Written by the Kopesha team · Last reviewed 23 September 2026 · No lender pays for these guides · How we write them
Check the licence first, because it is the cheapest check
Microfinance in Tanzania is licensed. Institutions that take deposits or lend at scale are supervised by the Bank of Tanzania, and the tier that most small lenders sit in — Tier 2 microfinance service providers — is published as a register with a licence number against every name.
A licence does not promise that a lender is kind, cheap or good at answering the phone. What it does promise is that the institution exists as a legal entity, that somebody supervises it, and that there is an address to complain to. That is a low bar, and it removes an enormous amount of trouble.
Every institution listed on this site carries its register entry and its licence number where you can see it. If you met a lender somewhere else — a poster, a WhatsApp group, a friend of a friend — search the name here first. If it is not on the register at all, ask them which authority licenses them and under what number, and expect an answer within a minute.
A real office you can walk into
An address is a commitment. A lender who has signed a lease, put a sign on the door and hired somebody to sit behind a desk has something to lose if they treat customers badly. A phone number on a poster does not.
Go there before the money moves, even if the whole application happened on the phone. Look for the licence on the wall, a receipt book, other customers, staff who can answer a question about the product without stepping outside to call somebody. None of that is proof of honesty. All of it is hard to fake for long.
Terms in writing, before any money changes hands
Ask for the agreement and the repayment schedule before you commit, not at the moment of signing. Read them somewhere quiet. A lender who will not let paper leave the office, or who produces it only once you have already paid a fee, is arranging things so that you decide under pressure.
What you are reading for is simple: does the paper say the same thing the person said? The amount, the total, the dates, the penalties and the security should match the conversation exactly. Where they do not, the paper wins in any dispute, which is why it is worth twenty minutes now.
One number you can verify yourself
Take the amount, the rate and the term and work the total out yourself — on this site's calculator, on a phone calculator, or with a pen. Then ask the lender for their total and compare. You are not testing their arithmetic. You are testing whether the loan you are being sold is the loan you think you are buying.
If the two numbers differ, the gap is usually fees. Ask what they are called and whether they are deducted from the disbursement or added to the repayment. Both are normal; being unable to name them is not.
Things that are not evidence
A busy office is not evidence. A smart website is not evidence — they cost less than a week's interest. Photographs of customers holding cheques are not evidence. A long WhatsApp thread of people saying they were paid is not evidence; those threads are cheap to manufacture and are a standard part of advance-fee fraud.
The evidence is dull: a licence number you can look up, an address you can visit, paper you can read, and arithmetic you can repeat. Anything that asks you to feel confident instead of check something is asking for the wrong thing.
The one rule that never has an exception
Never pay a fee to receive a loan. Not a processing fee, not insurance, not a "clearance", not airtime, not a deposit to prove you are serious. A licensed lender takes its charges out of money it is giving you, or adds them to money you will repay. Money that travels from you to a lender before any loan arrives is, with very few exceptions, money that is gone.
Sources
This article is general information about borrowing in Tanzania. It is not advice about any particular lender, and the worked examples are examples only — not a quote or an offer from anybody.
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