eTIMS for Churches in Kenya: The Complete 2026 Guide

A church's core income, tithes, offerings and donations, is given freely and is not payment for a supply, so it is generally outside VAT and is not an eTIMS sale. This is the single most important distinction for a church: voluntary giving is not a transaction eTIMS is concerned with.

Many churches, however, also run commercial activities: a bookshop or cafe, hiring out the hall for weddings and conferences, running a guesthouse, or selling tickets to paid events. These are sales like any business makes, and they need compliant eTIMS invoices. Separating genuine donations from commercial income is what keeps a church on the right side of the rules.

Tax treatment for a church. Donations, tithes and offerings are not consideration for a supply and are generally outside the scope of VAT, so they are not recorded as eTIMS sales. Commercial activities, a bookshop, hall or facility hire, a guesthouse, catering or paid events, are taxable supplies and are generally standard-rated, so a church running them at scale may need to register for VAT and issue compliant eTIMS invoices for that income.

Because the line between genuine giving and commercial income, and the VAT registration position for a church's trading activities, can be nuanced, set commercial activities up correctly and confirm the church's specific position with KRA or a tax adviser.

Running a churche brings its own compliance demands. The specific ones that matter for eTIMS are:

- Donations and offerings are gifts, not sales, and are not eTIMS transactions

- Commercial activities (bookshop, hall hire, guesthouse, events) are taxable supplies needing compliant invoices

- The two streams must be kept clearly separate in the records

Get these right and eTIMS runs quietly in the background of your churche. Get them wrong and you face rejected invoices, disallowed expenses for your customers, and exposure during a KRA review.

Deadlines and penalties for churches: KRA has phased eTIMS in, and from 2026 the income-validation rules mean an expense not supported by a compliant invoice can be disallowed. For a churche that cuts both ways. Your own purchases need compliant supplier invoices to be deductible, and your customers need a compliant invoice from you to claim what they spend with you. Non-compliance can attract penalties under the Tax Procedures Act, disallowed input VAT, and lost business from customers who insist on a valid invoice.

There is no separate eTIMS deadline that singles out churches. The practical answer is that you should already be issuing compliant invoices, because the cost of not doing so, in penalties and lost deductible expenses, grows the longer you wait. Confirm the current deadlines and penalty amounts with KRA, as they change.

What a churche needs to be eTIMS-ready:

- An active KRA PIN and the correct tax registration for your turnover

- Every product or service mapped to its correct tax treatment

- A reliable way to capture the buyer KRA PIN for business customers

- A compliant system that issues invoices, works offline, and reconciles M-Pesa, so compliance happens as you trade

Record-keeping is the other half of the job. Beyond issuing invoices, a churche should keep its eTIMS records, and the supplier invoices behind its own purchases, organised and reconciled. KRA can review records going back several years, so the goal is a system where every sale and purchase is already captured and searchable rather than reconstructed from receipts in a drawer. That is the difference between a quick review and a stressful one.

A practical path for a churche in Kenya. Work through it in order.

1. 1

   Identify the church's commercial activities

   List anything the church sells or hires, bookshop, cafe, hall, guesthouse, paid events, since these, not offerings, are the eTIMS-relevant income.

2. 2

   Confirm the KRA PIN and VAT position

   Ensure the church entity has an active KRA PIN and confirm whether its commercial activities require VAT registration.

3. 3

   Keep giving and commercial income separate

   Record donations and offerings separately from commercial sales, so only the taxable commercial income goes through eTIMS invoicing.

4. 4

   Issue compliant invoices for commercial sales

   For bookshop sales, hall hire, guesthouse stays and paid events, issue compliant eTIMS invoices with the correct treatment.

5. 5

   Capture buyer PINs where needed

   When a company hires the hall or books the guesthouse, capture its KRA PIN so it can claim the cost.

6. 6

   Keep records reconciled

   Maintain reconciled records of the commercial side so any reporting and filing summarise real data.

7. 7

   Train whoever rings up a sale

   Compliance only holds if the people taking payment use the system every time. Show staff how to issue a compliant invoice, when to capture a buyer PIN, and how to handle refunds with a credit note, so no sale at your churche slips outside eTIMS.

8. 8

   Keep records reconciled, then file from real data

   Reconcile sales against M-Pesa, cash and bank as you go, so at filing time your return is a summary of records you already hold rather than a month-end reconstruction. This is where a churche saves the most time and avoids errors.

9. 9

   Confirm the current rules with KRA

   Rates, thresholds, exemptions and deadlines change. Before relying on a specific figure, confirm the current position for your churche at kra.go.ke or with your tax adviser, so your invoices stay correct as the rules move.

Veira is built for Kenyan businesses like churches. It issues a compliant KRA eTIMS invoice automatically on every sale, applies the right tax treatment per item, captures the buyer KRA PIN for business customers, and reconciles M-Pesa and Pochi payments to each sale. It runs on a free handheld terminal or the phone you already own, and keeps working offline, recording sales locally and transmitting to KRA when the connection returns.

For a churche, that means compliance happens as you trade, not as a separate evening of paperwork. Onboarding takes a weekend, with local support to help you switch from whatever you use now. See how Veira works for churches, or book a free demo. It runs from KES 2,999 a month, with a free terminal included and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Switching is low-risk. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee, no expensive hardware to buy, and the system runs on a phone you already own, so a churche can move from manual or non-compliant invoicing to fully compliant KRA records in a weekend. If you sell across more than one location or counter, Veira keeps every outlet on the same compliant system and the same reporting, so the whole churche reconciles as one.