Investing in Zanzibar: What a Buyer Can Verify

Is Zanzibar a good investment? Eight things a principal can check#

Whether Zanzibar is a good investment is not a question any public statistic answers. What the principal can do is separate the claims that have a named document behind them from the claims that do not. This note sets out eight checks on Zanzibar, each with its publisher, its date and its limits. It offers no yes and no no. It shows how each source is read, and where each source stops.

Each check follows the same three questions. What does the number say. What does it not say. Who publishes it. A figure that fails the third question, because no institution stands behind it, does not enter the underwriting file. A figure that passes but arrives second-hand, through a news site or an agent, is marked as press-reported and sent back to the primary document before anyone relies on it.

The instrument behind most of the property questions is the Certificate of Investment. A Certificate of Investment is the document the Zanzibar Investment Promotion Authority (ZIPA) issues to an investor who has met the requirements of the Zanzibar Investment Act, 2023. In the gazetted bill, an Investor is defined as a person who has been granted that certificate, and section 53 provides for a register holding its particulars. The register and the certificate are what a principal can ask to see.

The order of the checks runs from the most frequently published to the least. Monthly arrivals come first, then bed occupancy, then the law on land and on investor status, then currency, the country reports and the dated travel advisories. The last section lists, without softening, what this research pass could not verify.

What do the OCGS monthly arrivals say about Zanzibar?#

The Office of the Chief Government Statistician (OCGS) publishes a monthly Tourism Statistical Release, and the latest one this note could verify reports 124,481 international arrivals in August 2026. That is 18% above August 2025 (105,506) and 15.5% above July 2026 (107,801). January to August 2026 totalled 633,228, up 10.6% on 572,711. Grade: directional, press-reported, an official count read through press copies because the OCGS release itself was not opened.

The September 2026 release was not retrieved. A September figure circulated before publication could not be traced, as of 13 October 2026, to an OCGS document or to a press report, so it is not used. The principal should open the OCGS release and read the table directly.

Italy is the largest single source market in the August release. It sent 17,608 visitors, 14.1% of arrivals, ahead of the United Kingdom (9,799; 7.9%), Germany (8,576; 6.9%) and France (8,482; 6.8%). Europe in total was 72,304, or 58.1%. A share is a share of one month, so it moves with the European holiday calendar and with charter schedules.

The same release records falls as well as rises. Arrivals from the Americas were 5,755, down 29% on August 2025, and United States arrivals fell 26.1% to 3,974. Russian arrivals rose 376% to 4,298, from a small base. A growth headline is a sum of such movements, and each has its own cause, none of which the release explains.

Press copies are secondary and the principal should treat them so. TanzaniaInvest and The Citizen reproduce the release; they do not replace it. Where a press copy and the OCGS table differ, the table governs. Reading the table once a month takes minutes and removes an entire layer of reported numbers from the file.

How reliable is the Zanzibar bed occupancy figure?#

The 92.9% bed occupancy for August 2026 is an estimate built from intentions, not a count of nights slept. The release divides the nights that visitors declared they intended to stay, 949,056, by the bed spaces available during the month, 1,021,853. Declared intended stay averaged 7.6 nights. Grade: directional, press-reported, an official estimate derived from declared data and read through TanzaniaInvest.

The numerator is a declaration made at the border. A visitor who intends seven nights and leaves after five is counted for seven. Early departures, extensions and stays with relatives all sit outside the arithmetic. Neither the direction nor the size of the resulting error is stated in the release as reported, so the principal should not assume it is small.

The denominator is a supply count, and a supply count can be stale. Bed spaces measure what is registered, not what is open, closed for renovation or taking bookings. As reported, the release does not say how unlisted private villas and informal rentals are treated. A principal underwriting a villa rather than a hotel room needs that answer from OCGS directly.

The figure is useful for comparison inside the series and for little else. August is the peak of the high season. A peak-month ratio says nothing about the year, and the release as read gives no full-year occupancy. A principal who wants an annual figure needs twelve monthly releases built on the same method, and should compute it rather than quote it.

What the Zanzibar arrivals series cannot say about property#

Arrivals measure people entering, not rooms earning and not property valued. The August release records 124,241 of 124,481 visitors, 99.8%, as travelling on holiday, and 31 on business or conferences. In the data this is a leisure destination. That is a fact about purpose. It is not a fact about spending, about length of ownership or about who buys.

