Zanzibar Title: What a Foreigner Can Own

Revision note, 13 October 2026#

This article was corrected on 13 October 2026. It presented the Land Transfer Act 1994 and its Board as the current transfer rule, a fifteen-year cap on private leases and an unconfirmed 99-year ceiling. Act No. 5 of 2022 repealed that Act on 21 July 2022; the amended Land Tenure Act 1992 names the Commission for Lands, 49 years and a 99-year ceiling. The opening and the sections on title types, bare plots, expiry, resale, Pemba and limits, the table and the takeaways follow those texts.

Can foreigners buy land in Zanzibar?#

No, a foreigner cannot hold freehold land in Zanzibar, and cannot be granted the primary land right at all. All land in the islands is public land vested in the President. The primary Right of Occupancy goes only to Zanzibaris over eighteen. A non-Zanzibari buyer takes a government lease instead. Section 47(1) of the Land Tenure Act 1992, as replaced in 2018, caps a lease of public land at 99 years and has it granted in terms of not more than 33 years each.

The answer matters because the phrase 'buying property in Zanzibar' hides three different legal acts. The principal may be buying a unit title inside an approved condominium project. The principal may be taking a ground lease for a plot. Or the principal may be buying from a Zanzibari holder. Each runs through a different office, a different consent and a different clock. This note separates them.

This note is the second in the series 'What a Foreign Holder Gets', after the Gili Air piece. The method is the same. Name the instrument, name the issuer, name the clock, and mark every figure with its grade. Where the text of a norm could not be read, the note says so. That happens more than once, and the last section lists each case.

Three choices were made to keep the claims checkable. The statutes were read on the copies published by the Zanzibar House of Representatives and in the Zanzibar Government Gazette, each principal Act together with its amending Acts, because no official consolidated text was found. The February 2026 notice of the Zanzibar Investment Promotion Authority (ZIPA) is taken from a trade-press report, because the original notice text could not be located. Where the statute is silent, practitioner guides are used and marked as practitioner-reported. Nothing here is legal advice, and counsel admitted in Zanzibar should confirm each point before a commitment.

Right of Occupancy, lease from a holder and government lease in Zanzibar#

A Right of Occupancy is the primary land right in Zanzibar, and it is reserved to Zanzibaris. Under the Land Tenure Act 1992, public land is vested in the President by section 3(2). Section 8(1) describes the occupancy as held in perpetuity without specific term and inheritable. Section 24(1) says it is granted only to Zanzibaris above eighteen. The foreign principal is outside that class by definition.

A Right of Occupancy can pass between Zanzibaris, and a holder can lease it for a limited term. Section 7 lists a grant from the Minister, adjudication, and inheritance, purchase or gift of a registered interest as the ways the right arises for a Zanzibari. Section 50(1) lets the holder lease it for at most forty-nine years; the 1992 text said fifteen, and the Land Tenure (Amendment) Act of 2010 replaced the figure. The tightest wording sits in section 57, which provides for termination where a holder makes or attempts a transfer of the Right of Occupancy to a non-Zanzibari. The statute does describe a route that fits the practitioner account, in which a foreigner buys from a Zanzibari holder and then registers a government lease. Section 46, as replaced in 2010, lets the Minister lease land that comprises a Right of Occupancy only with the holder's consent, and entitles the holder to compensation at fair market value before the lease is created. What becomes of the holder's right once the lease exists is not stated in the texts read.

A government lease is the instrument a foreign principal actually receives. It is granted by the Minister responsible for lands, not by a private holder (Land Tenure Act, section 46). For land meant for investment, the same section makes the lease subject to approval of the investment by ZIPA or another relevant authority. Section 47(1), as replaced by Act No. 1 of 2018, caps the lease at 99 years, granted gradually in terms of not more than 33 years each. The Commission for Lands Act 2015 gives the Board of the Commission the power to submit applications on land allocation and lease to the Minister with recommendations (section 12(a)), and practitioner guides describe the Commission as the office that handles the file.

A lease from a private holder is a shorter and weaker instrument, and that gap is the most useful fact in the file. Section 50(1) caps it at forty-nine years. Section 51(3) of the 1992 text, for which no amendment was found in the Acts read, says the lease of a Right of Occupancy shall not be sold, assigned or subdivided, though it is inheritable. A private lease from a holder therefore cannot reach 99 years and cannot be resold. The long, tradable term has to come from the government lease, and for investment land that lease depends on the investment approval. That is why approval status, not the plot, is the variable that matters.

