Edible Oils Manufacturing in Kenya: Investment and Regulatory Guide

Kenya spends more on importing edible oil than on almost any commodity other than petroleum, and successive governments have treated closing that gap as a manufacturing priority. For an investor setting up a refinery or oilseed-crushing plant, or a manufacturer reviewing an existing operation, the framework spans several regimes: crop and processing regulations administered by the Agriculture and Food Authority, product and labelling standards enforced by KEBS, and a customs and duty regime for crude oil inputs that has shifted more than once in the last two years. This guide sets out what currently applies, and flags where a figure or development could not be confirmed against a primary source.

The Crops (Nuts and Oil Crops) Regulations 2020

The core sector-specific instrument is the Crops (Nuts and Oil Crops) Regulations, 2020, made under the Crops Act, 2013 and administered by AFA through its Nuts and Oil Crops Directorate (NOCD). The regulations apply to the scheduled crops in the First Schedule, including coconut, cashew, macadamia, groundnuts, castor beans, sunflower, sesame and oil palm, and cover the chain from growers and nurseries through to dealers, importers, exporters and manufacturers. They were amended by the Crops Act (Nuts and Oil Crops) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024, so check the current consolidated text rather than the 2020 instrument alone.

Establishing a processing facility is a two-stage process. Regulation 12 requires an applicant to seek approval before building the facility, on Form F1; the Authority must verify compliance within thirty days and, if satisfied, issues an interim authority valid for two years while the facility is built. Once construction is complete, the facility is inspected before a manufacturing licence issues under Regulation 13, on Form G1, with the Authority again deciding within thirty days and publishing notice in the Gazette for thirty days before issuing the licence on Form G2. Regulation 26(1) provides that a person shall not manufacture or possess a scheduled nuts and oil crop product for sale without a licence, and unlicensed manufacturing carries a fine of up to KSh 10 million or imprisonment of up to five years.

Fees in the Third Schedule are tiered by scale: cottage processors, with annual turnover of KSh 5 million or below, pay KSh 5,000, while established processors above that pay KSh 25,000. Dealer licences are KSh 5,000, inspection fees range from KSh 1,000 to KSh 10,000, and levies apply on trade: 4 percent of CIF value on finished imports and 2 percent on raw material imports, against an export levy of KSh 2 per kilogram on raw produce and 0.25 percent of FOB value on finished exports. Importers and exporters register separately under Form E1/E2. Growers, dealers and processors also face record-keeping obligations under Regulations 24 and 25, keeping records for two to five years, with bi-annual verification by the Authority.

Licensing an Edible Oil Refinery or Manufacturing Plant

In practice, a refiner needs to sequence several approvals rather than obtain a single licence. The AFA/NOCD facility approval and manufacturing licence sit alongside general corporate and tax registrations, a Tax Compliance Certificate, county approvals for the premises, and, given the scale and effluent profile of a refinery, an Environmental Impact Assessment licence from NEMA. Consignments must also carry the consignor’s and consignee’s names, contact details and country of origin in bold print under Regulation 29(7), and Regulation 34 requires compliance with the relevant national, regional and international standards, including food safety and hygiene, which is where KEBS standards become directly relevant.

KEBS Standards, Fortification and Labelling

Once licensed to manufacture, a product still has to meet the applicable Kenya Standard before sale, and KEBS maintains specifications for edible oils and fats, including standards developed jointly with other East African Community states. Kenya has, since amendments in the early 2010s under the Food, Drugs and Chemical Substances Act (Cap 254), treated fortification of certain staple foods as national policy to address micronutrient deficiency, with edible oil fortified with vitamin A alongside wheat and maize flour. We confirmed the general policy and the existence of a KEBS standard addressing fortified edible oils, but could not verify the precise fortification level against the Kenya Law text of the general food labelling regulations, which do not themselves state an oil fortification level; manufacturers should confirm the current mandatory level against the relevant KEBS standard.

Separately, general labelling obligations apply to any prepacked food, including packaged cooking oil, under the Food, Drugs and Chemical Substances (Food Labelling, Additives and Standards) Regulations. These provide that no person may sell a prepacked food unless a label has been affixed to it, and that the label on the main panel must carry the brand or trade name (if any), the common name of the food, and, in close proximity, a correct declaration of net contents. A manufacturer therefore needs to satisfy both the consignment marking rules under the Nuts and Oil Crops Regulations and the general labelling regime, and to hold the KEBS product certification a retailer will typically ask to see before stocking it.

Import Duty, Duty Remission and Import Substitution

Most Kenyan refiners depend on imported crude palm, soya or sunflower oil as feedstock because domestic oilseed production does not yet meet demand, which makes duty treatment commercially decisive, and that treatment has been unusually volatile. Kenya had historically kept crude palm oil largely duty-free under an East African Community stay of application of the Common External Tariff, since palm is not commercially grown here and the duty-free crude feeds a refining industry supplying the region. From June 2024, following the lapse of that arrangement, Kenya applied a 10 percent duty on crude palm oil, plus a 25 percent duty for one year on refined soybean oil, RBD palm olein, sunflower oil and refined corn oil. The Edible Oil Manufacturers’ Association objected, arguing the higher input costs would raise cooking oil prices and made Kenya less attractive than Egypt, Uganda and Tanzania. Reporting in late 2025 described a High Court ruling striking down the 10 percent duty as unconstitutional, but we could not verify the judgment on Kenya Law, so that development is noted as reported rather than confirmed, and manufacturers should check the current gazetted rate before relying on it.

Separately, manufacturers importing raw materials for local production may apply to KRA’s Duty Remission Scheme, operating through an Export Promotion Programme for export goods and an Essential Goods Production Support Programme for domestic-market goods. An applicant must show it manufactures or intends to manufacture the goods, hold proper records and manufacturing capacity, and produce a valid Tax Compliance Certificate, Certificate of Incorporation, VAT registration and PIN; approved remission runs for twelve months and is secured by a bond. Which inputs are covered is gazetted by the EAC Council of Ministers from time to time, so confirm current coverage rather than assume it from a prior cycle. On the production side, the government runs a parallel programme, through the State Department for MSME development, promoting domestic cultivation of sunflower, soya, groundnuts and sesame to reduce the import bill through contract-farming supply chains; we could not verify a specific published target and describe the objective in general terms only.