Two counts of Zanzibar visitors coexist, and they differ. For 2025 the OCGS series gives 917,167 arrivals, up 24.5% on 736,755 in 2024. A Bank of Tanzania exit-survey series, as reported by TanzaniaInvest, gives 654,880 for Zanzibar in 2025, up 9%, with earnings of US$1,190.8 million. The two are different instruments. This note does not reconcile them, and the documents read do not either.

Seasonality is visible inside a single year. June 2026 recorded 69,605 arrivals, a figure the press attributed to the Zanzibar tourism commission rather than to OCGS. July recorded 107,801 and August 124,481. August was about 1.8 times June, a ratio computed by Victaura Research from those three reported figures. Grade: directional, because the June source differs.

The market case is argued elsewhere and is not repeated here. Our reading of the million-visitor threshold, and of what a larger visitor base does and does not change for a property principal, sits in Zanzibar Nears the Million: A Market Matures. This note stays with what can be checked from public documents.

Can a foreigner hold land in Zanzibar? What the texts say#

Under the Zanzibar land texts the question is not ownership but a lease of public land, and the Investment Act routes a foreign investor through ZIPA. The Land Tenure Act, 1992 (No. 12 of 1992) is the statute the Investment Act itself points to for the meaning of land. The lease terms were not read in the statute in this pass: a TanzaniaInvest practitioner guide of March 2023 describes all land as public land administered by the Minister responsible for lands, and the government land lease as running from 33 years up to 99 years, renewable. The Authority grants leases itself only inside special economic zones.

The gazetted Investment bill reads the same way. Section 27 provides that the Authority grants a land lease to an investor in a Special Economic Zone. Where the investor needs land outside a zone, the Authority facilitates acquisition of the lease through the Minister responsible for lands. The investor pays the occupier fair and timely compensation before the lease is granted (s. 27(3) and (4)). Grade: measured, statutory text of the bill version.

A foreign investor is defined by shareholding, not by passport alone. Section 3 defines a Foreign Investor as a company incorporated under the laws of Zanzibar in which more than fifty percent of the shares are owned by a foreigner. Section 20(1) requires any foreigner or member of the Diaspora who intends to invest or do business in Zanzibar to apply for a Certificate of Investment. The Third Schedule lists one hundred percent foreign ownership among the incentives that may be granted to an investor outside special economic zones.

Where the statute is silent, practitioner guides fill the gap and are graded lower. A TanzaniaInvest guide to buying land and property in Zanzibar describes the practical routes and the Zanzibari and non-Zanzibari divide. Grade: directional, practitioner-reported. The principal should confirm each of its statements against the statute or in writing from ZIPA before the statement is used.

The long-form reading of title sits in a companion piece. The chain of the lease, the certificate and the registration is set out in Zanzibar Title: What a Foreigner Can Own. Here the point is narrower. The statutes can be read in an afternoon, and a principal who has not read them should not rely on anyone's paraphrase, including this one.

What do the ZIPA register and Certificate of Investment prove?#

A Certificate of Investment proves a regulatory status. It does not prove a title, a value or a return. The bill lets ZIPA suspend a certificate for fraud, for abandonment, or where the investor fails to start implementation within one year of obtaining all required legal documents (s. 22). Cancellation makes the land lease relating to the certificate revoked automatically (s. 23(b)). Lease and certificate are therefore linked, and a principal should verify both: the certificate against its entry in the register kept under section 53, and the lease against the lease instrument itself.

The bill sets the capital thresholds in a schedule, and schedules can be amended. Part One of the Second Schedule, as gazetted on 23 August 2023, sets not less than US$2.5 million for a foreign investor in hotels and real estate projects, and US$500,000 for other sectors. These are conditions on a company's application for a Certificate of Investment. This pass did not establish whether any threshold applies to a buyer of a single residence, whom section 3 defines separately, and the principal should ask ZIPA in writing. Section 59 lets the Minister amend schedules, with Revolutionary Council approval for the incentive schedules. ZIPA's FAQ page, read on 14 October 2026, gives US$2,500,000 for foreigners in hotels and real estate and US$500,000 for foreigners in other sectors, and a TanzaniaInvest practitioner guide of March 2023 gives US$2,500,000 for foreign companies in hotels and real estate.

