Re: Kenya - Certificate of Free Sale

Dear Member,
With reference to the letter sent to our Chamber by TOBB, in the letter of the Ministry of Trade dated 24.02.2026 and numbered E-84261457-590-00119336213 forwarded to our Union; In the letter referenced above, with reference to a letter received from the Commercial Counsellor's Office in Nairobi, it is stated that certain important changes, set out below, have been made to the Pre-Export Verification of Conformity Guide published by the Kenya Bureau of Standards on 19 February 2026, a copy of which is attached (Annex-1).
In this context;

• That, in applications for obtaining a certificate of conformity, a
  Certificate of Free Sale must be submitted to the inspection company authorised to issue certificates of conformity,

• That, on the Kenyan side, the importer is also obliged to submit the same Certificate of Free Sale to the customs administration,
• That the companies authorised to carry out Verification of Conformity in our country have been designated as SGS, Intertek, TUV Rheinland & BV,

are stated, and it is requested that a decision be made as to by whom and under what conditions the Certificate of Free Sale specified in the guide will be issued.
The letter further states that certificates of free sale are documents requested on importation by certain countries whose product safety legislation and inspection infrastructure are not developed, showing that the product has been legally placed on the market in accordance with its relevant legislation, for which conformity only with the exporting country's own relevant legislation, not the importing country's own product legislation, is sought; that in this sense they are the lightest of the documents our companies encounter when entering export markets; and that, accordingly, since they require product and legislative knowledge, they must be issued by the competent body responsible for the relevant product.
In addition, it is stated that certificates of free sale, which are requested from our exporters from time to time in line with the demands of importing countries, are issued by the relevant public institutions for products falling within their areas of responsibility and made available for the use of our exporters. In this context, the list of competent bodies and the product groups for which they are responsible is submitted in the annex (Annex-2), and it is stated that our companies that will export to Kenya must apply to the competent bodies within the framework of the relevant product groups in order to obtain a certificate of free sale.

Annex: Re: Kenya - Certificate of Free Sale

Kind regards,
Elazığ Chamber of Commerce and Industry