The Senate of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan approved a new law at a meeting on August 8, which aims to strengthen guarantees for freedom of business and improve entrepreneurship support systems. This document amends existing legislation by enshrining additional rights for businessmen, regulating forms of state aid, rules for applying financial sanctions, inspection requirements, and protecting property rights.
A separate chapter is planned to be added to the 'Law on Guarantees of Entrepreneurial Freedom' outlining the key principles of such guarantees. These include legality, freedom of enterprise, equality of all market participants, protection of trust, prevention of corruption, inviolability of private property, as well as stability and predictability of the legal framework. Simultaneously, criteria for classifying businesses based on annual income are being clarified.
According to the new rules, micro-enterprises will be considered enterprises whose founders are individuals with an annual income of up to 1 billion soums. Small enterprises are defined by an income from 1 billion to 10 billion soums, medium-sized businesses from 10 to 100 billion soums, and large businesses exceeding 100 billion soums.
One of the significant changes concerns the procedure for executing decisions of supervisory bodies imposing financial sanctions. An entrepreneur has two options for voluntarily fulfilling such a decision. Firstly, if they pay 50% of the fine amount within one month of receiving the decision, the remaining half will be waived. Secondly, an installment plan for six months with equal payments can be arranged, provided an initial payment of at least one-sixth of the fine is made in the first month.
Senator Erkin Gadoyev emphasized that the installment payment procedure will be activated automatically, and the entrepreneur will not need to submit a separate application. The law also stipulates that bringing the business entity itself to financial liability for violating legislation should not automatically lead to the involvement of its employee in administrative liability.
Another important aspect relates to the Unified Register of Mandatory Requirements in the Sphere of Entrepreneurship. It will function as a publicly accessible database containing all requirements imposed on businesses. This register must include the validity periods of the requirements, a list of necessary documents to confirm compliance, rules for state control, and penalties for violations. A representative of the Ministry of Justice informed the Senate that about 42 thousand mandatory requirements have already been entered into this register. Furthermore, the law enshrines the principle that state and supervisory bodies do not have the right to demand that businesses comply with norms that are absent from this register.
The draft law provides that any attempt by state structures to initiate a review or cancellation of privatization results will be regarded as a violation of the inviolability of private property. This applies both to reviewing the value of privatized assets and to the results of valuation and expertise of the reliability of appraisal reports. According to the document, state, supervisory, and law enforcement bodies, as well as courts, must not consider cases related to the review, invalidation, or cancellation of these results.
Senator Erkin Gadoyev noted that the law clearly states: if property was previously privatized, its results cannot be reviewed or revalued, otherwise liability is provided for, which ensures property protection.
The law also defines the grounds on which an entrepreneur's activity can be suspended. The business itself can temporarily cease its operations at its own initiative. Supervisory bodies have the right to suspend activities for no more than ten working days; a longer period requires a court decision. Moreover, supervisory bodies are only allowed to stop operations if there are factors listed in a special register related to high risk to human life and health. In other cases, the suspension of entrepreneurs' activities by supervisory bodies is not permitted.
The law separately specifies guarantees for entrepreneurs' rights to land, as well as to water (within established quotas and limits) and connection to energy grids. Enterprises engaged in energy supply are obliged to guarantee businesses safe, reliable, stable, and continuous energy supply. Seizure of a land plot from an entrepreneur for public needs is possible only after full compensation of all losses stipulated by law. Compensation must include the market value of real estate located on the plot, the market value of the land right itself, the cost of perennial plantings, costs of temporary relocation and renting another facility, lost profits from the use of the plot and real estate, as well as any other losses and expenses stipulated by law or agreement.
The document also introduces the concept of social entrepreneurship—a type of business activity whose goal is to solve or mitigate social and environmental problems. A representative of the Ministry of Justice stated at the meeting that this norm will allow the private sector to be more actively involved in solving social problems. He added that social entrepreneurship combines social goals with market and entrepreneurial mechanisms, contributing to sustainable and economically efficient solutions to social issues. According to him, such models exist in other countries; for example, South Korea has a separate law on the development of social entrepreneurship, and corresponding provisions are enshrined in the Entrepreneurship Code of Kazakhstan.
The law provides for six main forms of state support for social entrepreneurship. Overall, business support mechanisms cover financial and property assistance, provision of subsidies, grant financing, preferential loans, as well as tax incentives and other mandatory concessions. The law also stipulates that measures of financial and property support must not contradict the requirements of the World Trade Organization.
