The Bank of Tanzania’s Monthly Economic Review for September 2026 records gold exports of US$5,625.0 million in the year ending August 2026, against US$4,321.5 million a year earlier. Goods exports over the same period totalled US$11,960.8 million, which puts gold at about 47% of the total; the review attributes the gain to higher prices and volumes and credits gold with nearly two-thirds of the rise in goods exports. Exports of goods and services increased 16.4% to US$20,216.2 million.
Governor Emmanuel Tutuba told the IMF–World Bank African Caucus meeting in Banjul in July 2026 that the Bank of Tanzania had bought and held about 28 tonnes of gold over the previous 18 months through its domestic purchase programme. Tutuba said the Bank pays miners and dealers within 24 hours of a sale, and that dealers and small-scale miners have opened more than 4,000 accounts at financial institutions to sell to it.
Section 59 of the Mining Act requires miners to set aside 20% of production for sale on the domestic market, where the Bank of Tanzania holds the statutory first right to buy, according to a Ministry of Finance release of 18 June 2025. The contracts signed that day tied the Bank to Shanta Mining, Buckreef, Geita Gold Mining and Geita Gold Refinery, and the ministry named LBMA accreditation for domestic refiners as one of their aims. LBMA’s Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing report for 2024 describes Geita Gold Refinery as an intermediate refiner that had completed a Responsible Minerals Initiative assessment and was seeking to supply Good Delivery List refiners with artisanal and small-scale material. Gold refined outside the Good Delivery List settles in the Loco London market only after a listed refiner re-refines it and casts its own bars. The Tanzanian source then enters that refiner’s due diligence under LBMA’s Responsible Gold Guidance, which an independent auditor reviews each year. A Good Delivery bar carries the refiner’s stamp, serial number and fineness, so a counterparty tracing a bar on its weight list back to a Tanzanian mine works through the refiner’s due-diligence records. The Bank of Tanzania’s purchases are domestic transactions and appear in the review through gross official reserves of US$5,888.2 million at the end of August 2026, equal to 4.2 months of projected imports, which the review says export earnings and the gold purchase programme supported.
The review’s export figures come from Tanzania Revenue Authority data and Bank of Tanzania computations and are stated in value terms only. The domestic-sale requirement and the Bank’s first right of purchase are set by the Mining Act.