The Cabinet of Ministers approved operating rules for bonded warehouses and e-commerce platforms handling foreign retail goods.
What happened
Uzbekistan’s Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 388 on July 18, 2026. The document defines the rules for creating bonded warehouses—special zones where foreign goods are stored under customs control until they are sold at retail to individuals via online platforms.
The resolution sets strict requirements for market participants. To enter the bonded warehouse register, an operator must obtain a free warehouse license, sign an agreement with an e-commerce platform, and integrate its accounting systems with customs databases. The minimum area of such a warehouse must be 15,000 square meters.
E-commerce platforms also face infrastructure requirements. The platform operator must be a registered legal entity in Uzbekistan, use an online cash register, and have a logistics network to deliver goods across the country.
Oversight of the new system is split between two agencies. The Customs Committee will maintain the bonded warehouse register, while the National Agency of Perspective Projects (NAPP) will control the register of special e-commerce platforms.
Country and market
For Uzbekistan, this is the first systemic step toward localizing cross-border e-commerce. In April 2026, the president ordered the development of mechanisms to attract major international marketplaces, and the current resolution forms the legal basis for this.
Bonded warehouses solve the main problem of cross-border trade: slow logistics. Foreign sellers can now import popular goods into Uzbekistan in large batches in advance. For the end buyer, the wait time for a foreign parcel will drop from several weeks to a few days, as the goods are already physically inside the country.
Why it matters
The document creates a legal gateway to integrate global e-commerce with the local economy. Customs clearance is deferred until the actual retail payment by a specific buyer.
This architecture requires seamless data exchange between the seller, warehouse, payment gateway, and the state. For the local fintech market, this opens a niche for new B2B products: marketplaces and logistics providers will need solutions for automated customs billing, receipt fiscalization, and buyer identification.
What’s next
The market now has clear rules, but launching the system will take time. The next stage is forming a pool of initial operators capable of meeting the space and IT infrastructure requirements. Local logistics companies and payment services will need to build partnerships to cover international platforms’ needs for payment processing and last-mile delivery.