Sending parcels and household goods from Canada to Kenya Get it there, and know where it is.

1. Documents and small parcels

For original papers (a power of attorney, land documents, transcripts) or a small package, you have two routes:

• send it from a Canada Post office in Thunder Bay, or
• book a courier pickup.

Tracking is the difference between "it is at the post office in Kisumu" and "it vanished." Canada Post says tracking and delivery confirmation are not available for Small Packet, letter-post, Registered Mail or International Parcel.

Sources: Canada Post, compare international services; tracking international packages; delivery standards (Kenya is listed under Xpresspost, not under Tracked Packet); Small Packet International. Checked October 27, 2026.

2. After it leaves Canada: Posta Kenya

A Canada Post item is handed to the destination post. In Kenya that is the Postal Corporation of Kenya (Posta Kenya).

• Posta's own parcel service delivers to a post office for collection. Ask the recipient's post office how it hands over parcels from abroad.
• Posta says international parcels have track and trace.
• Posta says anything sent across a border needs a customs declaration, because customs has to clear it.
• Keep your tracking number and the recipient's phone number on the label.

MPost is not the parcel service. Posta describes MPost as a notice for a private letter box:

• When mail arrives in the box, an SMS goes to the phone, and the addressee can ask for the letter to be delivered.
• A virtual MPost box is for offices with a waiting list for physical boxes.
• If your family has no private box, they collect a parcel at their post office. Ask them which office is actually convenient before you ship.

Sources: Posta Kenya, parcels; Posta Kenya, mail services (MPost).

3. Barrels, boxes and household goods

A suitcase of clothes is a parcel. A barrel, an appliance or a room of furniture is cargo. Kenyan-Canadian cargo companies consolidate many families' boxes into one air shipment or one sea container.

Wakenyatbay does not list those companies here: we have not verified a current one. Use the checklist in the next section before you pay anyone who offers to.

Source for the port: Kenya Ports Authority. The air-versus-sea pricing is what you should demand in the quote, not a published tariff.

4. Before you hand over boxes or money

Cargo scams aimed at diaspora families take the boxes, or the cash, and disappear. Walk through this before you pay.

1. No numbered transport document, no payment. Air cargo should give you an air waybill number. Sea cargo should give you a bill of lading number. KRA asks for the bill of lading or air waybill as an importation document. A WhatsApp promise is not one.
2. Get an all-in quote in writing. It should say the price, what it covers, the transit time, and whether KRA customs duty and clearance are included (sometimes called customs-cleared, door to door) or paid by the recipient on arrival. If that sentence is missing, don't pack.
3. Match the legal name to a Canadian registration. Search the name on the Ontario Business Registry or Canada's Business Registries search. A Facebook page or a Canadian cell number is not a registration. Pay the registered company, not a person's personal account, and don't pay cash.
4. Don't pack what will get the shipment seized or sent back. Declare what is in the box.
   • Ask the carrier before you include cash, prescription drugs, electronics, or lithium batteries (power banks, laptops, e-bike batteries).
   • Canada Post accepts lithium batteries only under its own conditions, and other carriers set their own rules.
   • Canada Post's non-mailable list is the postal version of the same warning.
   • An undeclared phone or a bottle of pills is how a family barrel gets held.
5. Photograph the packed boxes and keep the quote, the receipt and the tracking number. If something goes missing, that is what you will need. Report a company that took the money and vanished to the police and to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. More patterns are on our scams page.

Sources: KRA, returning residents (asks for the bill of lading or air waybill); Ontario Business Registry; Canada Post, non-mailable matter; Canada Post, dangerous goods (lithium batteries are restricted); Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

5. KRA duty on what you send

Kenya Revenue Authority assesses duty on goods that enter Kenya. A postal parcel or a courier shipment can be held until someone pays.

• There is no single "gift allowance" we can quote here that will stay correct, so read KRA's importation pages for the shipment you are actually sending.
• Don't let a shipper promise you "no duty" unless that promise is in the written quote and matches KRA's rule.

Source: KRA, importing goods

6. Moving home for good: returning residents

KRA's current guidelines say a returning resident is a Kenyan citizen changing residence from outside Kenya to a place in Kenya. The exemption they describe covers import duty, excise duty, VAT and the import declaration fee on:

• Wearing apparel.
• Personal and household effects that were in the person's own use in the country they are leaving.
• One motor vehicle the person has personally owned and used outside Kenya for at least 12 months (not counting the voyage). Not a bus or minibus of more than 13 seats, and not a load-carrying vehicle over two tonnes.

KRA's customs FAQ brochure adds the test many families have heard. The person:

• has resided outside Kenya for at least two years, and
• has not been in Kenya for 90 days or more in total during those two years.

The guidelines page and the brochure don't use the same sentence. Read both, then ask KRA, before you ship a container on the assumption that you qualify.

Other conditions KRA states on the guidelines page:

• You show you lived outside Kenya (passport, visa, or a work or study permit) and that you are returning to stay (a passport entry stamp).
• The goods have to be shipped and imported within 90 days of your arrival, or a longer period of up to 360 days if the Commissioner allows it.
• The Railway Development Levy is still charged. The exemption does not wipe every fee.
• A spouse, and a child of 18 or over, can qualify on the same goods if they meet the same conditions.
• You use a licensed customs clearing agent. The exemption is processed in KRA's Integrated Customs Management System.

Sources: KRA, guidelines for returning residents; KRA, customs FAQ brochure (the two-year definition). Checked October 27, 2026.

7. A Canadian car can't be imported into Kenya

Sources: KRA, procedures for a motor vehicle; KRA, returning residents (left-hand-drive replacement rules); KEBS, motor vehicle inspection details; KEBS, personal effects and PVoC.

Kenyan tax after you move, including a KRA PIN, is a different question: Kenyan tax from Canada. Papers you may need before a trip home are on consular help.

General information, not a customs ruling and not legal advice. Confirm with Canada Post or the courier, with KRA, and with KEBS before you pay or ship. If a step here is out of date, tell us.

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