Stamp Duty on Land Transfers in Kenya: Rates and How to Pay

The buyer pays stamp duty of 4 percent on land in a municipality and 2 percent elsewhere, and the land cannot be registered in the buyer’s name until the transfer is duly stamped. You generally have 30 days from signing. You pay through Ardhipay on the Ardhisasa platform run by the Ministry of Lands, not through KRA’s iTax.

The rates

The rates are in the Schedule to the Stamp Duty Act, as at 1 July 2026. The Act states them as shillings per KES 1,000, and any part of KES 1,000 counts as a full one.

Where the land is	Schedule item	Rate
In any municipality	12A	KES 40 per 1,000, or 4 percent
Elsewhere	11	KES 20 per 1,000, or 2 percent

The Schedule names the purchaser or transferee as the person responsible on a transfer on sale under item 11. Section 10A also sends any demand for extra duty to the purchaser or transferee.

Check the rate for your parcel before you budget. Some gazetted towns and municipalities that used to pay 2 percent may now be charged 4 percent. Your Ardhipay assessment should show the rate applied.

What the duty is charged on

Duty starts from the price. However, section 10A lets the Collector of Stamp Duties send the transfer to the Chief Government Valuer, or a valuer that office appoints, to find the true open market value on the date of transfer. This can happen before or after registration.

If the value is higher than the price, you can be asked for more. You must pay within 21 days of the notice being posted, and a caveat or restriction can be placed on the title in the meantime.

Example. You agree to buy a plot in a municipality for KES 6,000,000, and the valuer sets the value at KES 7,000,000. If the valuation stands, the duty is KES 280,000 (4 percent of 7,000,000), not KES 240,000. Outside a municipality, the same figures give KES 140,000.

If you disagree with the valuation

The Stamp Duty (Valuation of Immovable Property) Regulations let the person liable for the duty object in writing to the Chief Government Valuer:

• Lodge within 21 days of getting written notice of the approved value.
• State your grounds and the value you say is correct.
• The Valuer must decide within 21 days of receiving the objection.

A valuation report stays valid for 12 months from approval. Separately, section 18 of the Act lets you appeal against the collector’s assessment to the High Court within 30 days, once you have paid or secured the duty.

How to pay

KRA and the Ministry of Lands announced in a joint notice that land stamp duty would go to the State Department for Lands from 27 November 2023. On 16 February 2026, the Ministry said valuation applications and payments now run online through Ardhipay on Ardhisasa. Older guides that send you to iTax are out of date.

In practice, your advocate usually handles this. Guides to the system describe these steps:

1. Log in to Ardhisasa and open Ardhipay.
2. Start a stamp duty self assessment and enter the parcel, the parties and the type of transaction.
3. Upload the documents and submit for valuation and assessment.
4. Check the invoice: parcel number, names, value and duty.
5. Pay the exact amount through a channel listed in the system, and keep the receipt and stamped documents.

Never pay stamp duty into a personal or agent’s account. Pay only against the system’s invoice.

Allow for delays. Ardhisasa has had outages, including one from 1 September 2026, so raise any outage with your advocate at once and keep evidence of it.

If you stamp late

Section 6 sets the 30 day limit, running from first signing, or from first receipt in Kenya if it was signed abroad. Section 19 stops an unstamped instrument from being registered or used as evidence in civil proceedings, with limited exceptions.

Under section 20, the collector may allow late stamping if there was no intent to evade duty and the circumstances justify it. The penalty is KES 1 for every KES 20 of duty, for each three months or part of three months, up to 100 percent of the duty.

Transfers with no duty or special rules

These are the main ones in the Act:

• Between husband and wife: the duty is nil (Schedule item 12B).
• First time home owner under the affordable housing scheme: exempt (section 117(1)(la)).
• To a real estate investment trust: relief was widened by the Finance Act 2026, section 54 (section 96A).
• Gifts: a gift is charged as if it were a sale, using the property’s value (section 52). This covers gifts to children, so a family gift can still cost 2 or 4 percent.

See our guide on capital gains tax for the seller’s side. The stamp duty you pay now also counts as a buying cost if you sell the land later, so keep the receipt. Our tax team can check the figures with you and your advocate.