Parliament’s current legislative season is expected to prioritise several key draft bills that seek to issue new legislation or to amend existing laws.
Following a cabinet reshuffle on 10 February, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli announced that the government has decided to refer a number of draft laws to the House of Representatives for discussion and voting in its first legislative season that began on 12 January.
Topping the legislative agenda is a draft law aimed to restrict mobile phone use for under-16s. In a speech on Police Day on 24 January, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi said the proposed law is necessary to protect children and young people from the dangers of artificial intelligence.
He indicated that countries like Australia and France have also enacted legislation that limits or prohibits Internet use at a certain age and that it is important for such legislation also to be passed in Egypt.
Parliament’s Communications Committee met on Tuesday to discuss the proposed law. Head of the committee Ahmed Badawi told Al-Ahram Weekly that hearings will continue until a comprehensive and balanced law that can protect children and young people from the dangers of technology and regulate the use of mobile phones and social media platforms and applications can be drafted.
Representatives from different ministries, relevant authorities, and experts and specialists will participate in the hearings, Badawi said, noting that “the government has confirmed it is preparing a draft law, and the House of Representatives is also preparing a draft. In the light of the hearings and the dialogue between the government and the House, we will be able to reach agreement on its articles.”
The House is also preparing to discuss a new government-drafted bill amending provisions of the Real Estate Tax Law 196/2008. The bill, approved by the Senate on 19 January, aims to simplify procedures related to filing tax declarations and paying dues and penalties for late payment, while supporting the digitisation of the property tax administration as part of a broader push towards digital governance.
Head of the Senate’s Financial and Economic Affairs Committee Ahmed Abu Hashima indicated that the bill aims to alleviate the bureaucratic burdens on citizens and not increase them, as some are claiming.
According to Abu Hashima, the new bill raises the residential tax exemption threshold from LE24,000 to LE100,000. “This amendment simply means that a citizen who owns an apartment with a market value of LE8 million will not pay a single pound in taxes, a significant improvement compared to the current law, which imposes taxes on units valued at over LE2 million,” Abu Hashima said.
He detailed the amounts due on high-end units to demonstrate the fairness of the new amendments. An apartment valued at LE10 million will see an annual tax of only LE2,600. An apartment valued at LE20 million will see an annual tax of LE15,200. Units valued at LE50 million will be taxed at LE53,000.
“These amendments aim to protect citizens on limited or middle incomes, while at the same time preserving the resources of the public treasury to ensure the provision of services,” Abu Hashima said.
Ahmed Al-Sediq, head of Egypt’s Real Estate Taxation Authority (RTA), said last week that if the new amendments to the 2008 law are passed, only around two million units out of an estimated 55 million nationwide will be subject to them.
He added that annual revenues from the amended tax on built residential properties are projected to reach approximately LE20 billion.
Amendments to the Competition Protection Law will also be on the legislative agenda. Head of the Competition Protection Authority (CPA) Mahmoud Momtaz told the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm that the government has introduced substantial amendments to the Competition Protection and Anti-Monopoly Practices Law.
“The amendments, already sent to the Senate and the House of Representatives, aim at regulating market performance and protecting consumers in accordance with international standards,” he said.
According to the draft, the amendments enhance the independence of the CPA as the regulatory body reporting directly to the president instead of the cabinet. The head of the CPA will be named by the president and approved by the House and will have a tenure of four years.
The CPA board will not include government representatives to ensure its independence.
Momtaz indicated that for the first time since its establishment, the CPA board will be granted the power to impose financial penalties on legal entities, with increased fines being possible without waiting for judicial rulings, accelerating the pace of protecting the market from harmful practices.
He added that the amendments also include a redefinition of the term “dominant position”, achieved when 50 per cent or more of the market has been taken over or when an individual is able to manipulate or make an effective impact on prices or supply.
The draft law also allows the criterion of “economic efficiency” to be used in order to draft agreements that might appear restrictive for competition but achieve clear technical and economic benefits for consumers.
It redefines the term “economic concentration” to include mergers, acquisitions, or any joint-venture businesses that perform economic activities in an independent and permanent way.
The amendments state that anyone failing to cooperate with the CPA by refusing to provide required statements or providing incorrect data may be fined up to one per cent of annual transactions or LE100 million.
The submission of draft laws to the Senate and the House of Representatives is not confined to the government as a large number of MPs have also decided to present legislative amendments.
MP Faridi Al-Biadi, affiliated with the opposition Egyptian Social Democratic Party, told the Weekly that he intends to submit a number of draft laws aimed at changing Egypt’s election system.
“After last year’s parliamentary elections, which saw a lot of irregularities, it has become important to change the election system, which is based on a mixture of the closed list system and the individual candidacy system,” Al-Biadi said, adding that the draft law he is suggesting “aims to adopt a proportional list system that allows political parties to gain seats according to the proportion of the votes they received in the election.”
He said he would also submit an amendment to the rent law to prevent landlords from expelling tenants after a transitional period of seven years for residential units and five years for commercial units.
Independent MP Mustafa Bakri said that he intends to submit a draft law aimed at shutting down websites that pose a threat to social and religious values and ban those that publish “conspiratorial content”.
Bakri said he hopes that the government will present the House with a new draft law that will promote the circulation of information in a clear and transparent way and that counters rumours and fake news that aims to destabilise the nation.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 February, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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