Data-center law in Afghanistan

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-07

Afghanistan has no data-centre-specific siting, permitting, or utility statute; a data-centre project instead falls under the general environmental-review regime of the Environment Law (Official Gazette No. 912, 25 January 2007), which requires an environmental impact assessment and a National Environmental Protection Agency permit before any project likely to have a significant adverse effect on the environment may proceed, binding private and government proponents alike.

A reported Law on Electricity Energy Services Regulation (approved 1395 solar/2016) governs electricity-generation licensing, but the available copy of that Act does not yield reproducible text and its provisions are not described here. A reported Law on Private Investment has not been located in a readable primary-source copy and is not described here either.

Multiple independent outlets report that the Taliban administration promulgated a wholly new Criminal Procedure Code and Penal Principles of Taliban Courts in January 2026; no source addresses whether that change reaches the Environment Law, and no repeal of the Environment Law has been located, so it remains coded in effect on that basis.

01

Instruments on record

1 instrument on record, grouped by the family of approval each one governs.

Environmental review

What impact review must precede approval, and who leads it?

Environment Law, Chapter Three (Management of Activities Affecting the Environment)

In force

Environment Law (Official Gazette No. 912, 25 January 2007), arts. 13-22

Applies to both

Article 13(1) provides that no person may undertake an activity or implement a project, plan or policy that is likely to have a significant adverse effect on the environment unless the approval procedure in Article 16 has been complied with, and Article 13(2) separately bars a ministry or national authority from granting an authorisation for such an activity or project without that compliance.

Article 16(1) directs the National Environmental Protection Agency, acting on the advice of the EIA Board of Experts, to grant a permit for the project, plan, policy or activity once the environmental impact statement adequately addresses all environmental impacts and concerns, and Article 16(2) directs it to refuse the permit, with written reasons, where those impacts are not adequately addressed or mitigation is inadequate.

Article 78 provides that "This Act will come into operation on the date of signature by the President, after which it will be published in the Official Gazette," and no source states that signature date, so the effective date is coded null rather than derived from the Official Gazette No. 912 publication date carried on the Act's title page.

Source: Full text of law

Every entry cites the instrument it describes. None of it is legal advice: verify a citation before relying on it. Full sourcing: read the methodology. The rest of the record: all jurisdictions.