What title does a foreign buyer receive in Zanzibar, and who issues it?#

The foreign buyer receives a registered leasehold interest, not ownership of the land, and the issuer depends on the structure. A government lease is granted by the Minister responsible for lands, or by ZIPA itself inside a Special Economic Zone. A unit in a condominium is registered by the Registrar of Condominium. A later disposition of a lease of public land needs the approval of the Commission for Lands and the Minister; the Land Transfer Board, which guides still name for that step, was abolished with its Act in 2022. Three offices, three documents.

The Condominium Act No. 10 of 2010 is the route for villas and apartments inside an approved scheme. The Act, assented to on 24 September 2010, defines an owner as the person registered as owner of a title to a unit, or of the leasehold estate in a unit where the parcel is held under a lease (section 3). A Registrar of Condominium is appointed by the Minister responsible for housing under section 5(1), as replaced by Act No. 6 of 2023, which also abolished the Condominium Board. The practitioner reading is that the buyer takes a unit title in the buyer's own name.

The Condominium Act makes a unit transferable, inheritable and mortgageable, and it states no term. Section 16(1)(b) gives each unit-owner the right to transfer the unit by sale, lease, gift, bequest, devise, pledge or mortgage without the approval of the Registrar or any other unit-owner, in the wording of Act No. 6 of 2023. Section 25 leaves inheritance to the prevailing laws of succession, and section 26 gives the right to mortgage. Rive & Co describes the unit interest as a 99-year renewable leasehold, distinct from the developer's ground lease; that description is practitioner-reported. No duration appears anywhere in the Act. The 99-year ceiling and the 33-year terms come from section 47(1) of the Land Tenure Act, which governs the lease of the parcel, so the term to rely on is the one written in the instrument.

The Zanzibar Land Registry is where the interest becomes enforceable. Rive & Co names the Registry as the body that records lease agreements and unit titles. For the allocator the practical test is simple. Ask for the registered instrument, the approval of the Commission for Lands and the Minister for any earlier disposition, and the ZIPA approval, in that order, and read the term clause in the instrument, not in the marketing file.

Who the grantor is matters as much as who the issuer is. Inside a Special Economic Zone, section 27(1) of the Zanzibar Investment Act 2023 has ZIPA granting the land lease itself. Outside a zone, section 27(2) says the Authority shall facilitate acquisition of the lease through the Minister responsible for lands. The grantor differs by location, and so does the file the principal should ask to see.

Approved project versus bare plot in Zanzibar#

An approved project is a plot that has already been through a filter, and a bare plot has not. ZIPA approval produces an Investment Certificate, and a Zanzibar law firm brief lists the certificate in the building-permit file where the project is registered with ZIPA. A bare plot bought from a Zanzibari holder has not been through that filter. Its file starts with the land administration, and where the land is for investment the government lease still waits on approval of the investment (Land Tenure Act, section 46).

The bare-plot route runs on search, agreement, consent and lease. The Ardean Law Chambers brief of January 2023 lists an official search, a signed and attested sale agreement, a site plan and beacons for unregistered land, approval by the Land Transfer Board with a Transfer Certificate, and then the government lease. That Board had been abolished in July 2022, and the Commission for Lands now holds the function of regulating transfers of non-registered land rights (Commission for Lands Act 2015, section 4(2)(d), as inserted in 2022). Each step is a place where a file can stall. The allocator should weigh the stall risk, not only the plot.

The approved-project route compresses the buyer's file. The buyer deals with a registered scheme, a unit title and the developer's counsel, and the project-level approvals sit upstream. Compressed does not mean removed. A disposition of a lease of public land still needs the approval of the Commission for Lands and the Minister under section 47(3) of the Land Tenure Act. The Condominium Act also bars a proprietor or developer from selling a unit before handing the purchaser copies of documents that include the sale agreement, the lease of the parcel where there is one, the certificate of title to the unit and the condominium plan (section 22(1)).

