MTN MoMo and Airtel Money Charges in Uganda 2026: What You Actually Pay

Send UGX 60,000 to another MTN number in Uganda and MTN charges you UGX 500. Withdraw that same UGX 60,000 from an MTN agent and you'll pay UGX 1,500 in agent fees plus a UGX 300 government levy — about UGX 1,800 gone in total, as of September 2026. On Airtel Money, sending UGX 60,000 costs UGX 1,000, and cashing it out costs UGX 2,200 plus the same levy. Every mobile money cash withdrawal in Uganda, on either network, carries a 0.5% government excise duty on top of the operator's own fee. Sending money, paying bills and transferring straight to a bank account don't attract that tax.

Quick comparison

How mobile money charges in Uganda actually work

Every time you move money on MTN MoMo or Airtel Money, up to three things can hit you:

1. The network's own fee — different for sending and for withdrawing, and it rises in tiers as the amount goes up.
2. Uganda's mobile money excise duty — a flat 0.5% government tax, but it applies only when you take cash out at an agent, ATM or bank counter. It doesn't apply to sending money, paying a bill, or moving money into a bank account.
3. Whatever an agent adds on their own — which they're not supposed to do (more on that below).

Both networks publish their fees in tiers based on the amount, not as a flat percentage, so the exact shilling you pay depends on which band your transaction falls into.

MTN MoMo charges in Uganda (2026)

These are MTN's own published tariffs, checked on MTN Uganda's mobile money tariff page in September 2026:

MTN also charges separately for sending straight to a bank account (from UGX 1,500 up to about UGX 11,300 on the largest band) and for paying utility bills like UMEME, NWSC, DStv and NSSF, which range from around UGX 190 to UGX 6,300 depending on the amount.

Airtel Money charges in Uganda (2026)

Airtel's own tariff page runs as an app in the browser and doesn't publish a plain fee table the way MTN's does, so the figures below come from two independent Uganda tariff trackers, MomoCalc and SenteGuide, whose numbers match each other to the shilling on every band:

The same 0.5% government levy from the MTN table applies to every one of these withdrawals too — it's a national excise duty, not something either network decides on its own. Zambia does it the other way round: its levy falls on transfers and withdrawals are levy-free, as our breakdown of Zambia's Airtel Money charges shows. If you're about to move a large, one-off amount, confirm the exact current tier through the Airtel Money app or by dialling the USSD menu, since aggregator sites can lag a real tariff change by a few weeks.

Which is cheaper, MTN MoMo or Airtel Money?

For cashing out, MTN is cheaper than Airtel on almost every amount under about UGX 1,000,000. At UGX 125,000, for example, MTN's agent fee is UGX 1,925 against Airtel's UGX 4,400 — more than double. Airtel only pulls ahead once you're withdrawing more than roughly a million shillings at a time: at UGX 5,000,000, Airtel's UGX 18,000 beats MTN's UGX 20,000. That gap matters if you're paying a hardware supplier a large lump sum — settling a delivery of cement and iron sheets for a project like building a 3-bedroom house can easily run into millions of shillings in one transfer. If you're running a small business and cash out often in small-to-medium amounts — say a boda boda operator or a shop owner like the one running the mobile money agent business itself — MTN MoMo works out cheaper over a month of transactions. That agent business itself needs its own URA TIN — free to get online — before providers will approve the application.

The 0.5% mobile money withdrawal tax, explained

Uganda first taxed mobile money transactions in July 2018, at 1% on deposits, withdrawals and transfers alike. It triggered street protests in Kampala under the hashtag #ThisTaxMustGo, and government cut it within days to 0.5%, applied only to cash withdrawals — as PC Tech Magazine reported at the time.

That 0.5% rate is still what you pay in 2026. Telecoms and MPs pushed for it to be halved to 0.25% as part of the 2026/27 tax proposals, but the Ministry of Finance shelved that plan. Permanent Secretary Ramathan Ggoobi confirmed in April 2026 that the cut "is not part of the upcoming financial year's revenue measures" — The Observer reported. The same report notes that bank-to-wallet transfers face a separate, different excise treatment on the transfer fee itself — not the 0.5% cash-withdrawal duty. Tanzania runs a comparable levy on mobile money cash-outs, but structured as rising shilling bands rather than a flat percentage — see M-Pesa Tanzania's charges and levy bands for how that works out in practice. In Cameroon, MTN charges no transfer fee at all, and a 0.2% tax applies to both sends and withdrawals; see MTN MoMo charges in Cameroon.

