Vivo Energy accounted for nearly a quarter of the Sh278.6 billion in taxes and levies that oil marketers paid in the 10 months to April 2026, even as the overall fuel tax collections dipped because of a lowered Value Added Tax (VAT) rate on petroleum products.
An analysis shows that Vivo paid Sh64.28 billion to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in the period, or 23 percent of the total levies and taxes paid by all oil marketers.
Vivo’s tax payments reflect its fuel sales that accounted for 23.2 percent of the 4,269,742,780 litres of diesel, petrol and dual-purpose kerosene sold in Kenya in the period under review.
Tax collections in the period could have been higher had the State not halved VAT on fuel to eight percent in April 2026 to curb a sharp rise in pump prices in the wake of the Middle East conflict.
TotalEnergies Marketing Kenya and Rubis Kenya paid Sh36.4 billion and Sh25.13 billion respectively in taxes and levies in the period, reflecting their status as the second and third biggest sellers of fuel in the period.
“Impact of reduction of VAT rate from 16 percent to 13 percent and eight percent was a reduction in VAT collections by Sh1.827 billion for April 2026 for PMS (petrol) and diesel,” KRA says in confidential documents.
Kenya lowered VAT in April in a bid to ease the tax component on fuel to cushion consumers after global prices of refined fuel skyrocketed in the wake of the US-Israel attacks on Iran.
The VAT rate was earlier planned to revert to 16 percent on July 14 but has since been extended to October 14.
There are seven levies and two taxes charged per litre of fuel sold locally, with the biggest of these being the Roads Maintenance Levy (RML) of Sh25 for every litre of diesel and petrol sold.
Oil marketers pay the taxes upfront before being cleared to evacuate their fuel quotas from the storage network of Kenya Pipeline Company.
Besides VAT and RML, the others are excise duty, Petroleum Development Levy of Sh5.40 per litre of diesel and petrol and Sh0.40 on each litre of kerosene, Petroleum Regulatory Levy, Merchant Shipping Levy, Import Declaration Fee and
There is also the Anti-adulteration Levy of Sh18 per litre of kerosene and Railway Development Levy, which is charged on diesel, petrol and kerosene. Fuel is one of the biggest contributors to VAT for KRA,
Vivo, Total and Rubis accounted for a combined 45.17 percent of the taxes and levies that oil marketers paid to KRA in the 10 months, reflecting their dominance in the local market.
The three control nearly half of the fuel sales in Kenya, with Vivo being the biggest, followed by TotalEnergies, while Rubis is third.
Total and Rubis sold 554,054,540 litres and 386,766,360 litres of fuel, respectively, in the 10 months to April this year, with their combined sales being less than the 992,239.71 litres that Vivo sold in the period.
Vivo is the seller of Shell-branded petroleum products locally. It began selling them in 2012, the same year it was founded after the acquisition of Shell’s downstream business in Kenya.
