PPB pharmacy licence requirements in Kenya: the 2026 guide

Most of what circulates online about registering a pharmacy in Kenya is out of date. The dispensary dimensions people quote come from a guideline PPB has since replaced, and one of the most repeated claims about ownership is not in the Act at all. This guide works from the current documents: the Pharmacy and Poisons Act Cap 244, PPB's premises guidelines at version 6 of October 2025, and the Good Distribution Practice guidelines effective February 2025.

Who is allowed to own a pharmacy

Start here, because it decides whether the rest of the process is open to you at all.

The Act is direct. Section 23 makes it unlawful to carry on the business of a pharmacist except in premises registered with the Board, and says the same for a pharmaceutical technologist. Section 20(1B) adds that nobody may operate such a business without a registered pharmacist or enrolled pharmaceutical technologist present on the premises.

PPB's premises guidelines go further on ownership. Your pharmacy may be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a limited company under the Companies Act 2015. But the guidelines state that ownership by non-pharmacy professionals is not allowed, with exemptions available for pharmacies inside medical centres or hospitals, and for those owned by not-for-profit and faith-based organisations. PPB may check Registrar of Companies records to see who actually owns the business.

Where a company owns the pharmacy, section 21 of the Act requires that the business be under a superintendent who is a registered pharmacist and a member of the board of directors, and who is not acting in that capacity for any other body corporate.

One correction worth making. You will very often read that every holder of a financial interest in a pharmacy must be a pharmacy professional, cited as though it came from Cap 244. We searched the full text of the Act and the phrase "financial interest" does not appear in it. The ownership restriction is real, but it lives in PPB's guidelines, not in that section of the statute. If someone is citing the Act at you on this point, they have not read it.

Who can be the superintendent

Every registered premises operates under a superintendent holding a valid practice licence. That person cannot act as superintendent for another premises, and cannot be in full-time employment elsewhere. If you own the pharmacy but are not the superintendent yourself, you need a signed contract with the superintendent, lodged with PPB.

A pharmacist needs a valid practice licence. A pharmaceutical technologist needs that plus at least three years working under the supervision of another qualified and experienced superintendent since enrolment.

That last requirement catches people out. A newly enrolled technologist cannot open their own pharmacy immediately, however ready the premises is.

What the premises itself must be

These standards sit in the Good Distribution Practice guidelines, under good retail practice, which the premises guidelines point to rather than repeat.

• Overall size: not less than 4 metres by 6 metres. Within that, a dispensary of at least 4m by 2m and a general area of at least 4m by 4m.
• Distance: not less than 200 metres between registered premises, applied per cadre of superintendent. Pharmacist premises are measured against other pharmacist premises, technologist against technologist. It is the superintendent's cadre that counts, not the owner's. This does not apply to hospital pharmacies.
• A fixed building. No vehicle, trailer, caravan, unroofed or temporary structure.
• Surfaces: floors and walls of washable, impervious material, a ceiling that does not flake, and premises that are well lit, ventilated and secure against weather, groundwater, vermin and pests.
• Branding: white with a green cross for a pharmacist's premises, white with a blue cross for a pharmaceutical technologist's. This is checked at the pre-registration inspection, so get it right before the inspector arrives.
• Facilities: running potable water, a toilet, waste disposal, and storage for cleaning equipment.
• Storage and layout: temperature-controlled storage for sensitive products, prescription-only medicines kept separate from over-the-counter, narcotics and psychotropics in secure fixed lockable storage, a lockable door between the dispensary and the OTC area, and a separate office for records.

Ignore the imperial numbers. The "8 feet by 10 feet dispensary" and "10 by 10 shop" figures that appear all over Kenyan business blogs come from an older PPB guideline. They are superseded by the metric figures above. If you size a shop from a 2018 blog post you may fail inspection.

The registration process

Applications run through PPB's online portal at practice.pharmacyboardkenya.org, under the New Facility tab.

Documents you will need to attach:

• Certificate of Incorporation, or Business Name Registration (form BN3)
• A current CR12
• The superintendent's personal KRA PIN
• The applicant's National ID
• The company KRA PIN
• A KMPDC licence, for hospital pharmacies
• Partnership or shareholders' agreements where they apply
• The superintendent's contract, where the owner is not the superintendent
• A sketch plan showing overall measurements, the location and floor area of the dispensary, the bench area including sink, refrigerator, scanners and work areas, and direct public access

The sequence runs: pre-registration approval, then attach the remaining documents and pay the fees, then wait for an SMS telling you to liaise with your nearest PPB office for inspection. The inspector uploads a report with photographs, a second reviewer checks it, and on approval you download the licence electronically.

