Tashkentculture & etiquette

Every foreign national must register their place of stay within three working days of entering Uzbekistan. If you are in a hotel it is done automatically through the electronic system and you never see it happen. The moment you move into a rented flat the obligation restarts and lands on you and your landlord, who may not know it is theirs. File it yourself on my.gov.uz through the unified registration system. This is the same trap that catches people in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and it surfaces at exit or at your next permit application rather than at the time.

Presidential Decree No. UP-180 of 4 October 2025, in force from 1 January 2026, does exempt foreign citizens' income from sources OUTSIDE Uzbekistan from personal income tax. To use it you pay a one-off special fee of USD 50,000, open an account at an authorised Uzbek bank or a wallet on a licensed crypto exchange, hold housing here, and spend more than 30 days in any twelve months. Uzbek-source income is still taxed at the standard flat 12%. Any write-up that leads with 'no income tax and easy residency' and omits the fee is describing the benefit without the price.

Uzbekistan's IT Visa runs three years, lets the holder work here WITHOUT a work permit, and lets them live anywhere in the country without re-registering their place of stay every time they move — which sidesteps the three-day rule entirely. It is gated: you need an IT qualification plus either employment by an IT Park resident company or documented income from IT work of at least US$30,000 over the previous twelve months. Decisions target three business days. Uzbekistan has no digital nomad visa; this is the nearest instrument and it is much better than one.

IT Park resident companies get 0% corporate income tax and 0% social tax, and their employees pay 7.5% personal income tax instead of the standard 12%. Those benefits (excluding VAT) are extended to 1 January 2040 for companies with export revenue above the threshold and for IT education providers. But the regime is tightening, not loosening: payment providers, marketplaces and microfinance organisations lose eligibility from 1 April 2026, and residents must hit rising export-share tests to keep the reduced administration fee. Confirm your business model still qualifies before building a plan on it.

The som traded around UZS 12,000 to the dollar in mid-2026, and Tashkent is meaningfully cheaper than Almaty, Baku, Yerevan or Tbilisi across rent, food and transport — a metro ride tapped with an ATTO card costs UZS 1,700, roughly 14 US cents. Currency rules were substantially liberalised from 2017 and the som is convertible, but banks still want documentation on large cross-border movements, so bring the paper trail rather than assuming the liberalisation removed all friction.

The Tashkent metro opened in 1977, is the oldest in Central Asia, and was built to double as a nuclear shelter, which is why it was classified as a military facility and photography inside was forbidden for over forty years. The ban lifted in June 2018 and the stations — each with its own theme in engraved metal, glass, marble and ceramic — are now one of the city's genuine attractions. Kosmonavtlar and Alisher Navoi are the ones to see first.