Kenya · Passive income
Class K Permit (Ordinary Residents)
Open. This has been verified against primary law. Regulation 19(4) of the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Regulations requires an assured annual income of at least twenty four thousand US dollars, at the applicant's full and free disposition. Applicants must be age 35 or over.
For a passive UHNW family, this is simply the better instrument than the Class G investor permit. It qualifies on USD 24,000 of assured passive income rather than USD 100,000 of at-risk capital, at the same annual fee and on the same 7-year clock. The trade-off is that it carries no work rights. For most of our clients, that is not really a trade-off at all.
Qualifying routes
The income must be at the applicant's full and free disposition and must come from outside Kenya. The applicant must be 35 or over.
The facts
- Minimum
- $24k
- Total landed cost
- The permit fee is KES 250,000 a year, plus KES 20,000 for processing and KES 10,000 per dependant. For a family of four, that comes to roughly KES 300,000 in year one, around USD 2,000-2,300. No capital needs to be placed at risk.
- Route type
- Income requirement
- Timeline
- 3–12 months (No official service standard has been published.)
- Physical presence
- No explicit day-count has been published for maintaining the permit.
- Family
- Spouses and dependent children are included, at KES 10,000 each
- Permanent residency
- Permanent residence becomes available after 7 years on permits, plus 3 years of continuous residence. The application fee is KES 50,000, with KES 750,000 due on issue. There is no permanent-residence-by-investment route.
- Citizenship
- Citizenship by registration is available after 7 years. Applicants must pass a statutory speaking test in Kiswahili or a local dialect, and meet a discretionary requirement that they have made a substantive contribution to national development.
- Language test
- Kiswahili or a local dialect. This is a statutory speaking test.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- Assured annual income of at least USD 24,000, at full and free disposition.Aged 35 or over.Clean criminal record.No engagement in employment or business in Kenya.
- There are no work rights. Class K is meant for those living on income from outside Kenya. Taking employment or running a local business requires a different class.
- Kenya's territoriality is not codified. It rests on Revenue Authority practice and Tribunal rulings against a broadly worded section 3(1). Do not build a structure that only works if Kenya stays territorial.
- Whether registered, non-birth citizens may retain a foreign citizenship is genuinely unresolved. Sources conflict on section 8 of the Citizenship Act. This determines whether a Kenyan passport costs your client an existing nationality, and it requires Kenyan counsel before anyone starts a 7-year clock.
- Fiscal volatility here is demonstrated, not theoretical. The Finance Bill 2024 was withdrawn on 26 June 2024 after protests in which at least 23 people died and Parliament was stormed, and KES 999bn was cut from the budget.
- The citizenship language test is statutory Kiswahili or a local dialect, plus a discretionary test for substantive contribution to national development.
- The KES 250,000 annual fee is an administrative figure. It has been raised before without legislation.