As such the government expects every Kenyan citizen above the legal age of 18 years to at some point start paying taxes as long as they’ve have an income source.

At the heart of this intricate process, is the KRA PIN – a unique alphanumeric code that’s responsible for keeping track of your tax compliance. This is however not just for the employed or those in business, as it’s the necessary for one to have a KRA PIN in order to access or rather comply with requirements from other government intuitions.

Such is the case with students applying for HELB Loans and job seekers applying for the KRA Clearance Certificate, an almost mandatory requirement for those eyeing government and county positions.

Whichever need is prompting you to get this PIN, the good news is that
the process of getting one is free, relatively easy and will only take
you a couple minutes.

This is possible thanks to iTax – KRA’s
online service portal that allows you to apply for the PIN and
subsequently gives you a dashboard through which you can manage your Tax
compliance needs, such as that of filing returns. Here’s how you go
about getting your KRA PIN.

1. On your browser, visit KRA’s iTax Portal

2. On the left side of the page, you should see a New PIN Registration section with the prompt you Do you want to apply for a PIN? Open the link that’s provided there.

3. That will launch an e-Registration form prompting you to provide the following details:

• Taxpayer Type – select Individual
• Mode of Registration – select the Online Form

Once done, click the Next button to proceed.

4. The next section requires you to provide your details in four forms:

• A – Basic Information
• B – Obligation Details
• C – Source Income Details
• D – Agent Details

Let’s see how to fill each of them.

A. Basic Information

a. Start by setting your Citizenship to Kenyan

b. Under Employee’s Profession, provide your career details. If you’re not formally employed, I suppose you can set it at Others and then define your area of profession, self-employed, unemployed, student etc.

c. Next provide your National ID number.

d. The remaining fields will be greyed out, so you’ll have to first provide your date of birth by selecting it from the pop-up calendar.

When you set the correct DOB, the rest of the fields including your ID issue date and issue place, your Names, Sex, Place of Birth and particulars of your Father and Mother will be auto-filled (if you’re legally married, I presume the details of your spouse will auto-fill as well).

NOTE

• If you already had a PIN (and probably wasn’t aware), the system
  will alert you after entering the DOB that a PIN has already been issued
  to that particular ID number.
• To quickly set your date of birth from the calendar, use the double arrows to move across the YEARS and the single arrow across the MONTHS.

e. Next provide your Principal Physical Address. I take it this is where one currently resides, though I find it very odd that KRA wants Street/Road details here.

In my case I just gave them the closest highway/road to where I reside since there are no such things as defined streets in these parts. You can leave the Descriptive Address part blank.

f. Next provide your Physical Postal Address.

g. Now the most important part – your Principal Contact Details. Here provide your mobile number(s) and your main email address.

It’s very important that you provide a valid email address as all future correspondence from iTax will primarily use it, that is, including your first login details (password). So double check and triple-check if necessary.

NOTE

• When you enter your email address, the system will automatically capitalize it. Don’t be alarmed by this. All emails address (such as those from third-parties like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook etc.) are usually NOT case-sensitive. That is to mean for the email address at yourname@domain.com is equivalent to YOURNAME@DOMAIN.COM

h. Fill the remaining part of the questions appropriately. These include:

• Alternative Address or Contact details if you have any
• Your Bank Account details for tax refunds
• If you’re a partner, director or trustee of any other entity
• Tributary Bonds

i. Click Next to proceed to the next form.

B. Obligation Details

Here you’re expected to specify which type of tax(es) you’re obliged to pay. Since you’re an individual Kenyan citizen, select the first option: Income Tax Resident. Beside it, you’re required to provide the Registration Date which is simply the date of that day.

Click Next to proceed to the next form

C. Source Income Details

In this section you’re expected to provide details regarding your source(s) of income. These include:

• Employment Income
• Business Income
• Rental Income

a. If you’re employed, select Employment income and then provide the PIN number(s) of your employer(s).
b. If you run a business, select Business Income. This one will require you to provide substantial amount of information regarding your business and in which sector it belongs. If you’ve multiple businesses, you can add them as well.
c. The last part is for those with Rental Income.
d. If you’ve no source of income, for instance if you’re a student or are unemployed, just answer No to all the questions.
e. Click Next to proceed to the next form.

D. Agent Details

This last form is not necessary to fill and is only required for those who intend to have authorized Agents to submit applications on their behalf.

5. Now just double check all the information you’ve provided is valid then click the Submit button.

Getting Your KRA PIN

6. You should now get a message prompting you that the application has been submitted successfully. Your new KRA PIN will also be generated and link provided to download the PIN Certificate which is basically a PDF outlining the details of your PIN. Print it for safe keeping.

TIP

• Use Ctrl+C to copy your PIN as right-clicking is disabled.

7. Your PIN will now be active however you won’t be able to login into iTax until the system sends you your first time login details to the email address you’ve registered with. This is not immediate and in my case it took about one day for the details to arrive in my email address.

8. When the mail eventually arrives, it will inform you that your PIN registration has been approved. Your first time Login ID (your KRA PIN) and password will also be in this email.

First Time Login

9. With this information, go to the KRA iTax site and on the sidebar where you’re asked Do you have a PIN?, enter your PIN first and click the Continue button.

10. Next enter your Login ID (KRA PIN) and the password then just below answer the security question and click the login button.

You’ll should now be prompted to create a new login password along with a security question and answer which will be required should you at any point forget your password and need to reset it.

The password should have a minimum of 8 characters and must contain both upper and lower case letters, digits and special characters (*!@# etc.).

11. Finally agree to the KRA Policy and click on the submit button to create the password. You’ll then receive an email alerting you that the first time login was successful.

This email will also have the security question and its answer which you can refer to in the future should you forget your password and require to reset it.

12. That’s it. You can now login into iTax at any time using your PIN and the password you’ve just created.

Going Forward

Now that you’ve the PIN, you’ve to remember one very important thing: the PIN obliges you to file your returns every year, even if you don’t have any income (students and those unemployed). Failure to do this attracts a hefty fine of ksh. 20,000.

On the other hand, the PIN enables you to apply for a Tax Compliance Certificate (TCC). The more common name for the TCC is a KRA Clearance Certificate and it’s of key importance to those applying for government/county jobs, companies and tenderpreneurs. You’ll now be able to access this and more services from your iTax dashboard.