Getting a loan approved: what lenders check

What the lender is checking, by law

You fill in the form, hand over a copy of your ID and wait. Across the desk, the loan officer is working on one question: will this money come back on the dates in the agreement? The rules behind that answer are published, so you can prepare for each part.

The Bank of Tanzania sets the test in Regulation 33 of its 2019 consumer protection regulations (GN 884), amended in 2025. Every provider the Bank licenses or supervises, banks included, must assess your creditworthiness "on the basis of character, capacity, capital, collateral, condition and such other factors" before you sign up for a credit-related product, and must check you can meet its terms.

Tier 2 lenders, the microfinance companies, money lenders and digital lenders that the Bank licenses but that take no deposits, face a second test. Under Regulation 39(1) of their 2019 regulations (GN 679), a lender signs a loan agreement only "if satisfied that a borrower meets loan conditions and has the capacity to repay the loan". GN 679 and the Bank's 2024 fee guidelines apply in Mainland Tanzania (section 2 of the Microfinance Act 2018; fee guideline 4). In Zanzibar, ask a lender which rules it works under.

Each Tier 2 lender must also write a lending policy, and Regulation 37(2) lists what goes in it: "eligibility requirements for a loan", loan limits per borrower and per product, how it judges your ability to repay, and the "loan processing time upon submission of a complete loan application". Ask the loan officer for those before you fill anything in.

What the application form asks

Regulation 38(1) of GN 679 sets the minimum a Tier 2 application form must ask. Work out an honest answer to each at home, with figures:

• Who you are: full name, date of birth, marital status and number of dependants.
• Where you are: your place of residence or business, and your place of employment.
• What you do: your occupation or type of business, and its economic sector.
• The loan: its purpose, the amount you want and the collateral you offer.
• Your money: current income, expenses and assets, and other loans outstanding.

The form also carries your consent to share credit information (Regulation 38(2)), and Regulation 36 says that consent must be in writing. The bureau rules agree: under Regulation 24(1) of GN 416, the Bank's 2012 rules for credit bureaus, a lender "may only access" a bureau's database with the written consent of the borrower it is searching.

List every loan you still owe, including phone and app loans and SACCOS loans. Tier 2 lenders and SACCOS report their loans to the credit bureaus each month (see the next section), so a loan you leave off the form can still appear on the report the lender pulls.

What the credit bureau file shows a lender

A bureau report is built from what lenders send in. Regulation 35 of GN 679 makes every Tier 2 lender send the credit reference bureaux "detailed information about all credit facilities extended to each borrower", monthly, for new loans and those already running. Regulation 83 of GN 675 puts SACCOS under the same monthly duty, and registered community microfinance groups must keep members' credit information for sharing through a bureau (Regulation 27 of GN 678).

So how you pay, on time or late, goes into the file every month. The bureau holds the record and nothing more: Creditinfo Tanzania's FAQ says bureaus "do not make lending decisions". Whether your history is good enough is for each lender to decide.

Parliament heard from the Deputy Minister of Finance on 27 May 2024 that the Bank had licensed two credit bureaus: Creditinfo Tanzania Limited and Dun & Bradstreet Credit Bureau Tanzania Limited (Daily News, 28 May 2024). Look at your own file before you apply. Each bureau owes you one free copy of your report every twelve months, sent within five working days (Regulations 28(1)(c) and 28(4) of the 2012 bureau regulations). Your free credit report and CRB disputes explains how to ask and how to challenge a mistake.

Each lender's search is logged too, with its date (Regulation 19 of the bureau regulations). A Tier 2 lender may pass on the cost of pulling your report, but only what it paid the bureau (fee guideline 13(6)).

Make your income something a lender can check

If you are paid in cash, write it down every day in an exercise book (daftari): the date, what you bought, what you sold and what you took home. Notes on your phone do the same job if you keep them daily. Three months of these figures turn "I make about fifty thousand a day" into something a loan officer can check against your stock and your statements, and they show you your real margin instead of a guess.

Keep business money and household money apart. When stock, rent and school fees all come out of one pocket, neither you nor the lender can tell what the business earns.

Then give your money a trail, starting months before you apply. Take customer payments into a mobile money wallet or bank account, pay suppliers from it, and leave some balance in it at the end of the month. A statement showing steady turnover over several months speaks to capacity in a way a large deposit made last week cannot.

