Buy Goods
Also known as: Buy Goods and Services, BGS, Lipa na M-PESA Buy Goods
Full definition
Buy Goods is one of the two Lipa na M-PESA merchant rails (the other is Paybill). Where Paybill needs a per-customer account number, Buy Goods only needs a till number and an amount, so it fits the point-of-sale flow of a supermarket, restaurant, salon, chemist or petrol station.
The standard merchant tariff on Buy Goods is 0.55 percent of the transaction, capped at KES 200 for any transaction above KES 36,363. Customers pay no send fee on Buy Goods (fuel stations are the historical exception). Safaricom introduced a temporary reduced merchant tariff schedule during Aug 2026 (see paybillke news brief for that change).
Buy Goods sits inside Safaricom's broader Lipa na M-PESA merchant ecosystem, which reached 3.13 million registered merchants at the end of FY26 (Source: Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026). Same-day settlement to the linked business bank account is available on request; otherwise T+1 is standard.
Worked example
A customer pays KES 3,200 at a supermarket till 654321. In the M-PESA menu they choose Lipa na M-PESA, then Buy Goods, then enter 654321, then 3200, then their PIN. Merchant fee at 0.55 percent is KES 17.60. Customer pays nothing extra.
Verified 2026-09-01. Definitions on paybillke are sourced from Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026, the Central Bank of Kenya, the Communications Authority of Kenya, the Kenya Revenue Authority, and the primary operator documentation for each product. How we verify. Report a change.