The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is stepping up its efforts to enforce rental income tax compliance, targeting more than one million property owners suspected of collecting rent without declaring the earnings.
In submissions to the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning on October 28, the authority revealed that it had identified the landlords using a digital system that compares property records with rental income declarations.
KRA plans to rely on the Electronic Rental Income Tax System (eRITS), introduced in April 2025, to identify landlords who are not meeting their tax obligations.
The platform is designed to support targeted recruitment of landlords into the tax system while strengthening oversight of Revenue Service Assistants, who help with field-based compliance activities and data collection.
The system is also designed to integrate with the eCitizen portal, allowing property owners’ information to be linked directly to KRA’s database.
Through the platform, the authority cross-checks property registration details against tenant records and declared rental earnings. Geolocation mapping is also being developed as part of the wider effort to improve tax collection.
KRA says these tools will help identify discrepancies between the actual value of rental properties and the income reported by their owners in tax returns.
The rental income tax framework covers resident landlords earning between Ksh288,000 and Ksh15 million annually, while those earning below Ksh288,000 are exempt from the tax, according to the authority’s guidance.
Landlords falling within the applicable income bracket are subject to a tax rate of 7.5 per cent of gross rental income. The rate, which took effect in January 2024, is treated as a final tax.
The latest move signals an increased reliance on digital records and data matching to bring more rental property owners into the tax system and improve compliance across the country.
