Location guide · Kenya
Location guides for 2 cities in Kenya, from Nairobi and Mombasa. Flip Retail builds custom ERP, AI agents, web applications and SaaS for businesses in Kenya from Jaipur, India, and delivers remotely.
01 — Compliance
Tax, e-invoicing, data-protection and AI rules that shape an ERP, billing system or AI agent in Kenya. Last reviewed October 2026.
| Indirect tax | VAT, standard rate 16%VAT is 16% (8% on fuel) with a KES 5 million registration threshold, and since the Finance Act 2025 only eTIMS/TIMS electronic tax invoices count as valid tax invoices for VAT input claims. The Finance Act 2026 (mostly effective 1 July 2026) made payment-processing and digital-payment platform fees standard-rated and moved some items from zero-rated to standard-rated. |
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| E-invoicing | Mandatory · KRA eTIMS (Electronic Tax Invoice Management System)Every person carrying on business, VAT-registered or not, must issue invoices through KRA's eTIMS (or TIMS), and expenses not supported by eTIMS invoices have been non-deductible for income tax since 1 January 2024, with KRA matching returns against eTIMS, withholding and customs data from 2026. ERPs integrate system-to-system through OSCU (online) or VSCU (bulk/intermittent) after KRA certification or via certified third-party integrators. |
| Data protection | Data Protection Act, 2019In force and enforced by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC): controllers and processors must register unless turnover is under KES 5 million and staff under 10 (listed sectors such as health, education, finance, telecoms and direct marketing must register regardless), and cross-border transfers need appropriate safeguards, adequacy, necessity or consent. |
| AI rules | No AI-specific statute yet: the National AI Strategy 2025-2030 (March 2025) is policy only, and the Senate's Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026, which proposes risk tiers, registration of AI systems and labelling of AI-generated content, was still pending as of mid-2026. |
| Systems we migrate from or connect to | QuickBooks, Sage (Sage 50 / Sage 300 / Sage Evolution), Xero, Zoho Books, Odoo, SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralMasters, ledgers, stock and open balances move across and are reconciled before cutover. |
| Payment rails for web apps and SaaS | M-Pesa (Safaricom Daraja API), Airtel Money, Pesapal, Flutterwave, Paystack, Cellulant (Tingg) |
| Also worth knowing | Withholding VAT agents appointed by KRA and withholding income tax both affect AP/AR reconciliation. Non-resident digital suppliers must register for VAT with no threshold, and they pay a 3% Significant Economic Presence tax, which replaced the 1.5% DST from 27 December 2024 and was widened by the Finance Act 2025. |
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change, so we confirm current requirements during discovery; your tax adviser should confirm anything that affects filings.
Sources consulted:
03 — Industries
The industries that come up most across the cities we cover in Kenya.
04 — Services
ERP built around how your business actually trades, not the other way round.
Learn moreProduction AI built on your own data: knowledge assistants, document processing, forecasting and LLM features inside the tools your team already uses.
Learn moreCustom AI agents that do real work inside your business: qualify leads on WhatsApp, read and key documents, take orders, chase payments and update your ERP or CRM, with a person approving anything that matters.
Learn moreCustomer portals, internal tools, dashboards, marketplaces and workflow apps, built with React and Next.js on solid back ends and APIs, and shipped in two-week increments you can use as they are built.
Learn moreFrom MVP to multi-tenant platform: we design, build and run SaaS products with subscription billing, tenant isolation, role-based access and AI features built in.
Learn moreIf it runs on data and touches revenue, we have probably built one before.
Start a conversation05 — FAQ
Yes. Flip Retail is based in Jaipur, India, and works with Kenya businesses remotely. We have no office in Kenya; discovery happens on video calls, you get working software every two weeks, and the engineers who write the code are on the calls.
Yes. Invoicing is built for Kenya's VAT (standard rate 16%). Every person carrying on business, VAT-registered or not, must issue invoices through KRA's eTIMS (or TIMS), and expenses not supported by eTIMS invoices have been non-deductible for income tax since 1 January 2024, with KRA matching returns against eTIMS, withholding and customs data from 2026. ERPs integrate system-to-system through OSCU (online) or VSCU (bulk/intermittent) after KRA certification or via certified third-party integrators. A custom ERP connects to KRA eTIMS through its official API or an accredited provider, and we confirm the current requirements in discovery.
In force and enforced by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC): controllers and processors must register unless turnover is under KES 5 million and staff under 10 (listed sectors such as health, education, finance, telecoms and direct marketing must register regardless), and cross-border transfers need appropriate safeguards, adequacy, necessity or consent. You choose where the system is hosted, access is role-based, and we work on test or masked data during development wherever possible.
Yes. Masters, ledgers, stock items and opening balances move across and are reconciled with your accountant before cutover, ideally at a year-end or quarter-end.
No AI-specific statute yet: the National AI Strategy 2025-2030 (March 2025) is policy only, and the Senate's Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026, which proposes risk tiers, registration of AI systems and labelling of AI-generated content, was still pending as of mid-2026. We design AI agents with logging, human oversight and clear disclosure from the start, which covers most current requirements.
Contact
Tell us about the process you want fixed in your Kenya business. We reply within one working day.