Your free credit report, and fixing a wrong entry

Written by the Kopesha team · Published 29 September 2026 · 11 min read · No lender pays for these guides · How we write and check them

Why a loans officer says you are "on CRB"

You apply for a salary loan in Dodoma, and the loans officer comes back with bad news: the system shows you are "on CRB". You leave without knowing who reported you, for which loan, or whether it can be undone. The answers sit in a file at a credit bureau, and the law lets you read that file free of charge once every 12 months.

CRB stands for credit reference bureau: a company licensed by the Bank of Tanzania to collect loan records and sell them as credit reports. As of December 2024 there were two, according to the Bank's Banking Supervision Annual Report 2024: Dun & Bradstreet Credit Bureau Tanzania Limited and Creditinfo Tanzania Limited.

The records come from lenders. Tier 2 lenders, meaning the Bank-licensed microfinance lenders that take no deposits, must send the bureaus details of every loan, old and new, each month (regulation 35 of their 2019 regulations). SACCOS carry the same monthly duty under regulation 83 of theirs, and community microfinance groups share members' credit information through a bureau (regulation 27 of theirs).

All three sets of regulations sit under the Microfinance Act 2018, which applies to Mainland Tanzania only (section 2). The lender was also required to get your agreement in writing. For a Tier 2 lender, regulation 36 says it must ensure every borrower signs a written consent letting it obtain, exchange or disclose their credit information with lenders and bureaus. Look for that clause in your loan agreement (mkataba wa mkopo).

There is no blacklist

People talk about the CRB as if it kept a list of defaulters. What a bureau actually holds is your repayment history. Because lenders must report every loan every month, the loans you repaid on time sit in the same file as any that ran late, and a lender reading the report sees both.

Creditinfo's own website answers the question "Am I on a blacklist?" by saying a bureau "holds only facts about people". The same page says bureaus do not make lending decisions. The lender reads the report and decides.

Some things may not be in the file at all. Regulation 20(1) of GN 416, the 2012 regulations that govern the bureaus themselves, bars a bureau from keeping or reporting anything about your race, creed, colour, ancestry, ethnic origin, religious or political affiliation, state of health or criminal record. The one exception is financial fraud and similar offences.

Creditinfo also issues a clearance certificate on request, and its website names job applications and tenders among the reasons people ask for one. You get the certificate if your report has no negative listing. If it has one, you get a credit status certificate instead.

How long a late loan stays on your record

Clearing a late loan does not wipe it from your file. Regulation 36 of the 2012 bureau regulations says a bureau keeps credit information "until expiry of six years from the date of final loan repayment, bankruptcy, assignment or write-off", and after that it may archive it.

Say you paid the last installment (rejesho) of a loan on 14 August 2026, a year after it first fell behind. Six years from that final repayment takes the record, late months included, to 14 August 2032.

Regulation 20(2) adds other time limits, among them these two. A bureau may not add information about a court judgment six years after the judgment was filed, unless you confirm it is still wholly or partly unpaid. It may not add bankruptcy or liquidation information six years after the discharge or the end of the liquidation.

The regulations give no way to delete accurate information early, only a way to correct what is wrong or out of date. Anyone who offers to "clean" your CRB record for a fee is selling something the rules do not provide for. Treat that offer the way you would any of the loan scams that ask for money up front.

Getting your free report

Regulation 28(1) gives you four rights: to know what type of information is shared about you, to see your credit report, to "request a free copy" of it "once every twelve months", and to challenge what it says. The bureau must tell you about that last right when you ask for your report (regulation 29(1)). The regulations apply to every licensed bureau (regulation 2), and each keeps its own database, so you can ask each one.

Have your identification (kitambulisho) ready. Regulation 28(2) lets you ask by fax, telephone, mail, internet or in person, "indicating proper identification".
At Creditinfo's office you fill in a request form and staff check your ID against it. Its website lists the office as 8th Floor, Tanzanite Park, New Bagamoyo Road, Dar es Salaam, phone +255 22 276 0742, email citinfo@creditinfo.co.tz (as read on 28 September 2026).
Outside Dar es Salaam, Creditinfo's disputes page says you can email it or go through one of its subscribers, meaning a bank or lender that buys reports from it. A subscriber checks your ID against the form, and the report goes to the receiver named on the form.
Count the days. The bureau must send the report within five working days of your request (regulation 28(4)), on paper or as an electronic file that cannot be edited (28(3)). Ask on a Monday and, with no public holiday in the way, it is due by the following Monday.

Only the first report in any 12 months has to be free. Creditinfo's credit report page says every report after the free one in that period is charged, and its FAQ says the free report does not include a credit score, which is sold separately. Neither page gave a price when we read them on 28 September 2026. Regulation 32 lets a bureau charge for its services, and it must report its fee structure to the Bank.

Dun & Bradstreet's Tanzanian website, dnbtanzania.com, has a "Self Inquiry Report" menu. When we checked on 28 September 2026 the home page opened, but its self-inquiry and dispute resolution pages returned "not found". Phone the number on its home page before you travel.

