KRA PAYE Calculator (Kenya 2026)

Background.

This KRA PAYE calculator gives you the only number that actually matters when a Kenyan employer hands you an offer: what lands in your M-Pesa or bank account on the last day of the month after the Kenya Revenue Authority, the Social Health Authority, the National Social Security Fund, and the Affordable Housing Levy have each taken their share.

Enter your gross monthly salary and the calculator runs the current statutory stack in payroll order. NSSF uses the Year 4 limits effective from February 2026: Tier I covers pensionable pay up to KES 9,000 and Tier II covers the slice from KES 9,001 to KES 108,000, both at 6% for the employee. SHIF is 2.75% of gross with a KES 300 monthly minimum, the Affordable Housing Levy is 1.5% of gross, and PAYE uses the five-band schedule introduced by the Finance Act 2023 — 10% up to KES 24,000, then 25%, 30%, 32.5%, and 35% for taxable pay above KES 800,000.

Employee NSSF, SHIF, and Affordable Housing Levy contributions reduce taxable employment income before the PAYE bands are applied. Personal relief of KES 2,400 per month then reduces the computed tax. The page below explains what each deduction is, when it changed, and how to verify the figure on your payslip against KRA's own iTax records.

The arithmetic uses arbitrary-precision decimal math so a KES 187,432.50 gross does not lose shillings to floating-point rounding the way many spreadsheet calculators do. If your employer's payslip differs from this figure by more than a few shillings, the most common culprits — in this order — are: an additional registered pension contribution, a Sacco deduction that comes out post-tax, mortgage interest relief, insurance relief, or a fringe benefits tax adjustment on a company-provided asset.

What is kra paye calculator?

PAYE — Pay As You Earn — is the system under which Kenyan employers withhold income tax from each employee's monthly pay and remit it to KRA by the 9th of the following month. It is governed by the Income Tax Act (Cap 470) and the bands are amended each Finance Act. PAYE alone does not determine your take-home pay. Three other statutory deductions stack on top of it: NSSF (a contributory pension under the National Social Security Fund Act 2013), SHIF (a mandatory health insurance contribution under the Social Health Insurance Act 2023, replacing the graduated NHIF), and the Affordable Housing Levy (1.5% of gross under the Affordable Housing Act 2024). Together with PAYE these four make up the statutory deduction block on every Kenyan payslip. This calculator treats all four. It does not model voluntary pension contributions, Sacco shares, salary advances, mortgage relief, insurance relief, or fringe benefits tax — those are employee-specific adjustments that sit outside the universal statutory stack. The figure it returns is the net pay you would receive on a plain salary with no extras, which is the right starting point for comparing job offers, planning a budget, or sanity-checking a payslip.

How to use this calculator.

1. 01Enter your gross monthly salary — the headline figure on your offer letter or contract, before any deduction. If you are paid annually, divide by 12. If you receive a 13th-month bonus, run the bonus month separately; PAYE on a lump-sum bonus is computed on that month's total gross.
2. 02Read the primary output, Net pay. That is your monthly take-home after the four statutory deductions. Compare it directly to the 'Net Pay' line on your payslip.
3. 03Inspect the breakdown. PAYE, SHIF, NSSF, and AHL are each shown separately so you can match them line-for-line against the payslip and the iTax P9 your employer issues in January.
4. 04Stress-test a pay rise. Add the proposed increment to your current gross and re-run — Kenya's 30%, 32.5%, and 35% bands mean a portion of any raise above KES 32,333 is consumed by marginal tax, so the take-home increase is always smaller than the headline number suggests.
5. 05Cross-check against KRA. If the PAYE figure here differs from your payslip by more than KES 50, log in to iTax (itax.kra.go.ke), pull the latest P10 your employer filed for you, and reconcile. Pension contributions deducted before PAYE are the most common reason for a legitimate difference.

The formula.

The calculation runs in six steps. Step 1, NSSF Tier I: min(gross, 9000) × 6%, capped at KES 540. Step 2, NSSF Tier II: max(0, min(gross, 108000) − 9000) × 6%, capped at KES 5,940 — so total employee NSSF tops out at KES 6,480 once gross reaches KES 108,000. Step 3, SHIF: max(gross × 2.75%, KES 300) for a salaried contributor with positive pay. Step 4, Affordable Housing Levy: gross × 1.5%. Step 5, taxable pay: gross minus employee NSSF, SHIF, and AHL. Step 6, PAYE: apply the marginal bands to taxable pay — 10% on the first KES 24,000, 25% on the next KES 8,333 (24,001 to 32,333), 30% on 32,334 to 500,000, 32.5% on 500,001 to 800,000, and 35% on anything above KES 800,000 — then subtract KES 2,400 personal relief from the computed tax. PAYE cannot go below zero. Net pay is gross minus PAYE, employee NSSF, SHIF, and AHL.

A worked example.

Frequently asked questions.

References& sources.

1. [1]Kenya Revenue Authority — Pay As You Earn (PAYE) bands and personal relief (current schedule, effective 1 July 2023)
2. [2]Income Tax Act, Cap 470 (Laws of Kenya) — Third Schedule, Head B (PAYE rates), as amended by the Finance Act 2023
3. [3]Affordable Housing Act, 2024 (Act No. 4 of 2024) — Sections 4 and 5: 1.5% levy on employee gross monthly salary, matched by the employer; effective 19 March 2024
4. [4]Social Health Insurance Act, 2023 (Act No. 16 of 2023) — Section 27: 2.75% contribution rate; commenced 1 October 2024
5. [5]National Social Security Fund — Notice to Employers: Year 4 (2026) NSSF contribution rates, effective February 2026
6. [6]Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 2024 — makes SHIF and AHL allowable deductions against taxable income from December 2024
7. [7]Social Health Authority — official portal of the SHIF administrator
8. [8]National Social Security Fund — official portal