Tanzania · Residency by investment
Zanzibar Real Estate Buyer Residence Permit (Class C-11)
Open and codified — Zanzibar Investment Act No. 10 of 2023, Fifth Schedule, Part Four, paragraph 6 grants a buyer of real estate worth at least USD 100,000 'resident permits for the buyer, spouse and his four children who are under twenty years old'. Note the permissive 'may be granted' — this is discretionary, not an entitlement. The detailed criteria are delegated to regulations under section 51 which we could not locate; the gazetted 2025 General Regulations do not contain them. Zanzibar's own eRegulations portal is stale and still quotes the repealed 2004 ZIPPA thresholds.
This is the rare case where the marketed number is real — USD 100,000 is in the statute. Everything around it is not: the lease is 33 years and not 99, the permit is two years and not permanent, there is no route to citizenship, and as of February 2026 a purchase agreement is void unless ZIPA has endorsed the project.
Qualifying routes
Fifth Schedule Part Four para 6; grants Class C-11 permits for buyer, spouse and four children under 20, plus 50% stamp duty exemption and 100% repatriation of sales proceeds after tax
The facts
- Minimum investment
- $100k
- Total landed cost
- Roughly USD 105,000-112,000 in year one for a family of four — USD 100k property plus a USD 500 permit fee (USD 250 for EAC/diaspora, USD 50 re-entry) and transaction costs — then roughly USD 500-700 per two-year renewal. Renewal and per-dependant figures are developer-sourced, not official.
- Timeline
- 2–9 months — no official service standard; the permit is issued by Tanzania Immigration (a union function), not ZIPA, which only validates and recommends
- Physical presence
- Not specified. The permit runs up to 2 years, renewable — no Tanzanian permit of any class exceeds 2 years.
- Family
- spousefour children under the age of 20
- Permanent residency
- None. Tanzania has no permanent residence status at all.
- Citizenship
- Structurally impossible from this route. Citizenship and immigration are UNION matters — Zanzibar has no power to confer either. Ordinary naturalisation is roughly 8 years (12 months continuous plus 7 years' aggregate in the preceding 10) with a Kiswahili or English test.
- Language test
- Kiswahili or English
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted — you would have to renounce
- Requirements
- purchase of at least USD 100,000 in a ZIPA-approved real estate projectZIPA-endorsed sale and purchase agreementClass C-11 permit application via Tanzania Immigrationclean record
- The 99-year lease is fiction. Foreigners cannot own land under the Land Tenure Act No. 12 of 1992, and paragraph 5(c) of the same Schedule grants a land lease agreement of thirty-three years. '99 years' is 33+33+33 with renewals that are not guaranteed on the face of the statute. This is the central legal risk and every developer site glosses it.
- A ZIPA public notice of 22 February 2026 requires all real estate projects to be ZIPA-approved before implementation including marketing, and states that sale and purchase agreements are not valid unless ZIPA-endorsed. The implication is that unapproved projects are being marketed right now — a buyer can pay USD 100,000 and hold a void agreement and no permit eligibility.
- Exit tax on sale is punitive: selling as a non-resident costs 30% on the gain, raised from 20% with effect from 1 July 2025. The Schedule's '100% repatriation' is expressly after tax.
- There is no permanent residence in Tanzania and no path to citizenship from Zanzibar — citizenship and immigration are union matters and Zanzibar cannot confer either. Sites selling 'Zanzibar citizenship by investment' are describing something that cannot legally exist.
- Class C carries no work rights — it is for those not eligible for Class A or B.
- There are two different USD 100,000 figures in the same Act. The Second Schedule's USD 100,000 is the Certificate of Investment threshold for Tanzanians; foreigners there need USD 2.5m for hotels and real estate or USD 500k for other sectors. Do not conflate them.
- The regulations under section 51 that actually set the buyer's qualifying criteria could not be located — everything procedural downstream of the USD 100,000 is unconfirmed.
- Two bureaucracies marketed as one: the permit comes from Tanzania Immigration (union), income tax is administered by the TRA island-wide, while land, VAT (15% in Zanzibar vs 18% mainland), stamp duty and ZIPA are devolved.
- Dual citizenship is not allowed — section 7(4) strips citizenship on voluntarily acquiring another nationality, and section 7(5) requires renunciation on naturalisation. The proposed 'Diaspora Tanzanite Card' is a substitute for dual citizenship, not a step toward it.
- Tanzania is a CRS non-participant, listed by the OECD among developing countries not asked to commit with no exchange date.