What to look for on the report

Your personal details: the spelling of your name, date of birth, address and employer. Creditinfo puts mistakes in personal information first on its list of errors to look for.
Every loan listed, and the lender that reported it. Look for any loan you never took.
Amounts and status: a loan shown as past due in a month you paid on time, a loan amount that is wrong, or a balance that still shows after you cleared it.
The searches. Regulation 19 makes the bureau keep a record of every search of your file, with its date and the name and location of whoever searched.

A search needs your consent. Under regulation 24(1) a lender may look at your file only with your written consent. Later searches to follow the repayment of a loan granted after that first search need no fresh consent (24(2)). If a lender you never applied to has searched your file, put that in your dispute. Regulation 24(4) says that when a bureau finds a search was made without prior written consent, it must suspend that lender's access for that inquiry.

If a microfinance lender you do not recognise has reported a loan, look its name up in Kopesha's directory of lenders on the Bank of Tanzania's Tier 2 register. Banks are not on that register. Whoever reported it, a loan you never took goes on your dispute list.

What to send when you dispute an entry

Regulation 29(2) lets you notify the bureau of any information you believe is "inaccurate, erroneous or outdated". Creditinfo asks for the dispute in writing, on its dispute form, and only after you have received your report.

Your ID, and a copy of the report with each wrong item marked.
A short list: which item, what it says, and what it should say.
Proof for each item: receipts (risiti), mobile money or bank statements, a letter from the lender confirming the loan was cleared, or a court document.
Your phone number and address, so the outcome reaches you.

Keep a copy and write down the date the bureau received it, because the bureau's first two deadlines below run from that date. The papers a lender owes you during and after a loan make the strongest evidence, so ask for any you are missing before you file.

The deadlines the bureau and the lender must meet

Dispute deadlines under GN 416, the 2012 credit bureau regulations

What must happen	Deadline	Regulation
The bureau adds a note to your report on the disputed items, which stays until the dispute is resolved	2 working days from receiving your challenge	29(3)(a)
The bureau investigates and corrects the entry, where the error is its own	15 working days from receiving your challenge	29(3)(b)
The bureau tells the lender what it found, where the error came from the lender	2 working days	29(3)(c)
The lender investigates when the bureau asks it to	15 working days	25(3)
The bureau tells you the outcome	No number of days is set	29(3)(d)
You receive a corrected report	Free of charge	29(4)

Counted Monday to Friday, with no public holiday in the way, 15 working days is three weeks. While the note is on your report, any lender who pulls it sees which items you dispute.

If the lender fails to respond, or does not finish its investigation within 15 working days, regulation 31 says the bureau must "suspend access to credit information" and report the matter to the Bank. Regulation 25(4) makes the lender responsible for any error in what it sent.

If the investigation shows the entry was correct, regulation 29(6) allows the bureau to charge you for the cost of investigating. Before you file, check that you have proof for every item on your list.

When the lender insists it is right

Sometimes the bureau passes your dispute to the lender, the lender says its record is accurate, and you still say it is not. Regulation 29(5) covers exactly that case: you may appeal to the Bank of Tanzania.

Write to the lender's complaints desk too, and keep its reply. The Bank takes up a complaint once the provider has dealt with it or its time to reply has run out, says clause 25(3) of the complaint guidelines it issued in 2025. A Tier 2 lender must "undertake to provide complete, accurate and timely credit information" (regulation 35(4) of the 2019 Tier 2 regulations), so a wrong entry is its error to fix at the source.

The Bank takes complaints through Sema na BoT: a website, a mobile app, a toll-free line and a chatbot, as listed in clause 25(2) of the same guidelines. Attach the report, your dispute letter, the bureau's outcome, the lender's reply and your evidence. For the time limits the Bank works to once it has your complaint, see your rights as a borrower.

When collecting a debt, neither a Tier 2 lender nor a debt collector it hires may communicate, or threaten to communicate, to anyone credit information it knows to be false (regulation 56(2)(e)(iv) and 56(4)). That rule covers false information only. Arrears that really happened must still be reported under regulation 35.

Using your report before the next loan

If a Tier 2 lender turns you down, regulation 40 of the 2019 regulations requires it to give you the reasons within seven days. If the reasons mention your credit history, get your free report and check it before you apply anywhere else. What else lenders weigh, and how to prepare, is in improving your chances of approval.

A Tier 2 lender may pass on what it paid a bureau for your report, but no more. In the fee guidelines the Bank issued in 2024, guideline 13(6) puts a credit reference report on its list of third-party costs a Tier 2 lender on the Mainland may pass on, and says the charge "shall not exceed the actual payments made to third parties". The rest of that list is in fees a lender cannot charge.

If you are behind on a loan now, the lender keeps reporting it every month, so each month the arrears stay unpaid adds another late month to your file. The guide to missed payments takes each stage in turn, from the first late day, and says what you can do at each one.

Sources

What changed

29 September 2026: First published.

Found a mistake? Tell us through the contact page and name this guide. We check it against the source and correct the page.

This guide is general information about borrowing in Tanzania. It is not legal or financial advice about your situation or about any particular lender, and the worked examples are examples, not a quote or an offer from anybody.