Document format and locale facts for Kenya

Why these defaults?

The country code comes from ISO 3166. Unicode CLDR supplies presentation-oriented locale, currency, paper, date, language, calendar, numbering, and direction metadata. Defaults reduce setup time; they do not decide what a valid document must contain.

Recorded official or regional-official language tags: sw, en.

Selected national claims reviewed

Document vocabulary and checks

Kenyan electronic tax-invoice particulars, KRA PIN vocabulary, five-year tax and VAT record-retention rules, and the general eTIMS onboarding, validation and transmission boundary are reviewed. Formnivo does not register or validate a PIN, onboard a taxpayer, generate KRA identifiers or QR data, integrate with or transmit to eTIMS, verify an invoice, or determine VAT/input-deduction eligibility. Buyer-initiated and reverse invoicing, non-resident and small-supplier exceptions, VAT registration status and industry-specific integrations remain conditional checks.

Evidence snapshot: 7 official sources · last reviewed 2026-07-19. This is scoped guidance, not a jurisdiction-wide compliance certification.

Tax labels: VAT. Business identifier labels: KRA PIN.

• Required when applicable: A valid Kenyan electronic tax invoice or receipt identifies the trader by PIN and name and includes issue date and time, description, unit cost, quantity, gross amount, tax amount, tax rate, unique invoice number, unique ETR identifier or serial number, and a digital-signature QR code. VAT tax invoices must be serially numbered and generated from eTIMS; buyer PIN rules depend on the claim and transaction context.Evidence KE_KRA_VALID_INVOICE_FEATURES, KE_KRA_VAT_INVOICE · reviewed 2026-07-19 · review by 2027-01-19 · automation advisory only
• Required when applicable: A KRA PIN identifies both individuals and artificial persons in their dealings with KRA. eTIMS invoices use the trader's PIN, while KRA's official services perform the actual PIN and invoice checks. Formnivo only records a user-entered PIN and does not verify it with KRA.Evidence KE_KRA_PIN, KE_KRA_VALID_INVOICE_FEATURES · reviewed 2026-07-19 · review by 2027-01-19 · automation advisory only
• Guidance: Tax documents generally must be retained for five years from the end of the reporting period to which they relate, subject to longer preservation for amended assessments or proceedings. VAT transaction records, including serial copies of issued tax invoices and credit/debit notes, are part of the record set.Evidence KE_KRA_TAX_PROCEDURES_ACT, KE_KRA_VAT_ACT · reviewed 2026-07-19 · review by 2027-01-19 · automation advisory only
• Guidance: All persons engaged in business are generally required to onboard eTIMS and issue electronic tax invoices, with buyer-initiated invoicing for specified small suppliers and other published exceptions or special cases. eTIMS validates invoice data, creates authority-linked identifiers and QR data, and transmits invoices to KRA. This local document does none of those things and is not a KRA eTIMS invoice.Evidence KE_KRA_ETIMS, KE_KRA_ETIMS_MANDATE · reviewed 2026-07-19 · review by 2027-01-19 · automation advisory only

Identifier format guidance: See the relevant authority.