Coursera and Canva registered as VAT payers in Uzbekistan

Coursera, Inc., the U.S.-based provider of online courses, was added to the tax authority’s register on May 2, becoming the 69th foreign legal entity to register in the country. Earlier, on April 24, Australia’s Canva — a popular platform for graphic design and presentations — also joined the list of registered foreign taxpayers.

Since the beginning of this year, 11 foreign companies have registered for VAT in Uzbekistan — twice as many as during all of 2024. The list includes major global players such as Alibaba Cloud, eBay, OpenAI, and Bloomberg.

In contrast, the pace of registration slowed noticeably in 2024, with only six companies applying during the entire year. Among them was Etsy Ireland UC, the Irish subsidiary of the global e-commerce platform Etsy.

Other newly registered taxpayers this year include French payment solution provider Nexway, UK-based Contactpay Solution, AI-powered translation service DeepL, language course aggregator SaySomethingin.com, and UAE-registered Global Intellect Service.

According to official data, tax revenue from foreign big tech companies in the first quarter of 2025 reached 36.2 billion UZS — a 50% increase compared to the same period in 2024. The leading contributors were Apple, Meta, and Google, with OpenAI and the restricted-in-Uzbekistan platform TikTok rounding out the top five.