Kenya bill forces crypto reporting, restores gambling tax

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi tabled the Finance Bill 2026 in Parliament on April 30. The bill would require virtual asset service providers to file annual information returns with the Kenya Revenue Authority and would reinstate a 20% withholding tax on gambling winnings.

The National Assembly opened public participation on May 11 and invited written and oral submissions before the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning reviews the bill. The Treasury has said the bill aims to raise KSh 120 billion as the Kenya Revenue Authority sets a tax revenue target of KSh 2.985 trillion for the fiscal year beginning July 2026.

Proposed amendments to the Tax Procedures Act would obligate VASPs that facilitate exchange transactions, run trading platforms for customers, or act as counterparties or intermediaries to submit annual information returns to KRA. The legislation also authorizes Kenya to enter international agreements for automatic exchange of virtual asset tax information, advancing implementation of the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. Kenya is listed among jurisdictions planning to begin CARF exchanges in 2028 or 2029 and has not yet signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement that formalizes cross-border data sharing.

On gambling, the bill restores a 20% withholding tax on winnings paid by operators licensed under the Gambling Control Act, 2025, reversing its removal in the Finance Act 2025. The 20% withholding would apply to both residents and non-residents and would be collected in addition to an existing 5% withholding on withdrawals. The excise definition of “amount deposited” would expand to include chips, tokens, credits and other cash equivalents transferred for gambling, covering value used on betting platforms regardless of account type.

The bill proposes increasing the mobile-phone excise duty from 10% to 25%, payable at the point of mobile network activation rather than at import. The draft lists July 1 next year as the effective date; legal analysts at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr have flagged that entry as likely erroneous and expect the date to be corrected to July 1, 2026, with certain digital reporting requirements to begin January 1, 2027.

The Finance Bill will continue through parliamentary review after the public participation period. If adopted, the measures would require VASPs to set up reporting systems, gambling operators to change withholding processes, and affected taxpayers and platforms to adjust accounting and compliance ahead of the scheduled implementation dates.