KRA is moving cargo clearance to a blockchain platform. Here is what changes on Monday

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is adopting a blockchain-based platform called the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline, or TLIP, to run cargo clearance at the Port of Mombasa and Kenya’s border points. The plan is to replace the paper documents that follow a container through the clearance process with one shared digital record that every authorised party can see.

KRA announced it alongside a separate but related change that takes effect on Monday, 3 August 2026. From that date, every containerised shipment headed to a Kenyan port needs an Advance Cargo Declaration (ACD) reference code before it is loaded at the port of origin.

The problem TLIP is meant to fix

A container arriving at Mombasa today passes through shipping lines, clearing agents, customs officers, the Kenya Ports Authority, transporters, warehouses, and regulators such as the Kenya Bureau of Standards, the Port Health Service, and the Agriculture and Food Authority. Most of these agencies already run their own digital systems. The systems do not talk to each other, so traders submit the same documents repeatedly, agencies verify the same information separately, and disputes arise over whether cargo details were altered after submission.

TLIP puts the information on one record. A trader enters shipment data once, and every authorised party along the chain reads from the same entry. Each transaction is time-stamped, and once logged it cannot be changed without leaving a trace. That is the property blockchain adds over an ordinary shared database: customs officers can trust that an invoice or bill of lading is the same document that was filed at the start, because any edit would be visible.

Lilian Nyawanda, KRA’s Commissioner for Customs and Border Control, said the platform brings clearing agents, logistics companies and government agencies into one digital system. She said it cuts repeated paperwork and processing times, and makes cross-border data exchange more secure.

TLIP is not a KRA invention. TradeMark Africa built it with the IOTA Foundation, a German non-profit behind the IOTA distributed ledger, with USD 4 million in TradeMark Africa funding backed by the Netherlands and the UK. The system was piloted on flower exports from Nairobi to the Netherlands, where a single shipment traditionally needed signatures from three agencies and six separate documents, and it went into wider rollout in Kenya in late 2023. The UK government has also trialled it as part of its border strategy. What KRA announced this week is the adoption of that infrastructure for customs clearance proper.

The rule that starts on Monday: the ACD code

The immediate, checkable change is the Advance Cargo Declaration. KRA’s public notice of 14 July 2026 says that from 3 August, exporters shipping containerised cargo to Kenya must obtain an ACD reference code from acd.kra.go.ke before the cargo is loaded at the port of origin.

To generate the code, the exporter uploads four documents: a draft bill of lading, a commercial invoice, a freight invoice, and an export declaration. The system then issues a 15-character alphanumeric code, in the format ACDKE followed by the year and a serial number, according to an advisory shipping line Maersk sent its customers. That code must appear on the final bill of lading before the ship sails. The declaration is then validated at least five days before the vessel arrives in Kenya, and presented at clearance.

Customs then has the shipment’s paperwork while the container is still at sea, or before it has left the origin port at all. Officers can run risk assessments in advance and, in theory, wave compliant cargo through faster on arrival. Cargo that arrives without a code faces penalties, delays, or in serious cases seizure.

Shippers are protesting

The Shippers Council of Eastern Africa objects to the ACD. Its chief executive, Agayo Ogambi, told The Star on 31 July that the declaration duplicates information traders already submit through the Import Declaration Form, cargo manifests, KenTrade and KRA’s own customs systems. In his words, it adds another declaration instead of simplifying trade. The council also wants KRA to state who pays for using the platform, which the authority has not done. Manufacturers who depend on imported raw materials could face production delays if the rollout stumbles, the council argues.

The complaint describes the same problem TLIP is supposed to solve: Kenya’s trade systems do not connect. If the ACD runs as one more standalone portal, it adds to the pile of separate filings. One caveat on that: KRA’s 14 July notice on the ACD does not mention TLIP or blockchain at all, so the link between the two has been reported, by Business Daily and others, rather than stated by KRA itself.

The wider push at customs

KRA has reason to keep investing here. Its Customs and Border Control Department collected KES 988.78 billion in the financial year that ended in June 2026, beating its KES 980.79 billion target and growing 12.4% on the previous year, the fifth straight year of growth. Nyawanda credits technology-led reforms for part of that. KRA and the Kenya Ports Authority also agreed this week to integrate their digital systems, in a meeting between KRA Commissioner General Adan Mohamed and KPA Managing Director Captain William Ruto. We covered Mohamed’s appointment in May, when the KRA board framed the job explicitly around digital transformation.

It is also the second Kenyan government blockchain deployment in a matter of weeks. We wrote in July about KNEC’s e-certificates, which carry a blockchain verification hash so employers can confirm a KCSE certificate is genuine. Both projects use the technology for the same job: they keep records that show every change made to them, so separate institutions can rely on the same document without having to verify it against their own copies.

If you import into Kenya, or clear cargo for someone who does, you now need to: Register on acd.kra.go.ke, get the reference code before the cargo is loaded, and check that the code appears on the bill of lading. Cargo that ships without one risks penalties and delays at Mombasa from Monday. The bigger promise, a single record replacing the stack of repeated paperwork, depends on how far KRA connects TLIP to the systems traders already file into. KRA has not published a timeline for that, and it is the question we put to the authority alongside the ACD one above.