New proposal put forward to increase bus fares in Uzbekistan

A proposal has been put forward in Uzbekistan to bring public transport fares to an economically justified level. This was announced during a discussion held by the Institute of Fiscal Analysis under the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

According to the presented data, currently 65.1 percent of public transport expenses are covered by state subsidies. The volume of subsidies is increasing year by year: while in 2024 this figure amounted to 1 trillion soums, in 2025 it reached 1.2 trillion soums, and in 2026 it reached 1.385 trillion soums.

According to the Institute's calculations, financing gross contracts requires approximately 1.9 trillion soums annually. Of this amount, 1.3 trillion soums accounts for the public transport system in the capital, Tashkent.

Experts note that despite the growing amount of subsidies allocated by the state, the mechanism for assessing the efficiency of the transport system and the effectiveness of the allocated funds is not transparent enough.

In this regard, it was proposed to review routes with a low passenger volume, adjust tariffs to economically justified levels, further develop the public transport network in the regions, provide targeted support to privileged categories of the population, and make payments to carriers based on service quality indicators (KPI).

Recall that at the beginning of July this year, the institute also initiated the phased abolition of the 1 percent tax cashback system in Uzbekistan.

According to experts, this mechanism initially played an important role in shaping the culture of demanding fiscal receipts among the population. However, once this practice became widespread, the need for financial incentives is gradually diminishing.