How do people in Uzbekistan pay online?
Almost every online payment in Uzbekistan starts with a Humo or Uzcard card. The two domestic schemes carry salaries, pensions and peer-to-peer transfers, and the Central Bank counted more than 68.27 million bank cards in circulation on 1 January 2026, close to double the number three years earlier, for a population of 38.24 million. Since 2023 the two networks share ATM infrastructure, but they still run separate processing, which matters for routing and for payouts.
Shoppers rarely type card numbers on a website. They pay through wallet apps that sit on top of those cards: Payme and Click are the two best-known, with Paynet and the Uzum ecosystem also widely used. A typical checkout redirects to the wallet or sends a payment request, the customer confirms with an SMS code or in the app, and the card linked to the wallet is debited in UZS.
International cards are a minority. Visa and Mastercard are issued by local banks, mostly for travel and foreign online purchases, and UnionPay has a smaller footprint. A merchant that only accepts international cards will miss most domestic demand. The practical mix is a Humo and Uzcard card form, Payme and Click as wallet options, and international cards for the rest.
What rules shape online payments in Uzbekistan?
Foreign sellers of electronic services pay VAT. Uzbekistan’s standard VAT rate is 12%, and a foreign company that sells electronic services to individuals where the place of supply is Uzbekistan must register for VAT there. The tax base is the actual sales price of the services, including VAT, according to PwC’s tax summary for the country.
Data localisation was narrowed in 2026. Article 27-1 of the Law on Personal Data, added in 2021, required personal data of Uzbek citizens to be stored on equipment physically located in Uzbekistan, a rule the Central Bank said in 2024 stood in the way of Apple Pay and Google Pay. Amendments signed on 26 March 2026 limit mandatory local storage to biometric and genetic data and to subscriber data held by telecom companies; other personal data may be processed abroad if legal conditions are met. On 29 July 2026 the Cabinet of Ministers approved a list of 49 countries with an adequate level of data protection, to which certain categories of personal data can be transferred under a simplified procedure.
Online sales have their own law. The Law on Electronic Commerce, No. ZRU-792 of 29 September 2022, took effect on 31 December 2022 and covers how online contracts are concluded, payment and delivery conditions, the replacement of defective goods and the refund of money to buyers. Under the Law on Protection of Consumer Rights of 26 April 1996, a shopper can exchange unused non-food goods of proper quality within 10 days of purchase, and can return them for a refund if no suitable replacement is available.
Cash is being pushed out of larger payments. From 1 April 2026, payments for public services, utilities, alcohol and tobacco, high-value goods, real estate and vehicles are accepted only through bank cards or electronic payment systems, and the State Tax Committee planned to make a universal QR code mandatory for retail and service businesses by July 2026, Euronews reported.
How does Omno route payments in Uzbekistan?
Omno treats Uzbekistan as a card-scheme market with a wallet layer on top. You connect once and configure routing rules per method, scheme and customer group:
- Humo and Uzcard pay-ins are routed by scheme, so each card goes to a provider that processes that network, with cascading to the next provider in the rule if one is unavailable or rejects the request.
- Payme and Click are offered as wallet methods in the hosted checkout or through the Web SDK, so customers can confirm in the app they already use.
- Pay-outs to Humo and Uzcard cards follow PSP eligibility rules, so a marketplace seller payout only goes to providers that support card disbursements on that scheme.
- Webhooks report the final status of every transaction, which is the record your back office should trust for releasing orders.
Customer groups and customer verification levels let a marketplace keep first-time customers or newly onboarded sellers on conservative routes until checks are complete, and eligibility rules keep each line of business on providers that accept it.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for two domestic schemes, not one. Humo and Uzcard cards behave differently at the provider level, and a route that works well for one may not support the other, especially for payouts.
Plan for wallet confirmation. Payme and Click flows depend on SMS codes and app confirmations, so allow for abandoned requests and do not treat a redirect as a completed payment until the webhook arrives.
Plan for tax and data from day one. A foreign seller of electronic services to Uzbek consumers needs a VAT registration and 12% VAT in its prices, and biometric data collected for customer checks has to stay in Uzbekistan even after the 2026 reform.
Plan for UZS reconciliation. Settlement timing and fees differ between card processors and wallets, and the routing-decision log in Omno shows which provider handled each payment so finance teams can match settlements by route as volumes grow.