How to check a new build and its developer in Tashkent before you pay

In 2025 nearly three thousand people in Uzbekistan who had paid for apartments in unfinished buildings lost 668 billion soums (gazeta.uz, 23 Sep 2026) on troubled projects. Escrow, which is meant to protect that kind of money, is still not in force as of 27 September 2026. We found no single service for checking a developer, so the check has to be done piece by piece. It concerns a large share of the market: on 28 September 2026 UyScan lists 13,877 apartments in Tashkent new builds, 48% of all apartments for sale.

Is there one place to check a developer in Uzbekistan?

No. As of 27 September 2026 we found no service where you type in a company name and see its permit, land, construction progress and track record in one go. The digital Uy-joy platform (spot.uz, 23 Sep 2026), meant to bring developers, permits, progress and escrow accounts together, was still a plan in June 2026. We found no official list of "reliable" developers either, and UyScan does not rate them.

Buying an apartment in a building that is not finished yet is called shared construction here (dolevoe stroitelstvo in Russian, ulushli qurilish in Uzbek): you pay the developer, and the developer builds with your money. Last year showed why that needs checking. At the end of July 2025 the Tashkent authorities halted work on buildings that lacked permits and technical reports, 59 sites (podrobno.uz, 27 Sep 2026) in all, and some apartments in them had already been sold. So the check has four parts: the company, the permit and land, the contract, and the payment.

Which official sources show what?

There are three official sources, each with a narrow job. The Ministry of Justice gives license and permit data on my.gov.uz, the government's public services portal, free of charge (my.gov.uz, 27 Sep 2026). A notary will not certify a contract for a project that is missing from the Transparent Construction platform. And in July 2025 the list of suspended developers kept by the Tashkent hokimiyat, the city administration, held 51 companies and individuals (gazeta.uz, 27 Sep 2026).

Status as of 27 September 2026. Without logging in we could not check what the my.gov.uz service shows about a company other than your own, or whether it shows the permit for a specific building. We also could not confirm whether the Transparent Construction platform is open to buyers.

The hokimiyat list is trickier. On 27 September 2026 its page, shr-tashkent.uz/qurilish, redirected to an education portal, and we found no new address. Even when it worked, the list only showed that a company had been suspended, and the hokimiyat said plainly that it was not responsible for the obligations and deadlines of firms not on it. What is known about the halted projects is collected in a separate article.

How do you check the building permit and the land?

Ask the developer for copies of the building permit and the land documents: the 59 sites halted in July 2025 were stopped precisely for lack of permits. In these papers, compare three things: the company name and taxpayer number, the plot address, and the number of floors.

The name and the taxpayer number, called INN in Russian and STIR in Uzbek, must match everywhere: in the permit, the land documents, the contract and the bank details. If the permit was issued to one firm, the land is registered to another and you are asked to pay a third, stop and show the documents to a lawyer.

Check the number of floors against the project. Under rules in force from 1 January 2026 (spot.uz, 23 Sep 2026), adding floors after construction has started is banned, so an apartment on a floor that is not in the permit is a risk, first of all for the buyer. In July 2025 the Tashkent hokimiyat advised checking a project's legal status through its Telegram bot poytaxtuz_bot.

Who is selling the apartment, and who do you pay?

Only 11% (UyScan data as of 26 Sep 2026, listings: 13,829) of new-build listings so much as mention the developer, and 23% (UyScan data as of 26 Sep 2026, listings: 13,829) are posted by private individuals rather than companies. So you will almost always have to find out yourself who is actually selling and whose name will be on the contract.

The developer directly. The party to the contract is the same company named in the permit, and the money goes to its account.

An agency or a sales office. Ask who will sign the contract with you. It should be the developer company, and the money for the apartment should not go to the agent.

A private individual. If the apartment is already registered to them in the cadastre, the state property register, this is an ordinary purchase from an owner under a sale contract certified by a notary. 31% (UyScan data as of 26 Sep 2026, listings: 13,829) of new-build listings mention the cadastre, usually as a short "cadastre available", meaning the apartment is registered. If there is no cadastre entry, the person is selling their rights under a contract with the developer. Locally this is called pereustupka, an assignment of the contract, and few listings say so openly: 33 (UyScan data as of 26 Sep 2026, listings: 13,829). Ask the developer itself whether it knows about the assignment and how much has been paid under the contract.

