Every day across Uganda, small businesses open their doors, serve customers, and build loyal brands. Salons in Kampala, online shops running through WhatsApp and Instagram, entrepreneurs are investing time, money and reputation into names they believe they own. But many are discovering, often too late, that belief alone offers no protection.
That question sits at the heart of a new digital campaign by the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), which is urging business owners to rethink how secure their enterprises really are.
Dubbed “Ganyulwa Mu Business”, the campaign is part of URSB’s broader Kiri Easy mass formalization drive. Its message is blunt: if your business is not registered, the brand you are growing can be taken away, challenged or copied with little recourse.
Uganda’s informal sector remains vast. Many businesses operate successfully without registration, generating income and creating employment. Yet that informality comes with hidden risks. Without official documentation, business owners often struggle to open corporate bank accounts, participate in public procurement, access loans, or partner with larger companies. More critically, they may have no legal claim to the name customers associate with their work.
In case of a disputes, registration is often the first thing authorities ask for. Without it, entrepreneurs can find themselves locked out of premises, forced to rebrand, or sidelined when a registered entity lays claim to the same name.
URSB says this is a recurring problem.
“Many people are building real businesses, but without registration, ownership can be hard to prove,” Walid Kule, Assistant Commissioner, Registration Services “Whether it is a startup or a side hustle, once you start serving customers, you are building a brand. Registration is the only way to grow that brand with confidence.”
The campaign draws a clear distinction between two related but often confused concepts: business registration and brand protection.
Registration gives a business legal existence. Through URSB’s Online Business Registration System (OBRS), entrepreneurs can search for available names, reserve them, and register sole proprietorships or companies without visiting a physical office.
But registration alone does not stop others from using a similar name, logo, or slogan.
“If you’ve worked hard to build customer trust around a name, a trademark is how you protect that name,” Kule notes. “The process is online.”
A trademark legally secures brand elements such as logos, slogans, and product names, preventing competitors from imitating them. Applications are handled through the IP Online portal, another digital platform URSB is promoting under the campaign.
Legal experts say this distinction is critical. A business can be registered and still lose its brand if it fails to trademark key identifiers.
Within the first day of launch, the campaign generated thousands of views and a noticeable spike in inquiries from business owners seeking clarification on registration and trademarking processes. These mainly come from entrepreneurs who assumed registration automatically covered brand protection, an assumption that often proves costly.
According to the Bureau records, more than 535,000 previously informal businesses have been registered since the program began. URSB has supported this effort through registration clinics held in high-activity areas of Greater Kampala in all the five divisions, including Luzira, Kireka, and Banda, as well as regional commercial centers such as Mbale and Soroti.
For many participants, the appeal goes beyond compliance. Formal status allows businesses to bid for tenders, sign enforceable contracts, attract investors, and plan for long-term growth.
Registering a business in Uganda costs less that 90,000 Ugx, a figure URSB says is modest compared to the potential losses associated with disputes, forced rebranding, or missed opportunities. Trademark fees vary depending on the class of goods or services involved.
Business owners can complete the process online using URSB’s digital platforms:
For Business Registration (Name reservation or incorporation): obrs.ursb.go.ug
For Trademarks (Brand protection): iponline.ursb.go.ug
For Uganda’s growing class of entrepreneurs, the campaign’s warning is simple but urgent: if your business name matters to you, make sure the law recognizes it as yours.
