Kenya Taxes Imported Cars on a Schedule, Not Your Invoice — and the Schedule Is in Dispute

In Kenya the tax on an imported car is not calculated on what you paid for it. It is calculated on a published schedule of Current Retail Selling Prices, depreciated by age. That schedule was revised for the first time since 2019, the revision was challenged in the High Court for want of public participation, and implementation was suspended. We could not establish, from any source we would publish, which schedule is operative today. That is the story, and it is not a comfortable one.

How the Kenyan tax base actually works

This is the part every Kenyan importer needs to understand before any rate discussion becomes meaningful.

The Current Retail Selling Price is the benchmark retail price of a brand-new vehicle of that model in Kenya. The Kenya Revenue Authority takes that figure and applies depreciation according to the vehicle’s age, and the result is the customs value on which duty, excise and VAT are assessed.

Which produces the single most important consequence in Kenyan importing: negotiating hard at auction improves your margin, and it does very little to your tax. Two identical cars bought at wildly different prices attract broadly the same assessment, because the assessment is derived from a schedule rather than from a receipt.

The revision, and the challenge

On 30 May 2025 the Kenya Revenue Authority published a public notice stating that a new CRSP schedule would be applied from 1 July 2025, with the updated list published on its website. A follow-up press release on 6 June 2025 set out the Authority’s reasoning: the revision was the first since 2019 and had been developed through stakeholder consultation.

In that release the Authority explained why values had moved by reference to changes since 2019 — import duty on the relevant category having risen from 25% to 35%, a maximum excise of 30% in 2019 with some units subsequently at 35%, and an exchange rate that had moved from roughly 100 shillings to the dollar to roughly 130. We are reporting that as the Authority’s stated reasoning for the revision. It is not a current rate schedule and should not be used as one.

The Car Importers Association of Kenya challenged the revision in the High Court, arguing that the new CRSP list was introduced without meaningful public participation in violation of the Constitution and the Fair Administrative Action Act. The court suspended implementation pending hearing and determination.

What we could not establish

We looked for a final judgment and for an authoritative statement of which schedule is currently operative. We did not find either from a source we are willing to publish. Reporting circulates suggesting the older schedule remains in use under a court order; we could not verify it, and we are not going to repeat it as fact.

What a Kenyan importer should actually do

• Get the assessment before you bid, not after. Ask your clearing agent to run the specific make, model, year and engine capacity against the schedule currently in use and to tell you which schedule they used.
• Treat any quoted landed figure as conditional. Until the position settles, a quotation should say which valuation basis it assumes. One that does not is hiding the largest variable in the deal.
• Watch the eight-year rule separately. Kenya’s age limit is a permission question and is governed independently of valuation. Confirm it for your vehicle’s year of manufacture before anything else.
• Do not let a negotiation on price stand in for tax planning. The schedule does not care what you paid. Choosing the right model, year and engine capacity is where the tax outcome is decided.

The currency, at least, is not the problem

The shilling has traded close to 129 to the dollar for well over a year. For a Kenyan importer that removes one variable from an otherwise uncertain picture: your destination-side currency exposure has been close to flat, so the source currency and the valuation schedule are the two things actually moving your landed cost. We cover the destination-currency mechanics in more detail in our guide to which side of the trade your currency sits on.

Does this apply to you?

Move now or wait?

The honest answer is that we cannot tell you, because the direction of the unresolved item is unknown. If the revised schedule is ultimately upheld, importers who moved early under the older basis will have done well. If it is quashed, waiting cost nothing. Anyone offering you confidence about which way that lands is offering you a guess with a salesman attached.

What is defensible is to keep the exposure short. Smaller consignments, firmer clearing timelines and quotations that state their valuation assumption in writing are all ways of not being the person holding twenty units when the schedule changes underneath them.

Customs valuation, duty, excise and VAT on imported vehicles are set and administered by the Kenya Revenue Authority and may be altered by legislation or court order without notice. Details above reflect KRA’s published notices of 30 May and 6 June 2025 and reporting of the subsequent litigation, checked on 10 September 2026. Verify your own position with the Kenya Revenue Authority or a licensed clearing agent before committing funds.