The short answer
Whether a business in this trade has to issue eTIMS invoices follows from the rules that apply to any Kenyan business, not from the trade itself; the rules on who must comply are what decide it. What the trade changes is the shape of the job. Pure invoice trade. Corporate and government clients deduct withholding tax at source and require invoices that match their procurement records, so the invoice is the whole commercial instrument.
A professional firm selling advice and expertise, billing by project, retainer or hour.
How stock behaves in this trade
No inventory at all; the commercial control problem is unbilled time and projects that overrun the fee agreed. The usual lines are advisory projects, retainer arrangements, training and workshops and reports and deliverables.
What invoicing actually looks like here
Pure invoice trade. Corporate and government clients deduct withholding tax at source and require invoices that match their procurement records, so the invoice is the whole commercial instrument.
What tends to go wrong
- Work delivered but never invoiced
- Scope creep beyond the agreed fee
- Withholding tax deducted by clients
- Long collection cycles on corporate clients
Customers here usually pay by bank transfer, m-pesa and cheque.
How customers pay in this trade
Payment in a consultancy usually comes through bank transfer, m-pesa and cheque. That mix decides how hard reconciliation is: every separate channel is a separate record that has to agree with the sales it paid for, and the trades that struggle most are the ones running three or four at once without anything joining them up.
Compliance angles that apply to this trade
- vat registration
- withholding tax
- invoice contents
- customer pin
- exported services
What the rules say
This page explains how a requirement generally works. It is not tax advice, and it cannot account for the specifics of any one business. For a position you intend to rely on, confirm with KRA directly or with a registered tax agent.
Tax rules in Kenya change with each Finance Act and with regulations made during the year. Before acting on any figure, deadline or threshold, check the current position on KRA's own website.
What we are not stating here. Some of the specific requirements relating to this topic have not yet been verified against their primary source by our reviewer, so they are withheld from this page rather than stated from memory. That means you will not find a threshold, rate, deadline or penalty figure below. For those, check KRA directly. Everything else on this page explains how the mechanism works and is not affected.
Common questions
Does a consultancy need to issue a tax invoice for every sale?
Pure invoice trade. Corporate and government clients deduct withholding tax at source and require invoices that match their procurement records, so the invoice is the whole commercial instrument.
What usually goes wrong with records in a consultancy?
The recurring problems in this trade are work delivered but never invoiced; scope creep beyond the agreed fee; withholding tax deducted by clients; long collection cycles on corporate clients. Each of them shows up in the records before it shows up in the bank balance.
How should a consultancy keep stock records?
No inventory at all; the commercial control problem is unbilled time and projects that overrun the fee agreed. Records that do not reflect that pattern will not tell you anything useful, whatever system produces them.
How do I know this information is current?
Tax rules in Kenya change with each Finance Act and with regulations made during the year. Before acting on any figure, deadline or threshold, check the current position on KRA's own website.
More for consultancies
- Who must comply for consultancies
- Registering for eTIMS for consultancies
- Choosing an eTIMS channel for consultancies
- Issuing an eTIMS invoice for consultancies
- Credit and debit notes for consultancies
- Expenses and deductibility for consultancies
- Working offline for consultancies
- Records and audit for consultancies
- VAT registration for consultancies
- Turnover Tax for consultancies
- What eTIMS costs for consultancies
- Stock and inventory control for consultancies
- M-Pesa reconciliation for consultancies
- Staff and shrinkage for consultancies
- Choosing a POS system for consultancies
- Pricing and margin for consultancies
- Suppliers and purchase records for consultancies
Related trades
Sources
- officialeTIMS (Electronic Tax Invoice Management System) — Kenya Revenue Authority, checked 2026-09-18
- officialValue Added Tax Act, 2013 (Act No. 35 of 2013) — National Council for Law Reporting (Kenya Law), checked 2026-09-18
- officialKenya Revenue Authority — Kenya Revenue Authority, checked 2026-09-18