Build rights follow the same split. Where the plot is bare, the buyer carries the permit burden. The Ardean brief names the Development Control Unit as permit issuer under the Building Regulation Act of 2015, with a stated seven-working-day review window. How setback and envelope rules cap what a permit allows is covered in the setback line and the buildable envelope. Who delivers an approved scheme is covered in who develops in Zanzibar.

What the February 2026 ZIPA notice changed for Zanzibar buyers#

A ZIPA public notice, reported by TanzaniaInvest on 22 February 2026, moves the gate from construction to marketing. As reported by TanzaniaInvest, all real estate projects must be registered and approved by the Zanzibar Investment Promotion Authority before implementation, including marketing and soliciting buyers. The report does not give the date of the notice itself, and the original notice text could not be located on ZIPA's own site during research, so the grade is press-reported.

The second limb attacks the contract. The same report quotes the notice as saying that sale and purchase agreements related to real estate projects will not be considered valid unless they have been reviewed, approved and endorsed by ZIPA. For the allocator that converts an unendorsed agreement from a weak document into one the authority says is not valid.

The third limb sits with the developer. Building-permit applicants must submit a signed contract between the developer or investor and the appointed contractor. It does not touch the buyer directly. It does bear on delivery risk, because a project with a signed contractor is a different object from one with only drawings.

The notice also advises buyers to consult ZIPA before transacting. The stated purposes, per the report, are transparency, investor compliance and protection of home buyers. Three limits apply. This note has not read the notice itself. It does not know how the endorsement is evidenced on the sale agreement. And it does not know whether secondary resales fall inside the rule. Each is a question for counsel and for ZIPA.

The practical test follows from the text. Before any deposit, the principal asks for the ZIPA registration reference of the project and the endorsement route for the sale agreement. A seller that cannot produce either has answered the question. This is a diligence step, not a view on any project.

What happens when a Zanzibar lease expires, and can it be inherited?#

The term and its renewals are written in statute; what happens at the end is only partly settled. Section 47(1) of the Land Tenure Act, as replaced by Act No. 1 of 2018, caps a lease of public land at 99 years, granted gradually in terms of not more than 33 years each. The Land Tenure (Amendment) Act of 2010 had written the consequence of non-renewal: for a non-Zanzibari the land and all improvements revert to the government, and section 47(8) adds that no compensation is paid to a non-Zanzibari after the lease expires. The 2018 Act replaced subsection (1) with new subsections (1) and (2) and did not say what became of the 2010 sentence on reversion. No official consolidated text was found, so this note cannot state whether that sentence still stands.

'Renewable' is a promise of process, not of outcome. The allocator should ask four questions of the lease instrument itself. Who decides renewal. On what conditions. At what rent. And what happens to the buildings if renewal is refused. The statute answers the first in part: before the renewal of a term the Minister, in consultation with the Minister responsible for investment, assesses the performance of the investment (section 47(2), as replaced in 2018). It states no criteria for that assessment and gives no right to renewal. On rent, the 1992 text requires a fair rental value and, for leases longer than ten years, a review at intervals of not more than three years (section 47(4) and (6)). The market comparison for resort leaseholds is in the cost of tenure in prime resort markets.

Inheritance is written into the statute, with a condition attached. Section 47(3) of the Land Tenure Act says a lease of public land, once developed in accordance with the ZIPA-approved investment plan, may be sold, assigned, sub-leased, subdivided, inherited or mortgaged. The same subsection bars any disposition without the approval of the Commission for Lands and the Minister. For a condominium unit, section 25 of the Condominium Act makes inheritance subject to the prevailing laws of succession. Rive & Co and the Ardean brief say the same in looser words, without citing a section.

The inheritance of a leasehold is a different question from the inheritance of a Right of Occupancy. The Land Tenure Act makes the Right of Occupancy inheritable under the Zanzibar law of succession, in section 8(1). That sentence is about Zanzibari holders. It should not be read across to a foreign leaseholder. Whether the heir of a foreign holder steps into the lease on the same terms, and whether a succession counts as a disposition that needs the approval of the Commission and the Minister, was not found in the texts read.

For estate planning the instrument is the answer, not the guide. A foreign principal with heirs in another jurisdiction should read the succession and assignment clauses of the lease before signing. Counsel admitted in Zanzibar should confirm whether a home-country will is recognised for the leasehold. This is a question to ask, not a conclusion.

