Enter your gross monthly salary and this calculator works out PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, the Affordable Housing Levy, and your final net pay — including employer-provided housing.
A payslip in Kenya runs through six separate deductions before it reaches your bank account — PAYE, two NSSF tiers, SHIF, the Affordable Housing Levy, and sometimes a housing benefit charge — and each one changes the number that feeds into the next. The Net Pay Calculator runs the full chain in the order KRA actually applies it, so you can enter a gross salary and see exactly what lands as take-home pay.
How Does Gross Salary Become Net Pay?
Net pay starts from gross salary and works through statutory deductions in a fixed sequence: any housing benefit is added to taxable pay first, then pension, NSSF, SHIF, AHL, and other allowable deductions are subtracted to reach taxable pay. PAYE is calculated on that taxable pay using KRA's progressive bands, then personal relief of KES 2,400 is subtracted from the tax bill. What's left after PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, AHL, and pension come off gross salary is net pay.
How Does Employer-Provided Housing Affect Your Pay?
Tick "Housed by Employer" and the calculator adds a housing benefit to your taxable income: 15% of gross salary plus non-cash benefits for ordinary housing, or 10% for farm housing, compared against the actual rental value you enter — whichever is higher — minus any rent you pay back to your employer. This benefit increases taxable pay even though it's not cash you receive, which is why housed employees often see a larger PAYE deduction than their gross salary alone would suggest.
What Do NSSF, SHIF, and AHL Each Deduct?
NSSF Tier I deducts 6% of your salary up to the lower earnings limit (KES 8,000 for 2025, KES 9,000 for 2026); Tier II adds another 6% on the slice between that limit and the upper earnings limit, and only applies if Tier I is also selected. SHIF deducts 2.75% of gross salary, with a floor on the minimum monthly amount. The Affordable Housing Levy deducts 1.5% of gross salary. All three are optional toggles, since not every income type carries every deduction.
Why Doesn't My Full Pension Contribution Reduce My Tax?
NSSF and pension contributions are still deducted from your gross salary in full to reach net pay — but for PAYE purposes, KRA only lets you deduct the lower of your actual combined NSSF + pension contribution, 30% of your pensionable pay, or KES 30,000 per month. Contribute more than that and the excess still comes off your payslip, just not off your taxable income, which is why a large pension contribution doesn't cut your PAYE bill as much as it cuts your take-home pay.
How Do Other Allowable Deductions Work?
The "Other Allowable Deductions" field is a bucket for statutory reliefs the Income Tax Act allows outside payroll — mortgage interest up to KES 30,000/month, or post-retirement medical fund contributions up to KES 15,000/month, for example. It reduces taxable pay so PAYE is calculated correctly, but it is not subtracted again from the final net pay figure, since that money was never actually deducted from your payslip. The calculator takes the figure you enter as given — verify your own caps apply before relying on it.
How Do I Read the Results?
The result panel shows gross pay, taxable pay, PAYE, the NSSF Tier I/Tier II split, SHIF, AHL, pension, and net pay, plus an expandable breakdown of exactly how PAYE was calculated band by band. Try switching the year dropdown between 2025 and 2026 to see how the NSSF limit change on 1 February 2026 shifts your NSSF deduction — everything else in the chain, including net pay, updates automatically. This tool is for estimation; always confirm against your actual payslip or KRA's guidance for anything binding.
Verify with KRA: This calculator applies KRA's published PAYE bands, NSSF Act 2013, SHIF Act 2023, and Affordable Housing Act 2024 rates as currently understood. Statutory rates and reliefs change, so confirm your final figures against KRA's official tax calculator or kra.go.ke before relying on it for filing or payroll.
What deductions come out of gross salary in Kenya?
A Kenyan payslip deducts NSSF (Tier I and, if applicable, Tier II), SHIF at 2.75% of gross, the Affordable Housing Levy at 1.5% of gross, pension contributions, and PAYE — calculated on taxable pay after those deductions, minus KES 2,400 personal relief.
Does employer-provided housing increase my tax?
Yes. Employer-provided housing adds a housing benefit — 15% of gross pay plus benefits for ordinary housing, or 10% for farm housing, compared against actual rental value — to your taxable income, which increases the PAYE you owe even though you don't receive that amount in cash.