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Businesses undergoing insolvency proceedings in Uzbekistan will now have dedicated bank accounts to manage their funds, under a departmental regulation registered by the Ministry of Justice on 20 October 2026.
The new rules amend existing instructions on opening, maintaining and closing bank accounts. Once a rehabilitation, external management or liquidation procedure is initiated against a business, a special account must be opened at its bank to consolidate all funds. Debit operations on the entrepreneur’s primary and secondary accounts are suspended, and any money already held in those accounts — as well as any future incoming transfers — is redirected to the special account.
Creditor Claims Frozen, Payments Centralised
Pending payment documents attached to the primary and secondary accounts — including collection orders and freezing decisions issued by various organisations and state bodies — are to be returned unexecuted to the institutions that placed them. Withdrawals from the special account will only be permitted on the basis of a payment order from the client or a court-appointed administrator, giving insolvency managers direct control over the debtor’s cash flows and limiting the ability of individual creditors to extract funds outside the formal proceedings.
The Ministry of Justice described the measures as aimed at restoring the operations of entrepreneurs in severe financial difficulty or on the verge of bankruptcy.
Broader Changes to Banking Access
The same regulatory document introduces two additional changes to banking services. Citizens may now obtain information about all of their bank accounts from any bank, rather than being restricted to the institution where their primary account is held. Banks are also now permitted to open accounts using a biometric international passport, a document previously not accepted for that purpose.
The regulation sits within a wider institutional overhaul of insolvency administration. A presidential decree of 6 May 2026 provided for the creation of an Insolvency Affairs Agency under the Ministry of Justice, along with regional branches. The agency is tasked with regulating and supervising the insolvency sector and with fully digitalising insolvency processes.