The 'Law on Real Estate Activities' has entered into force in Uzbekistan, having been approved on August 7, and is intended to regulate relations in the field of real estate services.
The State Agency for Management of State Assets has been appointed as the state body responsible for supervision in this area. Under the new legislation, real estate agents are now required to operate within a registered real estate organization and possess a qualified barcode certificate.
This certificate is issued by a professional public association after the specialist completes training and successfully passes the relevant examination. The right of real estate organizations and agencies to provide services arises after the data on these structures is entered into the Unified Register.
The law clearly regulates several types of activities that can be performed by real estate agents. These include intermediation in concluding transactions involving real estate and its rights, as well as organizing the trade of such properties.
Services for entrusted management of real estate objects are also provided, along with providing consulting, informational, and advertising services in the housing market.
In addition, the implementation of a multilisting system is planned in the sector. This system will be developed by the private sector and will allow real estate services to be provided under urgent contracts using a 'one-stop-shop' model, guaranteeing secure electronic data exchange.
The Institute for Reducing the Share of the Shadow Economy, Improving Tax and Customs Administration, and Fiscal Analysis at the Ministry of Economy and Finance has put forward an initiative to unify the approach to paying the social tax for individual entrepreneurs (IEs) and self-employed individuals in Uzbekistan. This idea was presented during a fiscal dialogue on July 30th.
Currently, both categories use the same basic calculation unit (BCU) of 412 thousand soms, which will increase to 440 thousand soms starting September 1st. However, the frequency of payments differs.
According to Part 1 of Article 408 of the Tax Code, IEs are obliged to pay the social tax monthly in an amount of no less than one BCU, equivalent to 5.28 million soms per year. Self-employed individuals, according to Part 2 of the same article, have the option to voluntarily pay 1 BCU per year to count this period towards their employment record. After the BCU increase, their annual payment will be 440 thousand soms, which is approximately 36.7 thousand soms per month.
The presentation noted that the financial burden on an individual entrepreneur is twelve times higher than the burden on a self-employed person. This difference is partly due to the fact that IEs, unlike self-employed individuals, can hire up to five employees and conduct retail trade, giving them a broader scope of activity and additional opportunities.
The Institute recommends abandoning the existence of two parallel systems with significant differences in payment amounts and transitioning to a single category of self-employed individuals. International experience is cited as a reference, where contributions are usually tied to declared income or minimum wage.
The proposal is to calculate the minimum social tax based on the minimum wage (MW) rather than the BCU. Applying the basic rate of the social tax established by Article 405 of the Tax Code to an MW of 1.36 million soms would result in a monthly payment of 163.2 thousand soms, or almost 1.96 million soms per year.
At the same time, the proposed amount would be approximately 4.45 times higher than the current voluntary payment of self-employed individuals (about 36.7 thousand soms per month), but it would be 2.7 times less than the minimum payment that IEs would have to make after the BCU increase.
The Institute does not insist on introducing a one-time targeted payment. Instead, it proposes starting with a monthly contribution of about 50 thousand soms, followed by a gradual increase to 163.2 thousand soms according to an approved schedule.
It is important to note that this initiative represents an analytical proposal from the Institute and does not yet have the status of an adopted legislative act or bill.
As of July 1, 2026, 375.1 thousand individual entrepreneurs were registered in the country. The number of self-employed individuals varies across sources—from 2.8 million to 5.5 million.
Economist Otabek Bakirov stated that the principle of equality when revising the social tax should apply not only to IEs and self-employed individuals but also to enterprises that benefit from 1% preferential or reduced rates. He suggested considering the introduction of a minimum mandatory payment for such beneficiaries, similar to the procedure for paying land tax and property tax by some exempted legal entities. Bakirov emphasized: 'Strength becomes justice only when it is applied equally not only to the weak and small, but also to the strong and large. Only then does trust in such justice appear.'
Furthermore, it was learned in mid-July that the authorities plan to make pension contributions mandatory for self-employed individuals. Currently, 2.8 million self-employed individuals are registered in Uzbekistan, but only about 800 thousand people, or 30%, voluntarily make the corresponding contributions. The existing system allows a self-employed person to pay one BCU—412 thousand soms—and receive one year of service for pension purposes.
