Customs Committee responds to rising IMEI registration costs, blames unauthorized imports

Recently, posts have been circulating on social media claiming that the cost of registering IMEI codes for mobile devices has increased from $30–40 to as much as $100–400. The Customs Committee has responded to these claims.

According to the Committee, the official fee for registering IMEI codes is 20% of the Base Calculation Unit (BCU) — currently 75,000 UZS. This amount has not changed.

“Most likely, these rumors are being spread by individuals who illegally import mobile devices into the country and are trying to justify the high prices to buyers by blaming the UZIMEI registration system,” the Committee stated.

They emphasized:

“If the phone you are purchasing was imported legally, then regardless of the number of SIM cards or whether it includes an eSIM, its IMEI codes are already registered by the importer.”

For example, over 1,813,000 phones worth $188 million were legally imported into Uzbekistan so far this year. However, illegal import attempts remain an issue. In the same period, over 44,000 phones worth 16.4 billion UZS were prevented from being smuggled into the country by customs authorities.

If a phone has been illegally imported or not declared, then a unified customs payment of 30% of the device’s customs value is required for its IMEI registration.

“If you bought a phone from unofficial sources for $1,000 and it is not registered in the system, then it will only be registered in UZIMEI after paying a customs fee of $300. In other words, this 30% is being misrepresented as the IMEI registration fee, whereas it is actually a unified customs payment,” the Committee explained.

Citizens are advised to declare mobile devices brought into the country in their passenger customs declaration, including all IMEI codes. Bringing in multiple phones is permitted, as long as the proper customs duties are paid.

In addition, it is strongly recommended to purchase mobile phones only from official stores and always verify the IMEI registration status.

“If during a purchase it turns out the phone is not registered in the system — or is registered only for one SIM card while the eSIM is unregistered — this clearly indicates the phone was either illegally imported or not properly declared,” the Committee concluded.

However, economist Behzod Khoshimov strongly criticized the current system in a recent podcast. He described IMEI registration as a form of protectionism that burdens ordinary citizens with billions of dollars in extra costs. He argued that the policy unfairly targets consumers and wastes human time on bureaucratic procedures. “Phones are one of the few items that can be controlled — so the state controls what it can,” he said, adding that the system should be abolished to economically unburden citizens. “People are paying not only with money but with their time. This is an enormous economic loss.”