Two traps in that process. An application that is unsuccessful and not responded to within one month is voided, so watch your messages. And operating before the licence is issued is unlawful even while your application is being processed. Having applied is not permission to open.

The inspection

A pre-opening inspection is mandatory and your superintendent arranges it. The premises must be essentially complete and ready to operate, not a building site with promises attached.

Usefully, there is no fee for this inspection of retail, hospital, warehouse, scientific office, manufacturing or wholesale premises. If anybody asks you to pay for the inspection itself, that is not a PPB charge. Obstructing an inspector is an offence under section 48 of the Act.

What it costs

PPB's current published fee structure for retail and hospital pharmacies, for both pharmacist and pharmaceutical technologist premises:

Item	KES
Annual practice licence	5,000
Premises registration	10,000
Online pharmacy licence	15,000

These come from PPB's own guidelines and are repeated on its FAQ page. PPB notes the structure applied at the time the guidelines were approved and may change. The statutory basis is Legal Notice 191 of 2010, which also sets a wholesale dealer's licence at 30,000 per year. PPB's own fee schedule page observes that the last gazettement was in 2010.

Exemptions exist for facilities in special economic zones and export processing zones, and for government facilities, though the practice licence remains payable.

Two honest caveats. First, section 23(2) of the Act still refers to a premises registration fee "not exceeding one hundred shillings", a ceiling never updated to match the 10,000 set by legal notice. That is an unreconciled wrinkle in the drafting, not a reason to pay less. Second, increases have been reported as proposed, taking the practice licence to 10,000 and premises registration to 15,000 among others. We could find no gazette notice enacting them. Treat them as proposals until PPB says otherwise, and budget with one eye on them.

Note that these are the regulator's fees only. They are a small fraction of what it actually costs to open a pharmacy once you add rent, fit-out, opening stock and working capital. Our pharmacy cost calculator gives you a fuller estimate.

The annual cycle, and the deadline people miss

Every licence PPB issues expires on 31 December of the year it was issued, whatever month you were licensed. PPB recommends applying for renewal thirty days before expiry, through the Renewal tab on the portal.

Renewal is not automatic. PPB re-evaluates each year and is not obliged to renew. If premises are found unsuitable on re-assessment they are not renewed, and the previous registration becomes void.

On late renewal, read the wording carefully because it is more generous than most people assume and then bites hard. A renewal lodged later than thirty days after expiry attracts a penalty of 10 per cent of the standard application fee. The penalty clock therefore starts at the end of January, not on 1 January. PPB publicly warned in early 2026 that the deadline had passed and penalties were in effect.

What changed recently

The premises guidelines moved to version 6 in October 2025, and the GDP guidelines to revision 3 effective February 2025. Between them they added the Health Safety Code, made conspicuous display of the licence mandatory, and wrote the 10 per cent late penalty in explicitly.

In 2026 PPB launched Practice360 for professional registration and licensing and Facility360 for premises licensing and inspection, introduced Kenya's first Good Pharmacy Practice standards, and enabled public QR-code verification of licences. PPB has reported closing non-compliant premises as part of the same push.

If you hold a licence now, the practical consequence is that PPB asked everyone to complete onboarding to those systems by 31 October 2026, ahead of the 2027 licensing cycle. That is the nearest live deadline for most existing pharmacies, and it sits just before the 31 December renewal date.

Everything transactional now runs through the portal, including applications, renewals, variations, payment and licence download, with notification by SMS or email treated as sufficient communication. The physical inspection is still in person.

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This guide reflects the Pharmacy and Poisons Act Cap 244, PPB's premises guidelines version 6 of October 2025, and the GDP guidelines revision 3, as at October 2026. Fees and requirements change, and some reported changes have not been gazetted. Verify the current position with PPB before you commit money, and treat this as general guidance rather than legal advice.

If you would rather not navigate this alone, our PPB licensing service takes you through premises selection, documentation and inspection, and the readiness quiz is a quick way to see where you currently stand.