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Kenyan housing levy calculator
The Affordable Housing Levy, worked out on the base the law actually charges: basic pay plus regular cash allowances, with non-cash benefits outside it. The rate comes from the same statutory table our payroll app writes payslips with, and the employer’s matching share is shown rather than assumed known.
Employee levy — off this month’s pay
Reaching KRA — employee plus employer match
| Line | Amount |
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Fill in a basic pay and a payroll month and the figures come back.
Is the housing levy calculated on gross or basic pay?
Neither word is precise enough, which is why this question is asked so often. The base is cash pay: basic salary plus regular cash allowances. That is wider than basic alone, and narrower than a gross that includes benefits in kind. The Affordable Housing Act 2024 charges 1.5% of “gross monthly salary” and defines neither that phrase nor “employee”; the definition everyone works to is KRA’s 15 August 2023 notice — and it is a reading, not a quotable rule, which is why we say so on the tax rates page rather than implying otherwise.
Are non-cash benefits subject to the levy?
No — on that same definition. A car or telephone benefit is taxable employment income, so it raises PAYE; it is not cash pay, so it stays outside the levy base. That is why the calculator above takes a non-cash figure and then shows it excluded: the exclusion is the answer. The employer matches the employee’s levy shilling for shilling, as an employer cost.
Is overtime in the base? The law does not say.
The Act is silent, and KRA’s operative notice turns on whether a payment is regular — recurring overtime is arguably in, sporadic overtime arguably out, and professional practice is split between a notice-tracking camp that excludes irregular payments and a market practice that includes overtime wholesale. Our engine includes overtime in the base, the conservative reading, because under-remittance carries a penalty of 3% a month under section 9 of the Act and over-remittance carries none. We publish this as an open question — the reasoning in full is on the methodology page — rather than printing either answer as settled.
Does the levy reduce taxable income?
Yes — the 15% relief was repealed on 27 December 2024 and replaced the same day by an allowable deduction before the bands (ITA s.15(2), via the Tax Laws (Amendment) Act 2024). Much published guidance still reports the repeal without the substitution. The full correction, with the P9 check anyone can run, is on statutory deductions in Kenya.
What this is
One employee, one month, the levy alone. For the whole payslip — NSSF, SHIF, the levy and PAYE in the order the law takes them — use the net pay calculator; for the band-by-band tax working, the PAYE calculator. Same engine on all three.
What it does not work out
Anything besides the levy. It also takes your word for the split between cash and non-cash — valuing a benefit in kind has its own rules (they are on the tax rates page), and this page does not apply them.