Cardinal Toolworks

Country guide

Importing into Kenya

Kenya works from the East African Community Common External Tariff, and adds two levies that are charged on customs value rather than on duty. Where excise applies, it is charged before VAT, so the sequence — duty, levies, excise, VAT — is what decides your number.

Cost a Kenya shipment now

The order of calculation

  1. Customs value. Invoice value plus freight plus insurance, established under the WTO valuation rules the EAC applies. Declarations are filed through the national customs system before arrival.
  2. Import duty. Customs value multiplied by the EAC CET rate for the tariff line — commonly 0%, 10%, 25% or a higher band for sensitive goods. Some raw materials and capital goods attract relief.
  3. Import Declaration Fee (IDF). A percentage of customs value, commonly 2.5%, with a minimum charge. On small consignments the minimum, not the percentage, is what you pay.
  4. Railway Development Levy (RDL). A percentage of customs value, commonly 2%, on most imports.
  5. Excise duty, where it applies. Charged on specified goods — alcohol, tobacco, some sugars, plastics and certain electronics — either as a rate per unit or as a percentage. It enters the base before VAT.
  6. VAT at 16%. Charged on customs value plus duty plus IDF, RDL and any excise. Confirm the base composition for your line; it is not simply the invoice value.
  7. Port, clearing and inland costs. Mombasa terminal handling, shipping line charges, agent fees, storage, and rail or road haulage to Nairobi and beyond.

Where importers get caught

  • Forgetting that IDF and RDL are charged on value, so they scale with freight as well as goods.
  • Missing the IDF minimum on a small air shipment.
  • Assuming a product is not excisable without checking the current schedule.
  • Costing Mombasa-to-Nairobi haulage as an afterthought rather than as part of landed cost.

An illustrative worked example

An importer brings in a 20-foot container of hardware. Goods value US$30,000, freight US$2,600, insurance US$300. Customs value is US$32,900.

At a 25% duty rate, duty is US$8,225. IDF at 2.5% adds US$822.50 and RDL at 2% adds US$658. No excise applies.

VAT at 16% on US$42,605.50 is US$6,816.88. Terminal, agent, storage and haulage to Nairobi of US$2,800 bring the landed total to about US$51,822 — about 73% above the supplier invoice, largely because the duty band is high.

The figures above are illustrative and use round duty bands to show the method. They are not a quotation and not a customer result.

Verify before you commit

Cardinal Toolworks does not publish live tariff rates, and no honest tool should. Rates, levies, exemptions and minimum charges change, and origin changes them again. Confirm your tariff line and the current rates with Kenya Revenue Authority or your licensed clearing agent, record the source and the date, and enter those figures into the calculator. TrueCost keeps that verification record on the report.

The method itself is the same everywhere: how to calculate landed cost, what belongs in a VAT or GST calculation base, and how an HS code decides a duty rate.

Cost a shipment free