The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the operating procedures for bonded warehouses and electronic trading platforms for the retail sale of foreign goods.
What happened
On July 18, 2026, the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan adopted Resolution No. 388. The document defines the rules for creating bonded warehouses—special zones where foreign goods are stored under customs control until their retail sale to individuals via online platforms.
The resolution establishes strict requirements for market participants. To be included in the register of bonded warehouses, an operator must obtain a free warehouse license, conclude an agreement with an electronic trading platform, and ensure the integration of its accounting systems with customs databases. The minimum area of such a warehouse must be 15,000 square meters.
Infrastructure requirements are also imposed on electronic trading platforms. The platform operator must be a registered legal entity in Uzbekistan, use an online cash register, and have a logistics network to deliver goods throughout the country.
Oversight of the new system is divided between two agencies. Maintaining the register of bonded warehouses is entrusted to the Customs Committee, while the register of special electronic trading platforms will be controlled by NAPP.
Country and market
For Uzbekistan, this is the first systemic step toward localizing cross-border e-commerce. In April 2026, the country’s president ordered the development of mechanisms to attract large international marketplaces, and the current resolution forms the legal basis for this.
The emergence of bonded warehouses solves the main problem of cross-border trade: long logistics. Foreign sellers get the opportunity to import popular goods into Uzbekistan in large batches in advance. For the end buyer, the waiting time for a foreign parcel will be reduced from several weeks to a few days, since the goods are already physically located inside the country.
Why it matters
The document creates a legal gateway for integrating global e-commerce with the local economy. Customs clearance is postponed until the moment of actual retail payment for the goods by a specific buyer.
Such an architecture requires seamless data exchange between the seller, the warehouse, the payment gateway, and the state. For the local fintech market, this opens a niche for new B2B products: marketplaces and logisticians will need solutions for automatic customs billing, receipt fiscalization, and buyer identification.
What’s next
The market has received clear rules of the game, but launching the system will take time. The next stage will be the formation of a pool of the first operators capable of meeting the area and IT infrastructure requirements. Local logistics companies and payment services will have to build partnerships to cover the needs of international platforms in accepting payments and last-mile delivery.