Google to withhold 5% AdSense earnings for the taxman

According to an email we received from Google, 5% of Kenyan AdSense earnings will be withheld as Kenyan tax from September. A KRA PIN is due in AdSense for YouTube by 1st October 2026. The first deduction lands on September earnings, which are paid out in October. Anyone who misses the date has their payments held.

“Under the Kenya Income Tax Act, Google is required to withhold taxes on YouTube earnings paid to AdSense for YouTube accounts based in Kenya,” the notice says. “Each month, Google will withhold a 5% Kenya tax on finalised YouTube earnings along with any applicable US taxes.” If you miss it by 1st October, “your YouTube earnings will continue to accrue, but payments will stop until a verified PIN is provided”.

There is more to this than what has been going round social media. Open the form Google is now putting in front of Kenyan accounts and you can see how much further it reaches.

What the form actually asks you

If you go Youtube Adsense Payments, then Settings, then Manage tax information, there is now a Kenya card, sitting alongside the United States one that every monetising account already has. You will see a “No tax info on file” next to a blue Add tax info button.

Click on the Add tax info to add the Kenya Revenue Authority details. Here you’ll see the disclaimer: “Tax ID verification is required for this country based on local regulations and will be used to determine your tax & invoice treatment”.

For the form you’re filling, there’s an entity type dropdown showing these different categories:

• Corporate entity
• Government agency
• Individual entrepreneur/Sole proprietor
• Tax exempt organization/NGO
• Unincorporated partnership/Trust

If you choose any of the above, you’re required to enter the relevant KRA Pin or documents proving status. But underneath that you also get the following questions:

• Are you subject to lower rate of WHT or have an exemption?
• Are you subject to lower rate of VAT or have an exemption?
• Are your supplies subject to VAT withholding?

This goes to show that Google is building a Kenyan VAT and invoicing profile for every creator in the country.

Also, do note that there’s a disclaimer that all documents provided “must exactly match the info on your Google payments profile”.

If you’re one of the Kenyan creators who set up AdSense years ago under a stage name, a channel name or an old address, you’re at risk if the KRA documents do not line up.

What of Publishers: Blogs, Sites, etc.

If you open ordinary AdSense, the account behind the ad code on publisher sites, and you get the identical screen. The same Kenyan tax information row in the payments profile, next to payment ID, country and region, account type, name, address and phone number. The same Kenya card under Manage tax information. The same form, the same PIN upload, the same VAT questions.

The email we received covered AdSense for YouTube only. Google has said nothing about whether the 5% will also come off publisher earnings, which is the money paying for Kenyan blogs, news sites and everything else running display ads.

Where else does Google withhold 5% creator earnings?

Google does not deduct Indian TDS from AdSense payments. Indian creators declare the income and pay it themselves. Nigerian and South African creators do the same. In the United Kingdom, in the United States, across most of the EU, the platform pays you and you settle up with your revenue authority at the end of the year.

The only deduction Google makes almost everywhere is the American one, on the slice of your earnings that comes from US viewers. That exists because US law reaches its own market. Kenya has no tax treaty with the US, so Kenyan creators already sit on the full 30% rate on US-viewer earnings, where an Indian creator pays 15%.

So Kenyan creators now lose more:

• They have the worst US rate available, and they also
• have a local deduction that isn’t there for South African, Indian, or Nigerian creators

Why 5% off the top is worse than 5% sounds

The rate itself comes from the Finance Act 2023, which brought in withholding tax on digital content monetisation from 1 July that year at 5% for residents. Treasury originally wanted 15%. Public pressure got it down.

What is new is that it now comes off the top, every month, before you have earned a shilling of profit.

Kenyan creatives already pay income tax at the end of the financial year. They already file. The 5% is an advance against that bill, not an extra tax, which sounds fine until you look at who it actually hits. A creator turning over between KES 1 million and KES 25 million a year sits on turnover tax at 3%. Google is about to withhold 5%. That is more than their entire annual tax liability, taken monthly, in advance, and they have to go and ask KRA for the difference back.

Then there is everything else. VAT at 16% once you cross the registration threshold. Excise on the data you upload with. The Significant Economic Presence Tax that doubled to 3% in July, which platforms price back into the market. Import duty on every camera, lens and light, with no relief for the people whose work requires them.

This kills the creator economy

We saw Twitch switched off Kenyan payouts in August 2025 and blamed recently imposed regulations.

Nobody quits YouTube over 5%. What happens instead is quieter and worse. Marginal creators, the ones for whom the numbers barely worked already, post less. People who were going to buy a better camera this year don’t. The person weighing up whether to go full time decides not to. You do not get a headline when that happens. You get a smaller creative sector three years later, in a country where the state keeps saying the creative economy is how young people will find work.

Kenya taxes creators harder than the countries it competes with for the same audiences and the same brand money, and hands back no import relief on equipment and none on data.

A PSA for Kenyan creatives

If money is coming off the top, the only lever you have left is proving what you spent. Since 1 January 2024, the Income Tax Act disallows any expense not backed by an eTIMS invoice. No invoice, no deduction, no argument.

So, starting now:

• Ask for an ETR or eTIMS receipt on everything. Fuel, internet, equipment, hard drives, software subscriptions, studio rent, transport to shoots, editors and videographers you hire, courier, props. Personal shopping is not deductible, but get the receipt anyway. You cannot apportion a cost you have no record of, and fuel and airtime are exactly the lines that are part business and part life.
• Get on eTIMS yourself if you invoice brands. eTIMS Lite exists for small traders and professionals who are not VAT-registered. Brands increasingly refuse non-compliant invoices, because they cannot deduct them either.
• Fix your AdSense payments profile before you upload anything. Name, address and phone must match your KRA PIN certificate exactly. Do this first, not after Google rejects the document.
• Answer those VAT questions on AdSense honestly and get advice before you answer the VAT withholding one. Those answers set how Google invoices you, which is a bigger question than what it deducts.
• Do it before the last week of September. Verification is not instant and a held payment is entirely avoidable.