Kenya Work Permit Fees in 2026: What Changed in the 2023 Reform and What You’ll Actually Pay

Ask three different sources what a Kenya work permit costs and you will likely get three different answers. Some quote fees that were revised out of existence in 2023. Others cite a “2026 fee overhaul” that never actually happened. This article sets out the real, currently gazetted fee schedule by permit class, where the confusion comes from, and what you should treat with caution until it is confirmed further.

The Real Reform Was 2023, Not 2026

Kenya’s work permit fees were revised through Kenya Gazette Notice No. 15493 of 14 November 2023, issued under the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act. The notice itself set an effective date of 1 January 2024, though the actual rollout was uneven and several secondary sources place full implementation closer to the first quarter of 2024. There is no separate 2026 fee reform. If you have seen “2026” attached to a work permit fee change, that figure has most likely been misdated, either by conflating the 2023 fee revision with the later 2024 introduction of new permit classes, or simply by assuming the most recent year applies.

Worth knowing: the same Gazette also carried Notice No. 15492, which revoked an earlier set of fee notices published just a week before, on 7 November 2023, specifically to allow for public participation. The government’s first attempt at this revision was pulled back and reissued within days, which is part of why the record is muddled.

What You Actually Pay, by Class

Under the current gazetted schedule, most work permit classes carry two separate charges: a processing fee paid on application, and an issuance fee paid once the permit is granted, charged annually for the life of the permit. For Class D (employment) and Class G (trade, business, or consultancy), the processing fee is KES 20,000, doubled from the previous KES 10,000. Issuance fees rose more sharply: Class D issuance is now KES 500,000 per year, up from KES 200,000, and Class G issuance is now KES 250,000 per year, up from KES 100,000. These figures are confirmed both in the original 2023 Gazette Notice and in the Directorate of Immigration Services’ own 2025 Service Delivery Charter, so they can be treated as current and stable.

Other classes carry their own issuance fees under the same schedule: Class A (mining) at KES 500,000, Class C and Class F at KES 250,000, Class I (religious or charitable work) at KES 50,000, Class K at KES 250,000, and Class M (refugees) issued free of charge.

Class N, the Digital Nomad permit, did not exist in the November 2023 notice at all. It was introduced through separate subsidiary legislation gazetted in October 2024, alongside Classes P, Q, and R. Our own research into Class N confirms an issuance fee of USD 1,000 per year, consistent across the Directorate’s current charter and independent legal commentary. The processing fee for Class N is less settled: the Directorate’s charter states KES 20,000, the same as Classes D and G, while some legal advisories cite USD 200 instead. We have not been able to resolve this conflict against the primary gazette text for the 2024 amendment, so treat the Class N processing figure as unconfirmed until you have applied and can confirm the amount charged on the eFNS portal directly.

The USD 10,000 “Express” Permit You May Not Actually Be Able to Get

The same November 2023 Gazette Notice introduced a new line item that had not existed before: an “Express” work permit charged at USD 10,000. This is a real, gazetted fee, not a rumour. What is less clear is whether the product it describes is currently offered in practice. We reviewed the Directorate’s current public-facing pages, including its work permit information pages and its 2025 Service Delivery Charter, and found no mention of an Express work permit service anywhere in that current material, and no stated turnaround-time guarantee attached to the fee even in the original gazette notice. If speed of processing matters to your application, do not assume an Express option is available on request. Confirm directly with the Directorate, or through counsel who can raise it on your behalf, rather than budgeting for a service that may exist on paper but not in current practice.

Applying Through eFNS

All work permit and pass applications are made through the Directorate’s Electronic Foreign Nationals Service, the eFNS portal at fns.immigration.go.ke, using a Single Sign-On login shared across permit and pass types. The portal itself is not new. It has existed since 2016, and the Directorate eliminated the parallel option of hardcopy submission at the end of 2020, making the process effectively digital-only from that point. What is newer is a current version referred to as “eFNS 2.0” in the Directorate’s own materials, though we could not confirm from any published source exactly when this version launched or precisely what changed from the version before it. Applicants should expect the online-only, Single Sign-On process as the baseline, and should not plan around any option to submit a paper application in person.