Kenya’s final minimum top-up tax regulations: notification, returns and elections

By Lee Hadnum — Chartered Accountant, former Senior Tax Analyst at Bloomberg Tax and specialist in international tax planning.

On 18 September 2026, Kenya published the Income Tax (Minimum Top Up Tax) Regulations, 2026, Legal Notice No. 189. Made on 12 August under section 130 of the Income Tax Act, the final instrument replaces the proposed framework released for consultation in 2025 with detailed rules for computation, notification, returns, safe harbours and transition. It is final subsidiary legislation, rather than another consultation draft.

The Regulations implement Kenya’s existing domestic minimum top-up tax. Regulation 2 defines the tested year by reference to years occurring on or after 1 January 2025, and the transition provisions expressly address an earlier payment date.

Initial notification and later entry into scope

Regulation 27(1) requires the person covered by its commencement rule to notify the Commissioner in writing within 60 days of publication. The date to track is publication of the regulations, rather than the date of a subsequent professional alert.

There are different rules for later changes in status. Under regulation 27(2), a person becoming covered after the initial period must notify before the end of its year of income. Regulation 27(3) separately requires a person ceasing to be covered to notify within six months from the first day of the year of income. Regulation 27(4) permits a single designated entity where the same multinational group has two or more covered persons in Kenya, expressly referring to the initial notification period.

The local return and GIR have separate deadlines

Regulation 28(1)–(2) requires each covered person to submit a minimum top-up tax return, with a deadline at the end of the sixth month following the year of income. That local return is distinct from the GloBE Information Return. The GIR deadline is 18 months after the first year in which the person becomes subject to section 12G and 15 months after subsequent years: regulation 28(5).

Regulation 28(4) provides relief from local GIR filing where the GIR has been filed by the UPE or designated filing entity in a jurisdiction that has entered into an agreement with Kenya. Foreign central filing alone should therefore not be treated as sufficient evidence of the exemption. Nor does this GIR provision remove the separate local minimum top-up tax return.

Payment follows a third timetable. Section 12G(3A) of the current Income Tax Act, inserted by section 9 of the Finance Act 2025, already makes the tax payable by the end of the fourth month after the year of income. The final regulations should be read alongside that statutory rule; the GIR’s longer filing period is not a payment extension.