OPINION- The Ugandan government began issuing digital number plates in January 2025. The plates are part of the Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS) project, which aims to improve road safety and security.
The ITMS project integrates digital number plates with other systems, such as CCTV, the motor vehicle registration system, and the e-tax system. The system includes integrity checks, such as access control listing, to ensure that transactions are auditable. The system can track and audit all activities in case of misuse.
We have spoken to Kagurusi Anthony a Kampala renowned car dealer and founder of Kags Motors located at Jambo – Kyambogo Uganda and this is what he had to say.
Digital number plates are advanced license plates that use technology to improve road safety and traffic management. The plates are equipped with artificial intelligence chips that make it possible to track in case of traffic violations and crime.
Several countries have used this technology before and Uganda has now adapted it. This will be handled under Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS) project and the cost of the number plate on the imported vehicles is 714,300/= which is paid by the dealer upon the payment of vehicle taxes at the entry points of Mombasa and Dar salaam.
Another category is for the vehicles that are imported and kept in the bonded warehouses to clear taxes later, with these, they will be assessed, pay taxes with URA and then the client will book for the number plate as it has always been done.
So for now, the cost of the number plate is still engraved under the initial cost of the vehicle unless otherwise. Customers have not to worry that they will purchase a vehicle of 35m and pay 700k for the number plate separately.
The enrollment of these digital number plates is ongoing, they have started with the cars getting out of the Bond and later they shall proceed to the vehicles on the road that already have old number plates.
To register an old vehicle, the vehicle should be in your names & this is the most challenging part of it, as most of car owners don’t have logbooks under their own names. Some are always reluctant to change; others always think that it’s not necessary while others don’t have proper documentation.
But at Kags Motors, we can help you transfer that vehicle at ease. Just talk to us today.

WHAT DO TRADERS SAY?
Traders under their umbrella body Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) has given government an ultimatum of one month to revisit the system of digital number plates or else they organize industrial action because they system is not working and full of bureaucracy.
Speaking to journalists today at KACITA head offices, the acting chairperson of KACITA Thadius Musoke Nagenda says many of their members dealing in Motor vehicle and Motorcycle business complain that the system is not operating well even the Motor vehicle and cycles stolen can’t be tracked which is worrying.
Musoke adds that even the bureaucracy is too much to acquire digital number plates, they are very expensive and are not sufficient to buyers of new motor vehicles and motorcycles.
Musoke therefore announced that they have given government only one month to revisit the system and sensitize the public about it before rolling it again to general public.
