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. Corporate bookings, conferences and agent business are all invoice trade with PINs, LPOs and settlement statements. Walk-in guests take receipts. Getting a conference invoice wrong stalls a large payment, not a small one.
An accommodation business charging per room night, usually with food, beverage and conference revenue alongside.
How stock behaves in this trade
Rooms are perishable inventory that cannot be stored, sitting alongside real food and beverage stock, so the business runs two entirely different inventory logics at once. The usual lines are room nights, restaurant and bar service, conference and event hire and tours and transfers.
What invoicing actually looks like here
Corporate bookings, conferences and agent business are all invoice trade with PINs, LPOs and settlement statements. Walk-in guests take receipts. Getting a conference invoice wrong stalls a large payment, not a small one.
What tends to go wrong
- Unsold room nights lost permanently
- Food and beverage cost drifting against covers
- Agent and OTA commission reconciliation
- Corporate accounts paying 30 to 60 days late
Customers here usually pay by m-pesa, card, bank transfer, travel agent and ota settlement and corporate credit accounts.
How customers pay in this trade
Payment in a hotel usually comes through m-pesa, card, bank transfer, travel agent and ota settlement and corporate credit accounts. 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
- catering levy
- tourism levy
- invoice contents
- customer pin
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 hotel need to issue a tax invoice for every sale?
Corporate bookings, conferences and agent business are all invoice trade with PINs, LPOs and settlement statements. Walk-in guests take receipts. Getting a conference invoice wrong stalls a large payment, not a small one.
What usually goes wrong with records in a hotel?
The recurring problems in this trade are unsold room nights lost permanently; food and beverage cost drifting against covers; agent and ota commission reconciliation; corporate accounts paying 30 to 60 days late. Each of them shows up in the records before it shows up in the bank balance.
How should a hotel keep stock records?
Rooms are perishable inventory that cannot be stored, sitting alongside real food and beverage stock, so the business runs two entirely different inventory logics at once. 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.
eTIMS channels for hotels
More for hotels
- Who must comply for hotels
- Registering for eTIMS for hotels
- Choosing an eTIMS channel for hotels
- Issuing an eTIMS invoice for hotels
- Credit and debit notes for hotels
- Expenses and deductibility for hotels
- Working offline for hotels
- Records and audit for hotels
- VAT registration for hotels
- Turnover Tax for hotels
- What eTIMS costs for hotels
- Stock and inventory control for hotels
- M-Pesa reconciliation for hotels
- Staff and shrinkage for hotels
- Choosing a POS system for hotels
- Pricing and margin for hotels
- Suppliers and purchase records for hotels
Related trades
Where hotels cluster
Hotels are a named sector in 18 of the towns covered here.
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