The Digital Nomad Permit (Class N): Kenya’s New Route for Remote Workers and Digital Professionals

Kenya introduced a dedicated digital nomad permit in December 2024, and the Directorate of Immigration Services began accepting applications under it in April 2025. Class N, as it is formally known, gives remote workers, business representatives of foreign companies, and self-employed professionals serving overseas clients a legal route to live in Kenya while continuing to work for employers or clients based abroad. It is a genuinely new option, and the published guidance on it is thinner than for Kenya’s longer-established permit classes, which makes it easy to misjudge both the qualifying criteria and the tax consequences of holding one.

Who Qualifies for Class N

The Directorate of Immigration Services’ own guidance sets out three categories of eligible applicant: a person working remotely under an employment contract with a company registered outside Kenya; a shareholder or business representative of a foreign entity; or a self-employed person providing services to clients based overseas. In every case, the work itself must be for a foreign employer or foreign clients. Class N does not authorise local Kenyan employment, and an applicant must not otherwise fall into a prohibited immigration category.

A point worth correcting up front: some commentary published before the permit went live cited a specific minimum annual income figure. The Directorate’s live application portal does not state a numeric income threshold. What it requires instead is three months of bank statements or payslips demonstrating monthly income. An applicant should not assume a particular dollar figure applies and should be prepared to demonstrate income through documentation rather than meeting a fixed number.

Application Process, Fees and Duration

Applications are made through the government’s eFNS portal, using the same Single Sign-On system as other permit classes. The applicant completes Form 25 online, generates an invoice, and pays by card or mobile money, or submits the application in person at Nyayo House in Nairobi. The required documents include the completed form, two recent passport photographs, a copy of a valid passport, current immigration status documentation if already in Kenya, a signed cover letter from the applicant, a signed cover letter from the employer or company, three months of bank statements or payslips, proof of accommodation, and a letter of no objection from the applicant’s home country embassy in Kenya.

The permit costs a non-refundable processing fee of USD 200, plus an issuance fee of USD 1,000 per year of validity. It is issued for one or two years and is renewable. Class N sits alongside three other permit classes introduced in the same December 2024 regulatory amendment: Class P for diplomatic and United Nations personnel, Class Q for non-preaching professionals working in faith-based or charitable institutions, and Class R for East African Community citizens, who are not charged a fee at all.

The Tax Question Most Digital Nomad Guidance Ignores

The single most important practical question for anyone considering Class N is not whether they qualify, it is whether living in Kenya on this permit creates a Kenyan tax liability on income earned from abroad. Most marketing around digital nomad schemes elsewhere in the world glosses over this, and Kenya’s own guidance on Class N does not address it directly either.

Kenya’s Income Tax Act treats a person as tax resident if they have no permanent home in Kenya but are present in the country for 183 days or more in a year of income, among other tests. Kenya also taxes residents on income earned outside Kenya, and its source rules deem amounts paid to a resident individual for employment or services, whether the work is performed in Kenya or abroad, to have accrued in or been derived from Kenya. Read together, a Class N holder who spends enough time in Kenya to meet the residency test is, on the plain wording of the Act, exposed to Kenyan tax on their foreign-employer salary or foreign-client fees, not automatically shielded from it because the payer sits outside the country.

The Kenya Revenue Authority has not published guidance addressing Class N specifically, so this is genuinely unresolved territory rather than a settled answer either way. Whether double taxation actually results depends on whether Kenya has a double tax agreement with the holder’s home country, and on the availability of a foreign tax credit under the Income Tax Act where no treaty applies. This is exactly the kind of question that needs individual advice before relocating, not a generic assumption in either direction.