Pay only by bank transfer: since 1 April 2026 (lex.uz, 23 Sep 2026) homes in Uzbekistan have had to be paid for through a bank. Send the money due under a developer contract to the company account named in that contract, not to a manager's card and not in cash. Otherwise you risk repeating what happened in Yunusabad: a buyer handed $70,000 (upl.uz, 23 Sep 2026) in cash to someone who said they worked for the developer, and the company later found no record of the payment.

The buyer's account, a special bank account used to pay for finished homes, does not apply to contracts investing in construction. When you buy in a building that is still going up, the money goes straight to the developer. How to pay and which confirmations to keep is covered in our article on paying a developer.

What must the contract say?

Under a decree of 27 January 2025, developers may raise money from off-plan buyers only under notarized contracts since 1 July 2025 (gazeta.uz, 27 Sep 2026). If you are offered a contract for an apartment in an unfinished building without a notary, that alone is a reason not to pay.

The notary certifies the contract but does not judge whether its terms suit you. Read them yourself:

• parties: a company with the same name and taxpayer number as in the building permit;
• the apartment: address, block, floor, number, design floor area, and what happens if the actual area turns out different;
• price: the full amount, the contract currency and, for an installment plan, the payment schedule;
• the completion date and what the developer pays for delays;
• finishing: what exactly a "shell" (korobka) or "pre-finish" (predchistovaya) handover includes;
• the company's bank account details for payment;
• termination: how soon and how much money is returned.

Verbal promises from a sales manager about area, finishing or dates are almost impossible to prove in a dispute, so you will have to rely on the text of the contract.

What will the shared-construction law change?

Nothing yet. The Legislative Chamber, the lower house of parliament, passed the bill in its first reading on 28 July 2026 (spot.uz, 27 Sep 2026), and as of 27 September 2026 we found no reports of a second reading. Under the draft, buyers' money would sit in an escrow account at a bank, and the developer would receive it only after the building is finished and accepted.

The draft also requires contracts to be notarized and registered, and project information to be made public. The Ministry of Justice warned on 27 July 2026 (spot.uz, 27 Sep 2026) that escrow could push housing prices up.

Today the money under a contract goes to the developer at once, and only the contract, the notary and your own checks before paying protect it. What will change once the law passes is covered in our article on shared construction and escrow.

Which warning signs show up in listings?

The first sign is the price. A quarter of Tashkent new builds ask less than $1,244 per m², the median is $1,629, and another quarter ask more than $2,212. If the price per square meter in a listing is well below the lower quarter for its district, there is a reason, and you need to know it before you pay a deposit.

Asking prices in new builds, UyScan data as of 28 Sep 2026, listings: 13,877, 11 districts excluding Yangihayot.

There can be several reasons. The price field may show the first installment rather than the full price; how to tell is explained in "Price or down payment". The building may be at an early stage, with completion still far off. Or the seller is not the developer but someone who wants to get out of their contract quickly.

The other signs are easier to spot. Be wary if you are asked to pay today and sign the contract later, or to transfer money to a personal card. Be wary if the listing names neither the company nor the residential complex and the answer to "who is the developer?" is vague. The same goes for a building described as completed when the seller cannot show a cadastre entry.

New builds make up the largest share of listings in Yakkasaray: there, 67% of all apartments for sale are in new buildings. All the city's new builds are on the Tashkent new builds page, the comparison with resale on the new build or resale page, and short answers about buying and renting in our FAQ. The UyScan bot sends new listings that match your filter. UyScan is not an agency: we bring together apartment listings in Tashkent from the largest sites, we do not sell apartments and we do not rate developers.

How we counted. Prices are medians and quarters of asking prices, not of transactions: UyScan new-build listings as of 28 September 2026, without duplicates, 13,877 listings in 11 Tashkent districts excluding Yangihayot, with the market type taken from the listing itself. We searched listing texts for mentions of the developer, the cadastre and pereustupka using Russian and Uzbek word forms and checked a sample by hand; private individuals means listings not posted from business accounts. The legal part is based on reporting by gazeta.uz, spot.uz and podrobno.uz and the service page on my.gov.uz; check dates are in the Sources block. More in our methodology.