eTIMS Registration Checklist for Kenya (2026)

The point of a checklist is to take you all the way from intending to register to actually issuing compliant invoices, without missing a step. eTIMS registration is not just creating an account; it is being set up to issue invoices that transmit and validate, with your products and customers configured correctly.

So a good checklist runs from the prerequisites, an active KRA PIN and iTax access, through onboarding and choosing your eTIMS option, to the practical setup, mapping your products to the right tax treatment and being ready to capture buyer PINs, and finally to issuing and verifying your first invoice. Working through it in order means nothing is left half-done. Order matters more than completeness here: anything depending on iTax comes first, because those are the items that take days rather than minutes.

A checklist is only as good as its order, and the order here is not arbitrary. Anything depending on iTax comes first, because iTax problems are the ones that take days rather than minutes to resolve. Anything depending on documents comes next. Only then does it make sense to start the registration itself, because an interrupted registration is not simply paused, it usually has to be begun again.

The item people leave off is verification after the fact. Registration finishing is not the same as invoicing working, and the gap between them is where businesses discover a problem a week later with real customers waiting. A test transaction the same day, checked through to a returned invoice number, converts an assumption into a fact.

A practical path for a Kenyan business.

1. 1

   Confirm KRA PIN and iTax access

   Check your KRA PIN is active and you can access iTax, the prerequisites for onboarding.

2. 2

   Gather documents and onboard

   Collect your business documents, then onboard onto eTIMS and choose the option that suits you.

3. 3

   Set up products and tax treatment

   Map your products and services to their correct standard, zero-rated or exempt treatment so invoices validate.

4. 4

   Issue and verify your first invoice

   Issue a test or first compliant invoice, confirm it carries the control number and QR code, and that it transmitted.

5. 5

   Do the iTax-dependent items first

   Active PIN, working login, current contact details. These are the items that can take days, so they cannot be discovered mid-registration.

6. 6

   Finish with a test sale you actually verify

   Issue a small test transaction and confirm it returns an invoice number and a scannable code. Registration completing and invoicing working are two different things.

Veira is built for Kenyan businesses. It issues compliant KRA eTIMS invoices automatically on every sale, applies the right tax treatment per item, captures the buyer KRA PIN, keeps your records reconciled and ready for filing, and reconciles M-Pesa and Pochi payments to each sale.

It runs on a free handheld terminal or the phone you already own, keeps working offline, and runs from KES 2,999 a month, terminal included on annual billing and a 30-day money-back guarantee. See how Veira works, or book a free demo.