eTIMS for mitumba sellers in Kenya

Do you actually need eTIMS as a mitumba seller

If your annual turnover is below KES 5,000,000 you are not required to register for VAT, and you do not charge VAT. But eTIMS and VAT are not the same thing. From January 2026, KRA validates income and expenses across the economy, and a compliant invoice is how a sale is recorded. A mitumba business that wants to grow, take supplier credit, apply for a loan, or sell to anyone who needs to support the expense will need to issue compliant invoices.

In practice this means a non-VAT-registered mitumba seller registers on eTIMS and issues non-VAT invoices: the invoice records the sale and the amount, with no VAT line. It is far lighter than what a VAT-registered shop carries, but it is no longer something you can ignore if you are running a real business rather than a casual stall.

Recording stock that arrives by the bale

Mitumba stock arrives as bales, not as individually coded items, which makes stock tracking different from a normal retail shop. You buy a bale at a known cost, open it, and sell mixed items at varying prices over days or weeks. You cannot realistically barcode every second-hand item.

The workable approach is to track at the level you actually buy and sell: record the bale as a purchase at its cost, then record sales as they happen by category or price band rather than per unique SKU. This gives you a real margin per bale and a clean record of sales without pretending each item has a catalogue code it never had.

Selling in a market or by the roadside

Many mitumba sales happen in open markets, on roadside spreads, or at exhibitions, paid in cash or M-Pesa Buy Goods. The sale still needs recording, and the practical tool is a phone. A compliant setup on an Android phone lets you record each sale and issue an invoice from where you stand, without a counter or a printer.

The customer rarely asks for a printed invoice, so most of the time you record the sale and the system holds the invoice digitally; you only print or send one when a customer specifically needs it. The point is that the sale is recorded, not that every buyer walks away with paper.

Errors you will see, and trading offline

For a non-VAT trader the tax-rate errors that hit other shops mostly do not apply, because there is no VAT line. The errors you will see are simpler: an unrecorded sale, or a sale recorded without enough detail to reconcile against the bale it came from. The discipline is recording every sale, however small.

Markets have poor network, so offline operation matters. A compliant eTIMS setup on a phone keeps recording sales offline and transmits to KRA when the connection returns, so a dead network in the market never means a lost record. Sales made offline reach KRA in sequence once you reconnect.

What this means under the 2026 rules

The shift that affects mitumba sellers is the move from VAT-only invoicing to economy-wide income and expense validation under Legal Notice No. 64 of 2024, enforced from January 2026. Before, a non-VAT trader could reasonably say eTIMS did not apply. Now, a compliant invoice is the unit of record for income, and anyone who buys from you for resale or business use needs that invoice to support their own books.

For most mitumba sellers the practical risk is not a VAT audit but being unable to prove income when it matters: a loan application, a supplier offering credit, or a landlord assessing a bigger stall. A clean eTIMS record turns informal trading into provable turnover. Where penalties apply for not issuing required invoices, the maximum is up to KES 1,000,000 or 10 percent of the tax due, but for a small non-VAT trader the more relevant cost is the opportunity lost by having no records.

Setting up eTIMS as a mitumba seller in five steps

1. Check whether you are above the VAT threshold. Below KES 5,000,000 turnover you are not VAT-registered and issue non-VAT invoices. Above it you must register for VAT as well.
2. Register on eTIMS and set up on a phone. A non-VAT mitumba business can run eTIMS from an Android phone, recording sales and issuing invoices from the market without a counter.
3. Record bales as purchases. Enter each bale at its cost when it arrives, so you can see real margin per bale rather than guessing.
4. Record every sale, by category or price band. Track sales at the level you actually sell, not per unique item, so recording is fast enough to keep up in a busy market.
5. Let it sync when you reconnect. Sell offline when the market network is poor and let the phone transmit recorded sales to KRA when the connection returns.

How Veira handles this

Veira runs on an Android phone, so a mitumba seller can record sales and issue non-VAT eTIMS invoices from a market stall without a counter or printer. Bales are recorded as purchases so you see real margin, sales are recorded by category or price band to keep up with the pace of trade, and the phone holds and transmits records to KRA when the network returns.

Frequently asked questions