Strategic investment status is a separate tier with its own thresholds. Under section 25 and Part Two of the Second Schedule, status on Unguja requires US$50 million from foreign or Tanzanian investors contributing at least thirty percent of the capital as equity, or US$10 million with five hundred direct jobs for Tanzanians outside hotels. On Pemba the figures are US$5 million and US$2 million with one hundred jobs. Status is limited to a single approved investment (s. 25(2)).

The bill defines a buyer and gates transfers. A buyer is a person who has purchased and has full ownership of residential real estate within a real estate investment approved by the Authority (s. 3). An investor who intends to transfer or dispose of an investment or shares, wholly or in part, must obtain the Authority's written approval first (s. 55(1)). For a secondary purchaser, that approval is a document to ask for.

Procedures, fees and validity sit in regulations, and this note did not extract them. Section 21 leaves the certificate procedure to regulations. A ZIPA-hosted PDF of the Zanzibar Investment (General) Regulations, 2025, made under the Zanzibar Investment Act, No. 10 of 2023, carries a Gazette date of 20 June 2025 on its first page. The principal should open the regulations and the current register entry, not the summary.

Zanzibar buyers and the shilling: what the central bank series shows#

The bill allows an investor to hold the investment account in shillings or in foreign currency, and requires the account to be at a bank in Zanzibar. Section 45(1) says the investor shall open a bank account in Tanzania shillings or foreign currency at any bank in Zanzibar and transact all investment activities through it. Section 45(2) permits an account outside Zanzibar only with the Authority's written approval.

Two reported shilling levels in 2026, on different measures, differ by about 4%. The Citizen reported the average indicative rate weakening to about TZS 2,534 per dollar on 4 February 2026, which the Bank of Tanzania governor attributed to a seasonal drop in foreign currency earnings from agriculture, mining and tourism. TanzaniaInvest, summarising the June 2026 review, put the June average at TZS 2,633.73, against 2,616.88 in May. Grade: directional, press-reported, two measures of different kinds, not a trend.

Repatriation is a stated right on the face of the bill, subject to conditions. Under section 34(1) a Foreign Investor may, after taxation and all liabilities, transfer out dividends, the principal and interest of registered foreign loans, and the proceeds of liquidation or sale, in convertible foreign currency at the prevailing official rate. Section 32(h) requires foreign loans to be registered with the Bank of Tanzania. The right is written for a Foreign Investor, which section 3 defines as a company. Section 34 does not, in terms, extend it to a buyer of a single residence.

The bill also makes an unapproved foreign account an offence. Section 46(d) provides a fine of not less than US$50,000, or imprisonment of not less than two years, or both, for an investor who opens a bank account outside Tanzania in relation to the approved investment without written approval. Section 45(2) speaks of a bank outside Zanzibar and section 46(d) of a bank outside Tanzania, and the bill as read does not reconcile the two. Whether an account on the mainland needs approval is a point to confirm in writing with ZIPA.

What the currency data do not say is whether the exit is liquid. A monthly average rate is not the rate at which a specific sum left the country. The discipline of underwriting in a foreign denomination is set out in The Currency Layer: An FX Underwriting Discipline, and it applies here without modification.

What do the IMF and World Bank country documents say about Zanzibar?#

The IMF documents are about the Union of Tanzania, and Zanzibar is a part of them, not their subject. The Executive Board concluded the 2025 Article IV consultation on 27 June 2025 and completed the fifth review of the Extended Credit Facility arrangement. The press release describes about US$155.7 million made available immediately and total access of about US$908.3 million. Grade: measured, IMF press release, now more than a year old.

The IMF description of the economy is favourable, and it is a description of the Union aggregate. In the June 2025 press release, Executive Directors described robust growth, subdued inflation and an improved external balance. This research pass found no 2026 Article IV consultation for Tanzania. A principal should check the IMF country page for a newer document before quoting these lines.

The World Bank Tanzania Economic Update is the document that carries a Zanzibar macro section, and this pass did not retrieve a current edition. A search showed the 2024 issue with a chapter on the Zanzibar macroeconomy. No World Bank number is used in this note, because none was verified. The principal should open the latest edition and read that chapter in full.

