Overview:
URSB has moved business registration onto the phone. With the new URSB Connect app, owners can onboard themselves, reserve a name, register and pay by mobile money.
KAMPALA – Ugandans can now set up an account, register a business and pay for it entirely on their phones, after the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) launched a mobile app that lets owners onboard themselves.
The app, URSB Connect, gives business owners a self-service route into registration without hiring agents or visiting the Bureau’s offices. Users sign up on the app, check whether a name is available, reserve it, register the business and pay the fee by mobile money.
URSB’s Acting Registrar General, Mustapher Ntale, said the app placed the Bureau’s services “in the palm” of clients’ hands.
“Our ambition is to make accessing URSB services easier, faster and more convenient for every Ugandan,” Ntale said at the launch in Kampala on Thursday.
The move takes URSB’s registration services onto the device most Ugandans already use to pay bills, buy airtime and send money.
Under the process, an owner downloads the app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store and creates an account. They then search for a name, reserve it, fill in their details and generate a payment registration number (PRN), which can be paid through mobile money or at a bank.
The fees are unchanged. According to the Ministry of Finance’s Doing Business portal, registering a business name costs Shs35,000, and registering a company with share capital of up to Shs5m costs Shs105,000. Complete applications are usually processed within one to three working days.
Self-onboarding could reduce the role of registration agents, who many small business owners pay to handle paperwork and queue on their behalf, often for more than the official fee.
Beyond registration, the app gives access to business searches, annual returns, trademark services, information on insolvency and receivership, and the Security Interest in Movable Property Office (SIMPO), the registry used to record loans secured against assets such as vehicles and equipment.
URSB said the app would work alongside the eRegistry, its online platform that replaced the Online Business Registration System (OBRS), as part of a shift away from paper-based processes that required long queues and repeated office visits.