Tanzania’s biggest music royalty payouts are funded by a 1.5 percent copyright levy on recording devices and blank media, and in the last cycle with a published breakdown, about 60 percent of what was collected reached artists. Streams play no part in how that money is raised.
That matters now because the next payout is scheduled. On 24 September 2026, Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports Paul Makonda announced that about 2 billion shillings in levy royalties will be distributed in November, Daily News reported.
Where the money comes from
COSOTA means the Copyright Society of Tanzania, the state copyright office that also collects and distributes royalties. The levy sits in section 53 of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (Cap. 218), inserted by the Finance Act 2022.
- Rate: 1.5 percent of the value of the goods.
- Original list: radio and TV sets that can record, analogue audio and video recorders, CD/DVD copiers, digital jukeboxes and MP3 players.
- Added in 2023: the Finance Act 2023 inserted vinyl, MiniDisc, CDs, DVDs and SD memory.
- Collector: COSOTA working with the Tanzania Revenue Authority.
Smartphones are not on the list. Makonda said listening has moved from CDs to flash drives and other formats, leaving revenue uncaptured, and that the ministry has proposed amendments. He put the pool’s potential at 10 to 30 billion shillings if they pass.
What happens to each shilling
The clearest breakdown came in January 2025, when Deputy Minister Hamis Mwinjuma explained the 1.2 billion shillings collected from September 2023 to November 2024, according to Daily News.
- 70 percent (840 million) was allocated to artists.
- 20 percent (240 million) went to COSOTA’s operating costs.
- 10 percent (120 million) went to the government’s general fund.
- After other government deductions, 836.8 million remained. Of that, 119.5 million went to the Cultural and Arts Fund.
- 717.3 million was left to share among creators: 59.8 percent of the gross.
If the same deductions apply in November, our arithmetic puts roughly 1.2 billion of the announced 2 billion in creators’ hands. For scale, COSOTA’s July 2023 distribution paid 396.9 million to 8,018 beneficiaries, an average of about 49,500 shillings each.
How it gets allocated
A levy on blank discs cannot tell you whose song was copied, so a proxy decides. The last proxy on record was radio.
In January 2022, COSOTA paid 312 million shillings to 1,123 artists for 5,924 works, using logs from seven radio stations for July to November 2021, The Citizen reported. The Creative Industry Network Tanzania and Twaweza called the sampling contrary to the Act, which requires distribution from log sheets, and noted only musicians were paid.
The takeaway: a song that streams well on Boomplay but gets no radio play can earn nothing from this pool.
What Tanzanian artists and labels should do before November
Register every work with COSOTA
- Registration runs under the 2005 registration regulations (GN No. 6 of 2006) and is done in person at COSOTA’s Dar es Salaam office.
- Bring ID, two copies of the work and details of your next of kin.
Put splits in writing first
- COSOTA asks for the agreement between co-owners of a work at registration.
- Use the same producer and writer splits you give your distributor, so your airplay claim and streaming reports match.
Keep your own airplay evidence
- Save station playlists, presenter shout-outs and DJ confirmations. When a distribution relies on samples, your own records are the only way to challenge it.
Budget the levy as a bonus
- Your repeatable income is streaming and YouTube, paid through your distributor. It never passes through the levy pool.
That second line is where distribution choice matters. InterSpace Distribution delivers to Boomplay, Audiomack and the global DSPs, and shows each collaborator’s split in the artist-facing royalty dashboard, so the paperwork COSOTA asks for already exists.
For comparison, Malawi calculated its biggest royalty cheque from CD burning shops, Uganda paid out about $58,000 last year, and Kenya’s system spent a year in court. For the delivery side, see our guide to distribution platforms for Tanzanian artists.
