominated by financial, professional and tourism businesses, and — strikingly — formal dissolution remains rare, so the register keeps growing even as many companies likely go dormant.
Methodology & coverage
How to read this report
- Source. Figures are from Tanzania's official register, BRELA (Business Registrations and Licensing Agency), as indexed by Fylings — 76,670 companies, 100% with a recorded incorporation date.
- It is a large sample, not the whole history. BRELA's public register exposes entities in its online system; older, un-digitised records are under-represented. So the rising formation curve reflects both genuine business growth and the digitisation of registration — we report direction and proportion, not a claim to the complete national total.
- “Dissolved” means formally struck off. African registries rarely strike off inactive companies, so dissolution figures are a floor — the true share of dormant companies is higher. That itself is a finding.
- Sectors are inferred from company names (a curated English + Swahili keyword taxonomy), so they approximate activity; 12.9% could not be classified from the name alone.
The formation boom
New company registrations by year
Annual formations rose steadily through the early 2010s, jumped after 2015, and accelerated again from 2019 — reaching 11,388 in 2025. (2026 is a partial year.)
2026 is a partial year — 5,200 companies registered year-to-date.
Sector landscape
Where Tanzanians are building
Financial and professional services lead, but the spread is broad — tourism, construction, trade, agriculture, transport and a fast-rising technology sector all feature prominently.
Fastest-growing sectors — by share formed since 2022
Newest sectors first (% of the sector's companies registered in the last ~4 years), so this measures momentum, not size.
- 1. Mining & Extractives — 70% formed since 2022 (2,013 of 2,894)
- 2. Finance & Investment — 66% formed since 2022 (6,788 of 10,239)
- 3. Transport & Logistics — 66% formed since 2022 (3,115 of 4,750)
- 4. Energy & Utilities — 62% formed since 2022 (1,191 of 1,907)
- 5. Retail & Trade — 60% formed since 2022 (3,221 of 5,365)
- 6. Tourism & Hospitality — 59% formed since 2022 (4,239 of 7,206)
The register itself
Authoritative counts, straight from BRELA
Beyond our indexed sample, BRELA's search reports the true number of registered names containing a given word. A snapshot, pulled live for this report (2026-06-20):
| Registered name contains… | Companies in BRELA |
|---|---|
| “logistics” | 4,878 |
| “transport” | 2,163 |
| “microfinance” | 4,420 |
| “construction” | 3,499 |
| “mining” | 2,269 |
| “technology” | 1,924 |
| “kilimo” | 360 |
| “agriculture” | 344 |
| “tourism” | 344 |
| “safari” | 6,547 |
| “insurance” | 4,001 |
| “pharmaceutical” | 365 |
| “solar” | 271 |
| “education” | 651 |
| “real estate” | 1,417 |
These count registered names containing the term, not a sector definition — “safari” spans tourism and beyond.
Geography
Dar es Salaam's gravity
More than half of all companies are registered in Dar es Salaam — the commercial capital's pull over the rest of the country is stark.
Register retention
Formal dissolution & register retention
Of companies formed each year, only a small share are formally dissolved — 4–8% across cohorts. Read this strictly: it shows how rarely BRELA strikes companies off, nothow many are still trading. A company that quietly stopped operating but was never struck off still counts as “active” here — so this is a floor on closure, and a measure of register retention rather than economic survival.
Formal dissolution rate by formation cohort (%)
| Formed in | Companies | Dissolved | Dissolution rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 325 | 15 | 4.6% |
| 2011 | 338 | 12 | 3.6% |
| 2012 | 444 | 28 | 6.3% |
| 2013 | 503 | 40 | 8% |
| 2014 | 514 | 35 | 6.8% |
| 2015 | 1,136 | 59 | 5.2% |
| 2016 | 3,097 | 173 | 5.6% |
| 2017 | 2,672 | 155 | 5.8% |
| 2018 | 2,834 | 164 | 5.8% |
| 2019 | 4,991 | 302 | 6.1% |
| 2020 | 5,697 | 323 | 5.7% |
| 2021 | 6,599 | 319 | 4.8% |
| 2022 | 8,427 | 357 | 4.2% |
How they register
Business names vs. companies
Tanzanians split almost evenly between registering a business name (sole proprietorships / partnerships) and incorporating a limited company:
In short
What the data says
Tanzania is in the middle of a formalisation wave: company formation has grown roughly 41-fold since 2008, concentrated in Dar es Salaam and led by finance, professional services and tourism, with technology rising fast. Formal dissolution is rare, so the register only grows — a reminder that “registered” and “active” are not the same thing.
Source: BRELA, as indexed by Fylings (2026-06-20). Figures reflect the public register as indexed by Fylings; see methodology above. Free to cite with attribution to Fylings.