Sending to a bank account and paying bills

Because the 0.5% duty only bites on cash withdrawals, moving money straight into a bank account, paying a bill, or buying airtime and bundles all skip it — you only pay the network's transfer fee. On MTN, sending to a bank runs from UGX 1,500 for smaller amounts up to about UGX 11,300 for transfers above UGX 2,000,000. If you're regularly moving a business's takings into a bank account rather than sitting on mobile money, that's the cheaper route — worth remembering if you're weighing where to put savings alongside options like the ones in our Uganda investment guide.

Mobile money transaction and balance limits in Uganda

Bank of Uganda regulates how much you can hold and move on mobile money, and both networks currently apply the same limits:

• Minimum transaction: UGX 500
• Maximum single transaction: UGX 5,000,000
• Maximum wallet balance: UGX 20,000,000

These limits have been in place since the central bank last raised them on 1 March 2022, when the wallet balance cap moved up from UGX 15,000,000 and the daily transfer allowance rose from UGX 7,000,000 to UGX 20,000,000, Dignited reported at the time. Because the per-transaction cap is UGX 5,000,000, moving the full daily allowance takes at least four separate transactions.

How to cut your mobile money costs

• Send to a bank account instead of cashing out when you can. It skips the 0.5% tax entirely and, for larger amounts, often costs less than the agent withdrawal fee — useful if you're running something like a small bakery business and taking mobile money payments from customers all day.
• Withdraw less often, in bigger amounts. The fee shrinks as a share of what you're moving — MTN's UGX 330 fee on a UGX 2,500 withdrawal is over 13% of the cash; on a UGX 5,000,000 withdrawal, the UGX 20,000 fee is 0.4%.
• Check the live tariff before a big one-off transaction — dial MTN's or Airtel's USSD menu rather than trusting an old screenshot, since both networks revise tiers from time to time.
• Compare networks for the amount you're actually moving, not out of habit — as shown above, the cheaper network flips depending on how much you're withdrawing.
• If your salary lands straight into MTN MoMo or Airtel Money, the PAYE and NSSF deductions happened before it arrived, not after — see our breakdown of Uganda's PAYE tax bands and NSSF deductions to check your employer took off the right amount.
• If the money is coming from abroad, skip the extra step: apps like WorldRemit pay out straight into MTN MoMo or Airtel Money, which usually beats a relative wiring cash through a bank or Western Union — see our comparison of the cheapest ways to send money to Africa from the UK or US.

What to watch out for

• Agents charging above the published tariff. Both networks' rates are fixed; an agent adding an extra "service charge" on top isn't following MTN's or Airtel's rules. If one kiosk quotes more, try another.
• No SMS, no trust. Always wait for the confirmation SMS on your own phone before handing over cash or walking away — don't rely on an agent's word or a screen you're shown.
• Reversal scams. Someone claiming they sent you money "by mistake" and pressuring you to send it straight back, or to click a link to "cancel" a transaction, is a common Kampala street scam. Genuine reversals go through your network or bank, never through a stranger's instructions.
• Double-check the number before you send. Network fees aren't refunded if you send to the wrong person, mobile money or bank.

Frequently asked questions

How much does MTN MoMo charge to withdraw UGX 100,000 in Uganda?

MTN's agent withdrawal fee for that amount is UGX 1,925, and the 0.5% government tax adds another UGX 500, so you'll pay about UGX 2,425 in total to cash out UGX 100,000, as of September 2026.

Is Airtel Money's 0.5% withdrawal tax different from MTN's?

No. The 0.5% excise duty is a national tax on mobile money cash withdrawals set by the Uganda government, not a fee either network sets itself, so it's identical whether you cash out on MTN MoMo or Airtel Money.

Does sending money to my bank account get taxed like a cash withdrawal?

No. The 0.5% duty applies only to physical cash withdrawals at an agent, ATM or bank counter. Sending money to a bank account, paying a bill, or transferring between mobile wallets are all exempt.

What's the biggest amount I can send or withdraw at once on mobile money in Uganda?

The maximum for a single transaction is UGX 5,000,000 on both MTN MoMo and Airtel Money, and your wallet can hold up to UGX 20,000,000 at any one time, under Bank of Uganda's current rules.

Will Uganda's mobile money tax drop to 0.25% in 2026/27?

No. The Ministry of Finance considered halving the rate as part of the 2026/27 tax proposals but shelved the idea in April 2026, so the 0.5% withdrawal tax continues unchanged.

Which is cheaper for withdrawing money, MTN MoMo or Airtel Money?

MTN MoMo is cheaper for almost every amount under about UGX 1,000,000. Airtel Money only becomes the cheaper option once you're withdrawing more than roughly a million shillings in one transaction.