Kenya · Passive income
Class K Permit (Ordinary Residents)
Open
Last verified July 2026
Open. 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. Age 35 or over.
For a passive UHNW family this is strictly 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 — which for most of our clients is not a trade-off at all.
Qualifying routes
$24k
Assured annual income
must be at full and free disposition and derived from outside Kenya; applicant must be 35 or over
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- $24k
- Total landed cost
- KES 250,000 a year permit fee plus KES 20,000 processing and KES 10,000 per dependant — roughly KES 300,000 in year one for a family of four, around USD 2,000-2,300. No capital need be placed at risk.
- Timeline
- 3–12 months — no official service standard published
- Physical presence
- No explicit day-count published for maintaining the permit
- Family
- spouse and dependent children at KES 10,000 each
- Permanent residency
- Permanent residence after 7 years on permits plus 3 years' continuous residence (KES 50,000 application, KES 750,000 on issue). There is no permanent-residence-by-investment route.
- Citizenship
- Citizenship by registration after 7 years, with a statutory Kiswahili or local-dialect speaking test and a discretionary requirement of 'substantive contribution to national development'
- Language test
- Kiswahili or a local dialect — a statutory speaking test
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- assured annual income of at least USD 24,000 at full and free dispositionaged 35 or overclean criminal recordno engagement in employment or business in Kenya
What can go wrong
- No work rights. Class K is 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 requires Kenyan counsel before anyone starts a 7-year clock.
- Fiscal volatility 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 'substantive contribution to national development' test.
- The KES 250,000 annual fee is an administrative figure and has been raised before without legislation.