Tanzania & Zanzibar

One system that speaks to both TRA and ZRA.

Ask an international hotel system to handle a Zanzibar property and you will find one tax field and a shrug. But a hotel on the island answers to the Zanzibar Revenue Authority and to TRA — different levies, different filings, and a mainland property is different again. Host ships both regimes as presets, because we built it here.

See Medjay Host

Two regimes, shipped as presets.

Not a configuration project you pay a consultant for — you pick your island or the mainland during setup, and the charge lines are seeded, each tagged to the authority that collects it.

TRA

Mainland Tanzania

Tanzania Revenue Authority

  • VAT
  • Tourism Development Levy (TDL)
  • Skills Development Levy (SDL) — payroll
ZRA + TRA

Zanzibar

Zanzibar Revenue Authority, alongside TRA

  • VAT (ZRA)
  • Zanzibar Tourism Levy
  • Zanzibar Infrastructure Tax
  • ZHSF — Health Services Fund

Rates are dated in the system and shown as such — confirm them with your accountant, as you would with any software that quotes a rate. What Medjay guarantees is the structure: every levy posted to its own statutory liability account, so the figure you owe each authority is simply there at month end rather than something to be unpicked by hand from one blended total.

Your office in your pocket — and no VPN

Every Medjay app installs as a real app — on a phone and on a desktop, its own icon and its own window, and the whole system rather than a cut-down companion with three screens. An owner approves a rate, reads last night’s audit or checks today’s arrivals from anywhere.

And it is worth saying plainly, because it is the constraint that sinks most systems here: there is still no VPN, and the app comes from your own web address rather than a store. A hosted deployment is a web address. A property running its own instance is reached through a named private tunnel behind its own sign-in — a one-time code to an approved address, and a session that closes itself — which puts nothing on the device either.

Nothing of yours is kept on the handset: no folios, no guest records, no card details. Every screen is fetched live, and a session expires on its own or is ended centrally from the office, so a lost phone or a leaver is closed off in seconds rather than chased. Staff use the phone already in their hand.

Mobile money at the checkout

M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa and Airtel through ClickPesa, with Pesapal, DPO Pay, Flutterwave and Selcom for card and bank alongside them.

Each property connects its own merchant account — the money never passes through us. That is also why 0% commission on your direct bookings is a structural fact rather than an introductory offer.

Built inside a Zanzibar operation

Medjay did not start in a boardroom. It started as a CRM and website for Zamani Luxury Travel, a Zanzibar-based luxury operator, and ran their real bookings and real money for months before it was offered to anyone else.

Every feature in it earned its place by surviving a real week of trading on this coast. We now have boutique hotel deployments underway on the island too.

Read the Zamani case study →

Guests who don’t read English

The island’s guests arrive from Europe, the Gulf and the region. Guest content, confirmations and invoices are available in up to 3 languages alongside English as an add-on — with right-to-left languages set properly, in the PDFs as well as on screen, which is the part most systems get wrong or skip.

Pricing

From $49 a month, published

Billed yearly, whole team included, banded by rooms. 0% commission · $0 setup · free onboarding and import · free domain for life · pricing & strategy consultancy before every season. Our first ten clients keep the launch price for life.

See all plans

Tanzania questions.

Does it understand that Zanzibar and the mainland are taxed differently?

Yes — this is the reason the page exists. Zanzibar ships as its own preset covering ZRA VAT, the Zanzibar Tourism Levy, the Infrastructure Tax and the Health Services Fund, combined with TRA where TRA still applies. Mainland is a separate preset: VAT, the Tourism Development Levy and the payroll Skills Development Levy. Each levy is tagged to its authority and posted to its own statutory account, so what you owe ZRA and what you owe TRA never have to be unpicked from one blended figure.

Can guests pay by mobile money?

Yes. M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa and Airtel through ClickPesa, plus Pesapal, DPO Pay, Flutterwave and Selcom for card and bank. Payments run through your own merchant account — Medjay is never in the money path, and takes 0% commission on your own bookings.

Our connection is unreliable. Do we need a VPN?

No, and this matters more here than most places. The system installs as a real app on any phone or desktop, straight from your own web address — no app store and no VPN profile on the device. A hosted deployment is simply a web address; a property running its own instance is reached through a named private tunnel behind its own sign-in, which needs no configuration on the guest or staff device either.

Do you actually work with anyone in Tanzania?

Yes. Zamani Luxury Travel — a Zanzibar-based luxury travel operator — runs its CRM and website on Medjay, and the system was built inside their working operation before it was offered to anyone else. We also have boutique hotel deployments underway on the island.

Can we serve guests in Swahili?

Guest-facing content and documents come in up to 3 languages alongside English as an add-on — with right-to-left languages rendered properly, which matters for Middle Eastern guests on the coast.

What does it cost?

Published, from $49 a month for a property up to 15 rooms, billed yearly, whole team included. No commission, no setup fee, free onboarding and import, and a free domain for life.

Karibu Zanzibar

Running a property on the island?

Tell us your keys and how you sell them today — we’ll show you the system running live, with your own tax regime already in it.

Also serving Kenya and travel agencies across East Africa.