eTIMS is KRA's electronic tax invoice management system. Its reach goes well past VAT-registered businesses: any expense a business claims against income tax generally needs to be supported by an electronic tax invoice, which pushes suppliers of every size to onboard.
Who actually needs to onboard
If you sell goods or services to other businesses, your customers need eTIMS invoices to claim the cost. That commercial pressure, rather than the registration threshold alone, is what makes onboarding unavoidable for most SMEs.
- VAT-registered businesses — mandatory, with full invoice transmission
- Non-VAT businesses selling to companies, NGOs or government
- Landlords invoicing corporate tenants
- Professional service providers and consultants invoicing businesses
- Small traders below the threshold can use the simplified eTIMS options
Choosing the right eTIMS channel
KRA offers several routes: the online portal for low-volume invoicing, a mobile app for traders on the move, a lightweight client for desktop use, and a system-to-system integration for businesses with their own ERP or POS.
Choose on volume, not on prestige. A consultancy issuing twenty invoices a month is better served by the portal than by an integration project that adds cost and maintenance for no benefit.
What a compliant invoice must show
Every eTIMS invoice carries a control unit number, a QR code and the buyer's PIN where the buyer is a business. Missing the buyer PIN is the mistake we see most often, and it is the one that causes the expense to be disallowed on the buyer's side.
Keeping it sustainable
Invoice as you sell rather than in a month-end batch. Batching invites errors, credit-note corrections and mismatches between your books and the KRA ledger, all of which surface later during an audit.
Frequently asked questions
- Is eTIMS mandatory for businesses that are not VAT registered?
- Non-VAT businesses are still expected to issue electronic tax invoices so that their business customers can claim the expense. Simplified options exist for small traders.
- What happens if I claim an expense without an eTIMS invoice?
- KRA can disallow the expense at assessment, which raises your taxable profit and the tax due, plus penalties and interest.