KRA Capital Gains Tax Calculator

Background.

Sell a plot, a house or a block of unlisted shares in Kenya and the Kenya Revenue Authority will want capital gains tax before the deal is finished. The tax is 15% of the gain, not of the price. That difference is large: on a KSh 8 million sale, 15% of the price would be KSh 1.2 million, while 15% of a gain of KSh 2.35 million is KSh 352,500, about 4.41% of what the buyer pays.

KRA works the gain out in two halves. From the transfer value it subtracts the incidental costs of selling, such as the agent's commission, advertising, valuation and legal fees. From that it subtracts the adjusted cost of the asset: what you paid to buy or build it, the costs of acquiring it (legal fees, the stamp duty you paid as buyer), and any enhancement spending that improved it. What remains is the net gain, and 15% of it is the tax. Each of those cost lines has its own field here, because every shilling you can document cuts the bill by 15 cents.

The rate has not always been 15%. Kenya brought capital gains tax back from 1 January 2015 at 5%, and the Finance Act 2022 tripled it to 15% for transfers from 1 January 2023, so a quotation or article written before then can be badly out of date. It is a final tax: the seller declares and pays it through iTax, and it is not added to any other income for the year.

Many transfers owe nothing at all. KRA's list of exemptions includes transfers between spouses and to immediate family, a home the owner has lived in for the three years before the sale, land sold by an individual for no more than KSh 3 million, and shares traded on a securities exchange licensed by the Capital Markets Authority. Mark a transfer as exempt and the tax drops to zero while the gain is still shown, which is useful when you want to see what an exemption is worth. Whether one applies to your sale is a legal question, best settled with your advocate or tax agent before completion.

What is kra capital gains tax calculator?

Capital gains tax is charged on the gain from transferring property situated in Kenya: land, buildings, and shares or other interests in property, for gains arising on or after 1 January 2015. The transferor, normally the seller, declares and pays it. The rate is 15% of the net gain, and KRA describes it as a final tax, so the same gain is not taxed again under income tax. Four amounts make up the computation. The transfer value is the price or other consideration for the transfer. Incidental costs on transfer are the costs of selling. The adjusted cost is the acquisition cost plus incidental costs of acquisition plus any enhancement cost. The net gain is the transfer value less transfer costs less adjusted cost. Someone who trades in property as a business is outside the tax altogether, because that profit is taxed as business income.

How to use this calculator.

1. 01Enter the transfer value: the price in the sale agreement, in Kenya shillings. It has to be greater than zero.
2. 02Enter incidental transfer costs: the agent's commission, advertising, valuation and legal fees you paid to sell. They must be less than the transfer value.
3. 03Enter the acquisition cost (the price you paid, or the cost of building), then incidental acquisition costs such as the legal fees and stamp duty you paid when you bought. The original sale agreement, completion statement and stamp duty receipt are the documents to find.
4. 04Enter enhancement costs for capital work that improved the property, such as an extension or a perimeter wall, backed by invoices. Routine repairs, rates and utility bills are not improvements.
5. 05Leave allowable capital losses at zero unless a tax adviser has confirmed a loss you may set off. Leave the rate at 15 for transfers from 2023 onwards, and answer the exemption question Yes only if you are confident an exemption covers the transfer.

The formula.

The computation follows KRA's published formula: net gain = (transfer value − incidental costs on transfer) − adjusted cost, where adjusted cost = acquisition cost + incidental costs of acquisition + enhancement cost. In symbols, CGT = (TV − Costs − AdjBasis) × r.

It runs in steps, and each step is shown as its own result. Net transfer value is TV − Costs, what the sale actually brings in after selling expenses. Adjusted cost base is the sum of the three cost lines. The gross gain is the difference between the two. Any allowable capital loss you enter is subtracted next, and the result is floored at zero, so a sale that loses money shows a taxable gain of zero rather than a negative number. The tax is the taxable gain × r ÷ 100, with r at 15 by default. If you answer that the transfer is exempt, the tax and the effective rate become zero, but the taxable gain is still reported. The effective rate is the tax divided by the gross transfer value, × 100: a measure of how much of the buyer's money goes to KRA.

Two features of the method shape every answer. First, it is linear in costs: each shilling of documented cost lowers the tax by r ÷ 100 shillings, 15 cents at today's rate, so records are worth money. Second, there is no adjustment for inflation. KRA's computation subtracts the shillings you paid, whenever you paid them, so on property held for many years part of the taxable gain is simply the fall in the shilling's value. The rate field accepts any value from 0 to 100, which lets you reproduce a pre-2023 computation at 5%.

A worked example.

Frequently asked questions.

References& sources.

1. [1]Kenya Revenue Authority (2026). Capital Gains Tax. KRA File & Pay.
2. [2]Kenya Revenue Authority (2026). About Capital Gain Tax. KRA FAQs.
3. [3]Kenya Law (2025). Income Tax Act, Cap. 470. National Council for Law Reporting.
4. [4]Kenya Revenue Authority (2023). Overview of Capital Gains Tax. KRA TV.
5. [5]Kenya Revenue Authority (2019). New iTax enhancement boosts July 2019 Capital Gains Tax Revenue Performance. KRA Press Release.