Uzbekistan's 2026 Tax Reform: Why Businesses Need to Automate Accounting with 1C

Starting in 2026, businesses in Uzbekistan are operating under new rules for tax and labor accounting. Officially, the reform is described as a set of "clarifications" to the Tax and Labor Codes, but in practice it is a fundamental overhaul of how companies are required to keep records: more automatic cross-checks from tax authorities, less paperwork, and almost no room left for running accounting "by eye" in spreadsheets. For companies without a proper accounting system, 2026 is the point where putting off automation is no longer an option.

What actually changed in 2026

Changes to the Tax Code and related regulations touched several layers of accounting at once.

• Electronic invoices (e-invoices) are now firmly mandatory for VAT payers and companies on the general taxation regime — they are issued through the my.soliq.uz portal, and the State Tax Committee has moved to near-complete automatic verification of submitted invoices.
• The list of accredited electronic document exchange operators grew to several dozen entries by early 2026 — businesses now have real choice, but also greater responsibility for correctly configuring the integration with the operator they select.
• Tax authorities are shifting to automatic report generation for a number of taxes, including corporate property tax and land tax. The system cross-checks the data itself, and any discrepancy with a company's own records becomes grounds for a follow-up inquiry from inspectors.
• A number of benefits for free economic zone participants have been cancelled, including relief on water resource usage — this changes cost calculations and requires FEZ residents to revisit their accounting settings.
• The social tax rate has increased, while the requirement to digitize personnel and payroll records remains in place — including electronic employment contracts and digital HR document workflows.

Taken individually, each of these changes looks like routine housekeeping. Together, though, they add up to a clear trend: the government is gradually moving business oversight into an automatic mode and expects companies' accounting systems to talk to state services directly, without manual data re-entry.

Why manual bookkeeping no longer works

A few years ago it was still possible to keep part of the books in spreadsheets and assemble reporting figures by hand once a quarter, right before filing. With tax authorities now cross-checking data automatically, that approach has stopped saving time and started creating risk.

If a company issues e-invoices manually or with delays, and the figures in its accounting system don't match what the Tax Committee sees through the e-document operator, the mismatch is flagged automatically and turns into an inquiry from inspectors. A technical error used to cost an accountant a few quiet days to fix. Now the price of a delay isn't just a fine — it's reputational risk with counterparties, who are increasingly running the same automatic checks on their partners.

Payroll and HR records present a separate challenge. The digitization requirements for labor relations mean that HR and accounting need to operate in a single system rather than in separate spreadsheets and paper orders. Manually syncing this data between departments is almost guaranteed to produce errors that surface at the next audit.

How a standard 1C configuration covers the new requirements

Current releases of "1C:Accounting for Uzbekistan" and related solutions on the 1C:Enterprise platform are built around local legislation from the ground up and are updated in step with Tax Committee changes. That doesn't mean simply installing 1C is enough — but standard, out-of-the-box functionality already covers most of the new requirements without custom development.

Integration with my.soliq.uz and the e-document operator

Standard configurations already include a module for exchanging electronic invoices: the document is generated inside the accounting system, signed with a digital signature, and sent to the portal through the chosen operator without any duplicate data entry. That removes the main risk — a mismatch between what was actually shipped and what the tax authority sees.

Automatic calculation of taxes and contributions

VAT, personal income tax, social tax, and other mandatory payments are calculated inside the system based on actual transactions rather than tallied by hand before filing. When rates change — as happened with the social tax — updating the standard configuration pulls in the new parameters centrally, so an accountant doesn't have to manually rewrite formulas across dozens of documents.

Payroll and HR records in a single database

1C's payroll and HR modules run in the same database as accounting, which lines up neatly with the digitization requirement for labor relations: orders, contracts, and payroll calculations are linked to each other rather than existing as separate documents that have to be reconciled by hand.

Where to start if your books are still partly manual

Companies still running an outdated version of 1C, or handling part of their processes outside the system entirely, should work through a few steps before the next reporting deadline arrives.

• Audit the current configuration. Check whether the installed version supports e-invoice exchange through a current operator and meets the latest Tax Committee requirements — sometimes a routine release update is enough, and a full system replacement isn't needed.
• Review accounting policy settings. Tax rates, payroll calculation parameters, and benefits (especially for FEZ residents) need to be manually reviewed after a release update — automatic updates change reference data but don't always preserve previous settings without a check.
• Bring HR and accounting into one system. If HR still runs in a separate application or in spreadsheets, the risk of mismatches with accounting grows with every audit.
• Train staff on the new functionality. Even a perfectly configured system won't prevent errors if an accountant keeps duplicating operations manually out of old habit.
• Budget time for a test run. Before the first reporting date, run a full cycle — from issuing an e-invoice through to generating the report — on real transactions, so discrepancies surface before an inspector finds them.

For businesses with non-standard processes — complex logistics, multiple legal entities, specific production accounting — standard functionality may not be enough, and the question of targeted customization comes up. The key is not to overdo it: extend the configuration only where it genuinely saves time, not "just in case" — otherwise the customizations themselves become a source of problems at the next release update.

Bottom line

Uzbekistan's 2026 tax reform isn't a one-off rate adjustment — it's a systemic shift toward automatic government oversight: mandatory e-invoices through my.soliq.uz, automatic reconciliation of reporting, digitized HR records, and revised benefits for certain categories of business. Companies running an up-to-date version of 1C with properly configured integrations move through these changes with barely any extra effort — the system updates centrally and takes on most of the technical work. For those still relying on manual bookkeeping and scattered spreadsheets, 2026 is best treated not as a reason to panic but as a clear signal: audit the current system, update the configuration, and sync accounting and HR processes now, while there's still time to do it calmly rather than in the middle of a filing crunch.