Kenya payroll deadlines 2026: every statutory due date

Kenyan payroll runs on one recurring date. Miss it and the penalties are mechanical, not discretionary. Here is every statutory deadline an employer needs in 2026, what happens when you are late, and how to build a close calendar that never gets there.

The one date that matters: the 9th

PAYE, SHIF, NSSF and the Affordable Housing Levy are all remitted by the 9th day of the month following the payroll month. July payroll is due by 9 August. There is no separate schedule per deduction, which is the single most useful fact in Kenyan payroll administration.

Obligation	Rate	Due
PAYE	Graduated bands, KES 2,400 personal relief	9th of the following month
SHIF	2.75% of gross, minimum KES 300	9th of the following month
NSSF	6% employee + 6% employer, Tier I & II	9th of the following month
Housing Levy	1.5% employee + 1.5% employer	9th of the following month

Annual obligations

• P9 certificates must be issued to every employee by 31 January for the previous tax year. Employees need them to file their own returns by 30 June.
• Employer annual PAYE reconciliation should agree to the twelve monthly P10 returns. Fix discrepancies before January, not after.
• NITA levy is payable for applicable employers; confirm your sector's position with NITA.

What being late actually costs

The penalties split into two, and you can incur both on the same month.

• Late filing of the PAYE return: KES 10,000 or 25% of the tax due, whichever is higher.
• Late payment of the tax: a 5% penalty on the outstanding amount, plus interest accruing at 1% per month until it is cleared.

The asymmetry is worth noting: filing on time costs nothing even if you cannot pay on time. If cash is tight, file the return by the 9th regardless — you avoid the larger of the two penalties and only carry the payment interest.

A close calendar that holds

Working backwards from the 9th, a cadence that survives a busy month looks like this:

Day	Task
25th–27th	Cut-off for timesheets, overtime, advances, per diems and new starters
28th–30th	Run payroll, review the variance against last month, approve
Last working day	Pay staff; post the payroll journals to the books
1st–5th	Generate P10A, SHIF, NSSF and Housing Levy returns
By the 9th	File and remit all four

The variance review on the 28th is the step most teams skip and the one that catches the expensive errors — a duplicated employee, a missing termination, a salary typo — while there is still time to fix them.

How Yolaworks helps

Yolaworks HR computes all four deductions in one run, produces KRA-ready returns including the P10A, and posts the payroll journals straight into Yolaworks Books so the month closes once rather than twice. Net pay leaves the same run as an M-Pesa batch or a bank file. Free for 30 days.