Papers to have ready

None of the Bank's microfinance rules sets one list of documents for a loan. Each Tier 2 lender writes its own "lending procedures and documentation" into its policy (Regulation 37(2)(a)). What the regulations do fix is identity: a lender reports you to the bureaus "having ascertained the proper identities of borrowers" (Regulation 35(1)). Ask for the lender's list, then gather what applies to you:

• Your National Identification Number (NIN) from NIDA, and the phone you registered it with. Other services build on it: TRA's taxpayer portal registers a TIN from your NIN and sends a one-time code to that phone, or asks security questions if your number has changed.
• A Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), if you run a business.
• Business name registration from BRELA, which lists getting loans from financial institutions such as banks among the benefits. BRELA asks for Tanzanian citizenship, age 18 or over, your NIN, a phone number registered in your own name, a working personal email, and business and home addresses. You apply online through its ORS system.
• For a salary loan: recent payslips and your employer's details.
• For a business loan: your sales book and several months of mobile money or bank statements.
• For a secured loan: the papers for whatever you are pledging, and the details of any guarantor (mdhamini).

Your guarantor gets a paper as well. Regulation 55 obliges the lender to hand them a written statement of what they are liable for, naming the lender, the borrower, the loan amount, the loan number and the date it was granted. Before you ask someone to be your guarantor, go through what you and a guarantor can lose with them.

Ask for the amount your worst month can carry

Asking for the largest amount a lender might approve is a quick way to fail the capacity test. Work backwards from the installment instead.

Say you run a duka in Iringa. Your book shows profit of about TZS 540,000 a month on average over three months, and TZS 380,000 in the worst of them. You want TZS 3,000,000, and the lender quotes 3% a month on a reducing balance with no fees. That rate is only for this example: there is no official typical microfinance rate, and what a loan really costs explains how to read a quote.

In the bad month, the TZS 3,000,000 loan leaves TZS 78,614 for rent, food and everything else, and a loan officer weighing capacity can see that as well as you can. Stretching TZS 2,000,000 over 18 months cuts the installment to TZS 145,417, but costs TZS 206,423 more in interest than 12 months. If the loan buys stock, the extra profit helps only once the stock sells, and the first installment may fall due before it does.

You can also run the sum the other way. If TZS 150,000 is the most you could pay in a bad month after household costs, then at 3% a month it supports about TZS 1,493,101 over 12 months, or about TZS 2,063,027 over 18. The affordability calculator starts from your own income and spending, suggests a safe installment (half the money left once essentials and current loans are paid) and shows the loan that installment repays. The loan calculator shows the full schedule, fees included.

Have an answer for "what is it for?"

The purpose is on the form (Regulation 38(1)(e)), and "stock" is a weak answer. Say you sell cement. "Forty bags bought at TZS 18,000 and sold at TZS 22,000 within three weeks, as I did last month" is a strong one: it shows TZS 720,000 going out, TZS 880,000 coming back and TZS 160,000 of margin to pay from. Bring last month's receipts so the officer can check it.

A purpose that earns money helps pay the loan back. School fees, a hospital bill or a funeral do not, so every installment comes out of income you already have. For costs like these, borrow the smallest amount that covers them, over the shortest term you can carry. A budget that survives the repayment works through school fees and hospital bills in detail.

Once you have the loan

Each Tier 2 lender's policy sets its own loan limits "per borrower and per product" (Regulation 37(2)(d)), so ask what a first loan can be and what moves a customer to a larger one. A small loan repaid on schedule shows on your bureau file, so it counts with the next lender as well as this one.

Keep every receipt or mobile money confirmation, and check each payment shows against your loan number. A Tier 2 lender must credit your account "on the date payment was made" (Regulation 42(1) of GN 679), and reading your repayment schedule shows how to trace a payment through.

If your loan is from a Tier 2 lender and you can clear it early, GN 679 lets you do so with no notice, no penalty and no interest for the months you no longer borrow (Regulation 42(3) and (4)). The 2024 fee guidelines allow a fee for settling early only when your agreement spells it out (guideline 15); fees a lender cannot charge explains how that fee sits with Regulation 42(3).

Stay reachable: keep the same number, give an address someone can find, and tell the lender if you move. If an installment will be late, say so before the due date. Regulation 43 leaves restructuring to a Tier 2 lender, which "may" change the installment or the period within its own lending policy. The missed-payment guide covers what a lender may do once a payment is late.

If you are turned down

Regulation 40 of GN 679 is short: "Where a loan application is denied, a microfinance service provider shall within seven days communicate to the applicant the reasons for denial." It binds Tier 2 lenders, and it does not say the reasons must be in writing.