Resale in Zanzibar and the approval of the Commission for Lands#

Resale of a lease of public land is gated by the Commission for Lands and the Minister, and the gate is one subsection of the Land Tenure Act. Section 47(3), as replaced in 2010, says a lease of public land, once developed in accordance with the ZIPA-approved investment plan, may be sold, assigned, sub-leased, subdivided, inherited or mortgaged. It adds that the lessee shall not make any disposition without approval, and shall meet the terms and conditions set by the Minister. The approving bodies were the Land Transfer Board and the Minister until 2022, and are the Commission and the Minister since.

The Land Transfer Board and its Act no longer exist. The Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendment) Act 2022 (Act No. 5 of 2022) was assented to on 21 July 2022, came into operation on assent and was gazetted on 25 August 2022. Its section 34 repealed the Land Transfer Act No. 8 of 1994, with a saving for anything already done under it. Section 29 put the word 'Commission' in place of 'Land Transfer Board' in section 47(3), and section 32 gave the Commission for Lands the function 'to regulate transfer of non-registered land rights or interests'. For registered land, the Registered Land Act (Act No. 10 of 1990) completes the transfer of a lease by registration of the transferee (section 84), and its section 4 preserves any other written law that requires the consent or approval of an authority to a dealing.

The clocks are no longer written down. The 1994 Act required a monthly meeting, a decision within three months, a referral to the Land Tribunal after forty-five days and execution of the instrument within six months of consent. None of these has a successor in the texts read. The Commission for Lands Act 2015, read in full, sets no time limit for an approval and no period of validity; its Board meets at least once every three months (section 15(1)). The Commission may collect fees and levies from transactions and issue rules, guidelines and directives (section 5), and the Minister may make regulations (section 27). This note did not find any such instrument on transfers, and the budget speech of the Ministry responsible for lands to the House of Representatives in May 2024 said that land transfer regulations were still being prepared.

The penalties went with the repeal, and a general offence remains. The 1994 Act voided the registration of a non-compliant instrument and set a minimum fine of 150,000 shillings. Neither provision survives. Section 6D of the Land Tenure Act, added in 2010, makes it an offence to contravene the Act without lawful excuse, with a fine of not less than one million shillings, imprisonment for five years, or both. A lease of public land may be terminated where the holder commits a fundamental breach of its terms (section 48(1)(c)), and since 2022 the Minister may not terminate a lease without the consent of the President (section 65A). Whether an unapproved disposition is void was not found in the texts read.

So who can the foreign holder resell to? For a lease of public land, to a buyer whose acquisition the Commission and the Minister approve, on the terms the Minister sets, with ZIPA endorsement added where the instrument is a project sale after February 2026. For a condominium unit, section 16(1)(b) of the Condominium Act lets the owner transfer without the approval of the Registrar or any other unit-owner, and whether the approval under section 47(3) also reaches the resale of a single unit was not found in the texts read. The statute does not say whether the buyer must be a foreigner holding a ZIPA-linked status or can be a Zanzibari. Liquidity is therefore a process, with a gatekeeper the statute names and a timetable it does not set.

What is different on Pemba?#

On Pemba the title types are the same, and the written difference now sits in the investment law. Pemba sits under the same Land Tenure Act, Commission for Lands Act and investment law as Unguja. The Land Tenure Act declares all natural land within the islands of Zanzibar to be public land (section 3(1)) and makes no separate rule for Pemba. What differs in the texts read is the investment threshold, which is a primary-source fact about the regime and not a statement about the market.

The Pemba seats at the transfer table went with the 1994 Act. The repealed Land Transfer Act built a Pemba sub-committee into its Board and required at least two Pemba members for a quorum. The Commission for Lands Act 2015 does neither. Its Board consists of a chairperson appointed by the President, the Principal Secretaries for lands and for regional authorities, the Deputy Attorney General, three members appointed by the Minister and the Executive Secretary (section 9(1)), and half of the members form a quorum (section 15(8)). No Pemba seat is named.

