The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) iTax portal, hosted under the eCitizen platform, was hit by a major outage that lasted for over 30 hours between Wednesday and Thursday, disrupting tax services and business payments across the country.
The downtime locked out thousands of users — including small businesses, traders, and individuals — who were unable to generate invoices or process payments through the government’s digital platform.
The eCitizen portal facilitates key services such as business registration, licensing, and tax obligations. The outage effectively crippled operations for many enterprises that depend on the system for daily transactions.
When contacted by The Star, KRA clarified that it does not directly handle inquiries related to eCitizen functionality, saying such matters fall under the Ministry of Interior and National Administration.
“Enquiries on eCitizen cannot be handled by KRA. Users need to reach out to the Huduma Secretariat or the parent Ministry of Interior,” the authority said in a statement.
Pesaflow Limited, one of the companies operating the eCitizen payment system, acknowledged the disruption, saying efforts were underway to restore normal operations.
“It’s a work in progress. We are working to restore the services users can try again later in the afternoon,” a Pesaflow representative said.
Pesaflow, which handles real-time settlements and reconciliations for government payments through virtual accounts, assured users that the issue would be resolved before the close of business on Thursday.
However, by late Thursday afternoon, users continued to report intermittent access, with many expressing frustration over the prolonged blackout and the lack of prior notice.
The latest downtime adds to a series of recurring outages that have plagued the eCitizen platform in recent months.
- On January 3, 2025, a payment service crash left users including tourists at national parks unable to make transactions. The government later cited an “internal network occurrence.”
- On June 20–21, 2025, scheduled maintenance by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) caused a 16-hour interruption in vehicle registration and licensing services.
- On July 31, 2025, the Business Registration Service (BRS) reported outages affecting CR12 and CR13 company search and registration services.
- On July 23, 2023, a suspected cyber-attack or system overload rendered the platform inaccessible, with officials citing “massive traffic” from multiple sources.
A special audit released in August 2025 confirmed that eCitizen had suffered repeated system downtimes, warning that such failures pose significant risks to business continuity and public service delivery.
The government has yet to issue an official statement on the latest disruption or outline measures to prevent future outages.
