The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has published the Draft Income Tax (Residential Rental Income Tax) Regulations 2026. Part of the new regulations seeks to make the use of the Electronic Rental Income Tax System (eRITS) compulsory for all property owners.
Clause 7 of the proposed regulations states, “A person with income chargeable to residential rental income tax shall register such property in an electronic system prescribed by the Commissioner.”
KRA introduced the system in September 2025 but has yet to witness the desired results in revenue collection. eRITS struggles are captured in its numbers.
Recent figures from the authority reveal that only 1,412 landlords have onboarded onto the platform, registering 2,628 buildings containing 26,668 rental units.
A measly 529 returns have been filed through the system, earning the tax collector just KES 1.68 million in rental income tax collections.
Based on the tax collected, approximately KES 22.4 million worth of rental income has been declared via the platform. This falls short of government revenue projections for the sector.
President William Ruto projected the system would increase rental revenue collection nearly sixfold, targeting KES 80 billion annually, up from the previous KES 14 billion baseline.
With only KES 1.68 million collected in 6 months, the platform would need to increase revenue by about 4,700 times to meet the president’s target. This feat appears to be unachievable under the current voluntary compliance model.
READ: How to File and Pay Monthly Rental Income on iTax
The draft regulations are currently undergoing public consultation as mandated by Kenyan law. If implemented, it will test whether regulatory compulsion can succeed where technological convenience has so far underperformed.
