MTN MoMo fees: what a shop pays to get paid in 2026
The published MTN MoMo tariffs, the 0.5% withdrawal duty and the MoMoPay merchant charge, worked through for a Ugandan shop that takes mobile money daily.
Most shops in Uganda now take mobile money, but very few owners can say what a MoMo sale actually costs them. The answer depends on how the money arrives (a personal number or a merchant code) and on what you do with it afterwards. This post works through MTN's published tariffs so you can price the cost of being paid, instead of guessing.
Three different charges, not one
When a customer pays you by MoMo, up to three separate costs can appear:
- The sending fee. MTN's tariff page lists what a customer pays to send money. Sending UGX 5,001 to UGX 15,000 costs UGX 500; UGX 60,001 to UGX 125,000 costs UGX 1,000; and amounts from UGX 1,000,001 to UGX 5,000,000 cost UGX 2,000 per transfer.
- The merchant charge, if you use MoMoPay. MTN's MoMoPay help page states that the merchant is charged 1% of the value of the payment as an Individual Merchant and 2% as a Business Merchant. MTN's My Business Wallet page, which covers the nano merchant code registered by USSD, says the merchant receives the full amount paid by the customer and is not charged on incoming payments. Read the terms for the product you actually sign up for, because the two pages describe different merchant tiers.
- The withdrawal duty when you cash out. Uganda charges excise duty of 0.5% on the value of a mobile money withdrawal, charged on the amount withdrawn rather than on the fee. The telecom's own fees also carry 15% excise duty. The MTN tariff table shows this as a "withdrawal tax" column: between UGX 1,250 and UGX 2,500 on a withdrawal of UGX 250,001 to UGX 500,000, on top of the agent withdrawal fee of UGX 7,000 for that band.
Why cashing out is the expensive step
Put the pieces together for a hardware shop that collects UGX 2,000,000 in MoMo over a weekend and withdraws it at an agent on Monday. The agent fee for the UGX 1,000,001 to UGX 2,000,000 band is UGX 15,000, and the duty is between UGX 5,000 and UGX 10,000. Roughly UGX 20,000 to UGX 25,000 has left the business before the cash is counted, and that is before any merchant percentage.
Sending the same money to a bank account instead is listed at UGX 9,250 for that band, with no withdrawal duty, because the duty applies to cash withdrawals only. Paying a supplier straight from the wallet costs the sending fee alone. The cheapest MoMo shilling is one you never convert to notes.
The tax is staying at 0.5% for now
Earlier in 2026 the Ministry of Finance floated cutting the withdrawal duty to 0.25% and spreading it across agents, bank counters and ATMs, a change the mobile money operators had argued for. In April 2026 the Ministry confirmed that reducing the tax was not among the revenue measures for the 2026/27 financial year, so the 0.5% rate stands for the year ahead. Plan on it.
What this means for your prices
A shop that absorbs the merchant percentage and then cashes everything out is quietly giving away two to three percent of mobile money revenue. You have three honest options:
- Keep the money digital. Pay suppliers, rent and salaries from the wallet or by bank transfer and avoid the withdrawal duty entirely.
- Choose the right merchant product. Compare the nano merchant wallet, where incoming payments are free, with the MoMoPay tiers that charge a percentage but may suit a larger business. Ask MTN in writing what your account will be charged.
- Price the cost in. If you must cash out, know that a UGX 50,000 sale paid by MoMo and converted to cash is worth a little less than a UGX 50,000 sale paid in notes, and set margins accordingly rather than discounting MoMo sales further.
Record every fee as a fee
Whichever route you take, the fees and duty are business expenses. Do not let them disappear into "cash shortages". When the agent pays out UGX 1,975,000 on a UGX 2,000,000 withdrawal, book UGX 2,000,000 out of the mobile money account and UGX 25,000 into a bank and mobile money charges account. At year end you will see exactly what being paid cost you, and you can take that figure to MTN when you negotiate.
A simple monthly check
Once a month, take the MoMo statement for your merchant line and compare three numbers to your sales system: total received, total fees, total cashed out. If total received does not equal your mobile money sales for the month, something was paid to a personal number, keyed as cash, or never recorded. That gap is where money goes missing in small shops, and it is the easiest one to close.
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