Uzbekistan Tax Cashback: Delays Explained, Fraud Rising

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Uzbekistan's Tax Cashback Program Paid Out 1.5 Trillion Soums in 2025, But Delays and Fraud Undermine Public Trust

Uzbekistan's Tax Committee has publicly explained the mechanics behind delayed cashback payments — a program that disbursed 1.5 trillion soums to citizens in 2025 — while acknowledging a rise in fraud cases that is putting pressure on a system still finding its footing.

The clarifications emerged during an online dialogue on tax administration for blogger activity held on June 8, where Alisher Otajonov, Chief State Tax Inspector at the Tax Committee's Department of Economic Analysis and Shadow Economy Monitoring, addressed citizen complaints about missing or delayed payments.

Why payments get delayed:

Otajonov identified two primary causes. First, the absence of tax reporting by the legal entity where a purchase was made — if a merchant has not filed required returns, the cashback chain breaks down at source. Second, outstanding tax debts held by the merchant can block the transfer of cashback funds to customers, creating a situation where compliant consumers are penalized for their vendor's fiscal non-compliance.

Citizens experiencing delays were directed to call the dedicated helpline 1198, where tax specialists can verify receipt data and diagnose why a specific fiscal check did not generate a cashback credit.

The program's scale:

The figures underscore how rapidly the scheme has grown. The 2025 payout of 1.5 trillion soums represented a 43.9% increase year-on-year, while the number of processed fiscal receipts climbed 56.7%. In the first four months of 2026 alone, 571.3 billion soums were disbursed across more than 848 million fiscal receipts.

Geographically, the heaviest cashback volumes were recorded in Tashkent city, Fergana region, and Tashkent region — Uzbekistan's most commercially dense areas.

The fraud problem:

The Tax Committee also flagged a growing number of abuse cases linked to the program, including fictitious electronic invoices and misappropriation of budget funds in select regions. The combination of high transaction volumes and rapid program scaling has created exploit vectors that authorities are now working to close, though no specific figures on fraud-related losses were disclosed.

The cashback program — designed to incentivize citizens to demand fiscal receipts from merchants, thereby drawing informal commerce into the tax net — has become one of Uzbekistan's most visible fiscal digitization tools. Its expansion trajectory suggests broad public uptake, but the twin challenges of merchant non-compliance and fraudulent manipulation will test the program's integrity as volumes continue to grow.