1. If the reasons have not reached you, ask for them and note who you asked and when. The lender has seven days from the refusal to give them. Asking by SMS, email or letter gives you a record.
2. If the reason is your credit history, get your free bureau report and look for mistakes in it before you try another lender.
3. If the reason is capacity, come back with a smaller amount, a longer run of records or a guarantor, rather than the same application at another lender the next day.
4. If no reasons come, complain to the lender's complaints desk or complaints officer. Regulation 54 makes every Tier 2 lender have one, with the contacts posted at its main office and branches, and the Bank's 2025 complaints guidelines say handling it must cost you nothing (clause 12).
5. No reply within the set time, or a reply you reject: appeal to Sema na BoT, the Bank's complaints service, online, in the app, on the toll-free line or by chatbot (clause 25). Your rights as a borrower lists the deadlines each side works to.

Before you try another lender

Check that the next lender is licensed. Kopesha's directory of lenders is built from the Bank's Tier 2 register dated 14 August 2026, and checking a lender is licensed shows how to confirm a name against the register itself.

Treat an offer of guaranteed approval for a fee as a warning sign. Under Regulation 39(1) the lender decides by its own policy and its view of your capacity, so no outsider can promise a yes; loan scams lists the other signs of a fraud.

If you try a loan app next, an approved one may not dig through your contacts, messages, call logs or photos, either to confirm your identity or to chase you for a late payment. Paragraph 5.1(b) of the Bank's 2024 note on digital lenders bans using them "as a way of e-KYC or delinquency management". Is this loan app approved? shows how to check an app against the Bank's lists.

Sources

• Microfinance (Non-Deposit Taking Microfinance Service Providers) Regulations, 2019, GN 679: regulations 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 54 and 55 — Bank of Tanzania
• Bank of Tanzania (Financial Consumer Protection) Regulations, 2019, GN 884: regulation 33 — Bank of Tanzania
• Bank of Tanzania (Financial Consumer Protection) (Amendment) Regulations, 2025, GN 298: new regulation 2 and amendment to regulation 33 — Bank of Tanzania
• Bank of Tanzania (Credit Reference Bureau) Regulations, 2012, GN 416: regulations 19, 24 and 28 — Bank of Tanzania
• Microfinance Act, 2018 (Act No. 10 of 2018): section 2 — Bank of Tanzania
• Microfinance (Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies) Regulations, 2019, GN 675: regulation 83 — Bank of Tanzania
• Microfinance (Community Microfinance Groups) Regulations, 2019, GN 678: regulation 27 — Bank of Tanzania
• Guidelines on Fees and Charges for Microfinance Service Providers, 2024: guidelines 4, 13(6) and 15 — Bank of Tanzania
• Guidelines for Handling Financial Consumer Complaints, 2025: clauses 12 and 25 — Bank of Tanzania
• Guidance Note on Digital Lenders under Tier 2 Microfinance Service Providers, 2024: paragraph 5.1(b) — Bank of Tanzania
• Sema na BoT (complaints) — Bank of Tanzania
• Frequently asked questions — Creditinfo Tanzania
• Only two credit reference bureaux licensed in Tanzania, 28 May 2024 — Daily News
• Usajili wa majina ya biashara (registration of business names) — BRELA
• How to register and get an account, and update TIN information, in the Taxpayers Portal — Tanzania Revenue Authority

What changed

• 29 September 2026: Rewritten and moved to the lenders category. Corrected the early-repayment warning: the old text said a few lenders charge a penalty for early settlement and called it unusual. Under Regulation 42(3) of GN 679 a Tier 2 borrower may repay early, in whole or in part, without notice and without penalty, and under 42(4), once the loan is repaid in full, owes no interest for the remaining period; the 2024 fees guidelines (guideline 15) allow an early settlement fee only if the agreement clearly states it. Removed four unsourced claims: that a shop keeping records has something almost no competitor has, that most institutions lend in steps (replaced by Regulation 37(2)(d), under which each lender's policy sets its own loan limits), that almost every institution restructures for a borrower who warns it (Regulation 43 makes restructuring the lender's choice, subject to its lending policy), and that most people who start keeping records find their margin is different. Quoted Regulation 40 exactly: it requires the reasons for a refusal within seven days but does not say they must be written. Added the creditworthiness test in Regulation 33 of the consumer protection regulations; the application form contents (Regulation 38); monthly credit bureau reporting by Tier 2 lenders and SACCOS (GN 679 reg 35, GN 675 reg 83), and community groups' duty to keep members' credit information for sharing through a bureau (GN 678 reg 27); the free credit report every twelve months (bureau regulation 28); the two licensed bureaus as reported to Parliament in May 2024; the documents lenders may ask for, with BRELA and TRA requirements; a worked table on sizing a loan; and the complaint route through Sema na BoT.
• 24 September 2026: Added references to the Bank of Tanzania's regulations and a list of sources.
• 19 September 2026: First published.

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