Uzbekistan Rental Contracts Surge 20%, Tax Revenue Up 49%

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Uzbekistan's rental market is formalizing at a striking pace — nearly 542,000 lease agreements registered in just four months, with tax revenues nearly half again as large as a year ago.

Uzbekistan's tax authorities registered 541,900 rental contracts between January and April 2026, generating 438.8 billion soums in assessed taxes, according to official data released by the tax agency. The figures represent a sweeping year-on-year expansion across both volume and revenue metrics, pointing to accelerating compliance in a sector long dominated by informal, unregistered arrangements.

The bulk of activity came from individual landlords. Some 380,600 contracts between private persons were registered during the period, generating 335.9 billion soums in personal income tax assessments. Year-on-year, the number of such agreements rose 19.6% while the associated tax take surged 48.8% — a gap that reflects both rising rental prices and improved enforcement and registration rates.

The corporate segment showed even faster growth in contract volumes. Lease agreements between legal entities reached 161,300 — up 25.7% year-on-year — with assessed taxes of 102.9 billion soums, a 27% annual increase.

One policy-driven bright spot in the data: landlords renting to students remain exempt from income tax on those earnings, a targeted incentive designed to keep student housing affordable and encourage formal registration of such arrangements. In the first four months of 2026, that exemption was worth 37.7 billion soums in foregone revenue. More than 79,500 student rental contracts were registered during the period, covering 110,497 students — a figure that offers a rare ground-level snapshot of Uzbekistan's expanding higher education enrollment base and its attendant housing pressures.

The data arrives as Uzbekistan continues to digitize and expand its tax administration infrastructure, with rising registration numbers suggesting that years of outreach and incentive-building are converting previously shadow-economy landlords into the formal tax base.