The investment thresholds are lower on Pemba. Under Part Two of the Second Schedule to the Zanzibar Investment Act 2023, an approved investment in Unguja qualifies for Strategic Investment status at USD 50 million with at least thirty percent in equity, or at USD 10 million with five hundred direct jobs for Tanzanians outside hotels. On Pemba the figures are USD 5 million with thirty percent in equity, or USD 2 million with one hundred direct jobs outside hotels. The status carries additional incentives under the Fourth Schedule. Where a Pemba land file is lodged, and which officer handles it, is not stated in the texts read.

What the statute does not say is whether Pemba files move faster or slower. No processing-time data by island was found, and the allocator should not infer either. The February 2026 ZIPA notice is reported as applying to real estate projects in Zanzibar generally. No Pemba-specific variant was found.

Demand is not evenly distributed, but this note has no verified Pemba figure. The official arrivals release cited below is islands-wide. Any Pemba demand claim in the market would need its own source and date. This note makes none.

Demand context and the Nungwi coast#

Zanzibar's official arrivals series is the demand anchor, and it is islands-wide. According to The Citizen on 18 January 2026, citing the December 2025 Tourism Statistical Release of the Office of the Chief Government Statistician and the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism, international arrivals reached 917,167 in 2025, against 736,755 in 2024. The same report puts Italy at 14.4 percent of December 2025 arrivals.

An arrivals series is not a rental or resale series. It says how many people reach the islands. It says nothing about occupancy in a given scheme, or about whether a unit can be exited. The allocator should treat it as context for the title question, not as support for any return. This note offers no return figure.

Title, not demand, is the binding constraint for a foreign principal. More arrivals do not widen what a foreigner can hold. They raise the number of people who want the same registered interests, and they plausibly raise the regulator's interest in policing sales. The February 2026 notice may be read in that light. That is an inference, and the notice text as reported does not say so.

The Nungwi coast is covered by the same regime. Victaura's public Nungwi project page describes the project in its own terms, and this note does not restate or extend them. Everything above about lease terms, ZIPA endorsement or transfer approval is general to Zanzibar and should not be read as a statement about the title of that project.

One caveat on the arrivals data itself. The figures reach this note through press reporting of an official release, and the monthly release was not opened directly. The 2024 comparator and the increase of nearly 25 percent come from that same report. The allocator should read the primary release before using the numbers in an investment paper.

Where this analysis is weakest, honestly disclosed#

Many guides still cite two repealed Acts. The Zanzibar Investment Act 2023 (Act No. 10 of 2023) was assented to on 1 February 2024 and repealed the investment law of 2018 in its section 62(1). The Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendment) Act 2022 repealed the Land Transfer Act of 1994, and with it the Land Transfer Board. Guides that still cite the 2018 Act, or send a buyer to that Board, are citing replaced texts. The acquisition-of-land provision is section 27 of the 2023 Act.

The 99-year ceiling is statute; the end of each term is less certain. Section 47(1) of the Land Tenure Act, as replaced by Act No. 1 of 2018, caps a lease of public land at 99 years, granted gradually in terms of not more than thirty-three years each. The Fifth Schedule to the 2023 Investment Act lists a thirty-three-year land lease agreement among the incentives for real estate developers, which is the length of one term. The statute states no criteria for the assessment that precedes a renewal. Whether the 2010 sentence on reversion to the government survived the 2018 amendment could not be confirmed without an official consolidated text.

The statutes were read without an official consolidated text. The Land Tenure Act 1992, the Condominium Act 2010, the Commission for Lands Act 2015 and most amending Acts are scanned copies on the House of Representatives website. They were read through character recognition, and the sections cited were checked against the page images. The 2022 amending Act and the 2023 Investment Act were read in the Government Gazette. The amendment trail was rebuilt from the amending Acts the House lists by year, so an amendment in an Act that was not opened would have been missed. The Registered Land Act was read only in part, and any rules, guidelines or directives of the Commission for Lands were not read.

Two things were deliberately left out. Residency thresholds and tax rates quoted by agencies were not used, because they are unverified claims by commercial parties. No price, yield or return appears, for the market or for any project. The further-reading entries in the references were consulted through search listings only and are not relied on for any figure.

The conclusion is narrow, and the allocator should keep it narrow. A foreigner holds a government-granted leasehold, never freehold. The files to read are the lease instrument, the ZIPA registration and endorsement, and the approval of the Commission for Lands and the Minister for any disposition. Everything else in the guides is commentary of a lower grade.

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.