Tanzania abolishes mobile airtime scratch card vouchers
If you are traveling to Tanzania from January 2027 and plan to buy the regular scratch card vouchers to recharge your phone’s airtime balance, then there is a new surprise waiting at the airport or border entry.
Tanzania has just abolished the use of physical airtime scratch card vouchers. These will essentially disappear from shops starting on the 31st day of December 2026.
All the major cities, including Arusha, Dar-es-salaam, Dodoma, Mbeya, Mwanza and their suburbs will be affected by the changes, with others following gradually.
Phone owners have now been directed to start getting use of recharging their phones airtimes digitally and virtually, using their mobile wallets or bank agents.
It means they are now going to be fully dependent on their devices’ Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) quick codes or “feature codes” as provided by their mobile network operators (MNO)s.
Still, for many Tanzanians this may not be a brand-new mechanism shift as most of the mobile network operators and internet providers have been providing digital top-ups services for years.
Mobile Telcom services in Tanzania are provided by Bharti Airtel, Halote, Vodacom (Vodafone) and Yas as well as the state-owned TTCL.
The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has issued an official statement to that effect, explaining that it was among the steps being taken to abolish, or at least reduce the use of cash money in making transactions.
Other than building a cashless society, the move is also supposed to help the country reduce its carbon footprint and cut down on the costs of importing, printing and distributing the cards.
In order to buy airtime, one must walk to a shop, drug store or bank agents and ask them to recharge their phones or tablets with airtime or internet data bundles.
The TCRA claims that people can also use the various Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) outlets on bank walls, to buy airtime and bundles, but experience so far has been a hit-and-miss affair.
The new development may not be much of a problem for locals, but visitors, including tourists and other foreigners, will find this to be highly inconveniencing, especially in Tanzania where foreign language in public service centers has always been a challenge.