Zanzibar's own growth and budget figures come from the government, and the forward ones are targets. The Zanzibar government projected growth of 7.5% for 2026, after growth reported at 7.0% in 2025, as reported by the Daily News on 12 June 2026. The 2026/27 budget was reported by TanzaniaInvest at TZS 8.52 trillion, up 22.11%. Grade: directional, because targets are not outcomes and the budget is a plan.

Concentration is the question these documents raise for a property principal. A TanzaniaInvest report of 13 July 2026 states, without naming a source, that tourism contributes about 29.2% of Zanzibar's GDP and 80% of its foreign exchange earnings. That statement could not be tied to a primary document, so it is graded directional. If it is right, the property thesis and the visitor series are one risk, not two.

Zanzibar travel advisories are dated statements, not permanent ones#

A travel advisory is a dated statement by a government, and the date is the first thing a principal reads. On 13 October 2026 the US State Department page for Tanzania refused access to this pass, so its current text was not read. A Sunday Tribune report from November 2025 described a Level 3, Reconsider Travel, raised from Level 2 on 31 October 2025 and citing unrest, crime and the risk of terrorism. This pass did not retrieve a separate Zanzibar level. The principal should reopen the page.

The FCDO page carries an entry rule that applies to Zanzibar specifically. As of 13 October 2026, on a page updated 9 October 2026, all visitors to mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar except residents must hold mandatory Tanzanian Government-provided inbound travel insurance, even with a personal policy, and those arriving in Zanzibar first must buy it from the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation on arrival. The same page records that a general election took place on 29 October 2025 and that further demonstrations are possible at any time.

Advisory text changes, so each sentence is a record of the day it was read. As of 13 October 2026 the live FCDO page does not mention a curfew or suspended flights or ferries to Zanzibar. The principal should read the live pages, date them and keep the date in the file beside the sentence.

Advisories are written for travellers and say little about owners. They do not measure the cost to rental income of a cancelled week, the effect on insurance cover, or the effect on a financing condition. The FCDO notes that travel insurance can be invalidated by travel against its advice. For an owner, that is a point to read next to the policy, not instead of it.

Honestly disclosed: where this checklist is weak#

The arrivals and currency figures in this note were read through press copies, not through the primary release. OCGS and Bank of Tanzania documents were not opened directly, with two exceptions, the OCGS Statistical Abstract 2025, which confirms the 917,167 arrivals of 2025, and the Bank of Tanzania's report on the 2025 exit survey, which confirms its count of 654,880 visitors to Zanzibar. The numbers are graded accordingly, and the principal should treat each as a pointer to the primary table. No September 2026 OCGS figure could be verified, and none is used.

The investment statute was read from the gazetted bill, not from the enacted Act. The text read is the Bill Supplement to the Zanzibar Government Gazette of 23 August 2023, hosted on the House of Representatives site. The enacted Act, Act No. 10 of 2023, repealed the 2018 Act, and section numbers and schedules may differ from the bill. The FAOLEX copy of the Act could not be machine-read, and the 2025 regulations were not extracted.

The Land Tenure Act text was not reopened in this pass. The lease terms in this note come from a 2023 practitioner guide, and no text of a 2018 amendment to the Act was found in this pass. A law can change. The principal should read the statute itself, and ask ZIPA and the ministry responsible for lands for the current position in writing.

No World Bank figure is used, and no 2026 IMF Article IV was found. The FCDO pages were read live on 13 October 2026; the US State Department page refused access, and its level is taken from a November 2025 press report. Practitioner guides are cited only where the statute is silent, and the tourism weight figure is graded directional. A checklist of public sources is also not a view on any asset, and it is not a substitute for legal advice.

Victaura's project in Nungwi, Secret Zanzibar Hotel & Villas, is in active development. Its public page is Secret Zanzibar Hotel & Villas. The principal should apply to it the same three questions applied above, and to everything else this publisher writes.

Skin in the game disclosure. Victaura, through its parent Greystone B.V. (Netherlands), develops projects on Lake Como (Italy), in Nungwi, Zanzibar (Tanzania), on Gili Air and in Uluwatu, Bali (Indonesia), and holds an off-plan capital position on Al Marjan Island, Ras Al Khaimah (UAE). Readers should assume commentary may be influenced by, or benefit, these positions. This document is classified as marketing material under MiFID II Article 24(3). It is not investment advice.