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, NGO and government clients dominate the value and all require invoices matched to LPOs. Print jobs for individuals are receipt trade at the counter, so both modes run side by side.
A printing and branding business producing to order, from business cards to large-format signage.
How stock behaves in this trade
Paper, ink and substrates consumed per job with real wastage on setup, so job costing has to include spoilage or every quote is quietly wrong. The usual lines are business cards, flyers and brochures, large-format banners and signage, branded merchandise and document printing and binding.
What invoicing actually looks like here
Corporate, NGO and government clients dominate the value and all require invoices matched to LPOs. Print jobs for individuals are receipt trade at the counter, so both modes run side by side.
What tends to go wrong
- Job costing that ignores setup waste
- Reprints from client artwork errors
- Corporate credit and LPO chasing
- Machine downtime against committed deadlines
Customers here usually pay by m-pesa, cash, bank transfer and corporate credit accounts.
How customers pay in this trade
Payment in a printing business usually comes through m-pesa, cash, bank transfer 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
- invoice contents
- customer pin
- lpo matching
- withholding tax
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 printing business need to issue a tax invoice for every sale?
Corporate, NGO and government clients dominate the value and all require invoices matched to LPOs. Print jobs for individuals are receipt trade at the counter, so both modes run side by side.
What usually goes wrong with records in a printing business?
The recurring problems in this trade are job costing that ignores setup waste; reprints from client artwork errors; corporate credit and lpo chasing; machine downtime against committed deadlines. Each of them shows up in the records before it shows up in the bank balance.
How should a printing business keep stock records?
Paper, ink and substrates consumed per job with real wastage on setup, so job costing has to include spoilage or every quote is quietly wrong. 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 printing businesses
- Who must comply for printing businesses
- Registering for eTIMS for printing businesses
- Choosing an eTIMS channel for printing businesses
- Issuing an eTIMS invoice for printing businesses
- Credit and debit notes for printing businesses
- Expenses and deductibility for printing businesses
- Working offline for printing businesses
- Records and audit for printing businesses
- VAT registration for printing businesses
- Turnover Tax for printing businesses
- What eTIMS costs for printing businesses
- Stock and inventory control for printing businesses
- M-Pesa reconciliation for printing businesses
- Staff and shrinkage for printing businesses
- Choosing a POS system for printing businesses
- Pricing and margin for printing businesses
- Suppliers and purchase records for printing businesses
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