December 2025: Mozambique’s wallets hit MT290bn in a month and close the year at MT2.47tn

December 31, 2025

Year-end transfers jumped 51% in a single month, just as the law taxing agent commissions was signed.

Mozambique’s electronic money institutions moved MT290.0bn in December 2025, the largest month of the year by MT70bn, and closed 2025 at MT2.47 trillion, 39% above the MT1.78 trillion of 2024. Person-to-person transfers supplied MT155.5bn of the December total, a 51% leap on November, according to Banco de Moçambique’s cumulative tables.

The month also ended with a policy signal. Law 12/2025 of 29 December set a 10% tax on the commissions earned by wallet agents, of whom the network now counts 446,604. Wallet traffic and the agents who carry it entered 2026 at their highest, and with a new cost line.

The December surge in numbers

Transfers MT155.5bn, deposits MT79.8bn, withdrawals MT50.9bn, service payments MT3.9bn.

Differencing the cumulative columns in the January 2026 summary, which carries data to December, against the edition ending in November gives the month. Transfers rose from MT102.9bn to MT155.5bn, deposits from MT66.7bn to MT79.8bn, withdrawals from MT40.8bn to MT50.9bn and service payments from MT3.5bn to MT3.9bn. December has one day more than November, but per day the total still ran 31% higher.

For the year, transfers reached MT1,204.6bn against MT777.1bn in 2024, up 55%. Service payments totalled MT39.4bn against MT37.1bn, so that channel has now passed its 2024 value even though its operation count is still not published. The central bank’s tables have carried the same operation counts since October, which means the year’s ticket size cannot yet be computed.

Why December moves money

Cash flows from city payrolls to home provinces, and wallets are the rails.

Year-end is when earnings travel. Salaries and bonuses land in urban accounts, and families send money to relatives in Gaza, Inhambane, Zambézia and Nampula for the holidays. A sender deposits cash with an agent or uses a bank transfer into a wallet, the wallet transfers value to the recipient’s number, and the recipient cashes out at a local agent whose float must be topped up. Our reading is that the 51% jump in transfers is that chain running at full speed.

The deposit side confirms it. December deposits exceeded withdrawals by MT28.9bn, against MT25.9bn in November, so agents again ended the month holding more cash than float. Agent numbers rose by 14,263 to 446,604, which is 41.8% above the 315,005 of end-2024, and subscribers by 404,017 to 25.47 million, up 24.5% on the year.

A tax and a question

The 10% agent tax is law; the VAT reading is still contested.

Law 12/2025, signed on 29 December, taxes agent commissions at 10%, and the government has 180 days to write the regulations, Correio da Manhã Canadá reported on 8 January. Counted from the date of the law, that window closes near the end of June 2026. Government spokesperson Inocêncio Impissa said many electronic money transactions were not taxed and that the state wanted every actor to contribute.

A separate question is unsettled. On 3 December, Club of Mozambique reported that the government had approved a draft law introducing VAT on electronic money transactions. Two days later Carta de Moçambique, reading the draft VAT code, concluded that wallet transfers, deposits and service payments stay exempt while digital goods and services become taxable. The two readings cannot both be right, and the final text will settle it.

The infrastructure side of the year-end

Card terminals fell 1,426 in December, to 32,236.

Point-of-sale terminals dropped from 33,662 to 32,236 in the month, while ATMs edged up from 1,373 to 1,383. Bank accounts stood at 6.46 million on the summary’s gender split, against 25.47 million wallet subscribers, a ratio of 3.9 to one. Wallets keep widening the gap.

Decisions follow. An agent or master-agent operator should model 2026 net commissions at 90 cents on every metical of gross before the regulations arrive, and decide which low-volume outlets stop paying. A merchant that prices online should write a tax-change clause into wallet contracts until the VAT text is final. And a business that sells to households should plan next December’s offers and stock around a month that carried 36% more wallet value than November.