Can foreigners buy property in Zanzibar?
Yes. The instrument is a 99-year Unit Title leasehold, registered in the buyer's name through an ownership structure approved by the Zanzibar Investment Promotion Authority. ZIPA provides the legal framework under which foreign nationals hold titled property in the territory, and title held this way is registered, transferable, and bankable in the relevant jurisdictions.
Leasehold, not freehold
Seasons Residences is leasehold. That is stated plainly here because a certain amount of marketing in this market does not, and because buyers arriving from freehold jurisdictions tend to read leasehold as a diminished form of ownership.
A 99-year registered title with defined transfer rights is a durable, financeable asset. The term is longer than most mortgages and most holding periods.
What to establish before you commit
A title is only as sound as the structure holding it. Four questions establish that structure:
- who holds the underlying land, and on what terms
- what happens to the title if the developer's circumstances change
- whether the rental management arrangement is contractual or informal
- what the documented process is for selling to the next buyer
Each has a documented answer at Seasons Residences, and the documents are available before reservation rather than after.
Why the structure holds
The Pongwe site has been in the same hands for fifteen years, and those owners remain — still here, still part of the management.
What is around them is new. The operating team for the residences has been brought in for this, resident and hands-on in the way a managed rental programme requires.
A 99-year title depends on someone still being there to honour it.
The residences
Forty-seven titled beachfront residences at Pongwe, east coast Zanzibar. Studios from $118,000. Each residence is held on the structure described above and enters a professionally managed rental programme on completion. Occupancy from Q4 2028.
Register your interest and we will send the ownership structure summary and sample title documentation.
Register your interest