In short, a buyer in Kenya should budget between six and seven percent of the purchase price on top of the price itself. Stamp duty at 4 percent in the towns and 2 percent in the countryside is the largest item, the advocate’s fee is set by a published scale which starts at 2 percent and falls as the price rises, and the registry, county and surveyor’s charges together come to well under one percent. The seller carries capital gains tax and his own advocate. This article gives every figure, works a KES 15 million example from start to finish and says who pays for what, because the question is asked of us every week and almost nobody publishes the answer.
Why nobody tells you the numbers
Search for the cost of buying land in Kenya and the pages which answer are property sellers, a few accountants and the occasional content farm. Advocates rarely publish figures, partly from habit and partly because the honest answer has several moving parts. But a buyer who is unable to estimate the cost of the transaction is unable to plan it, and a buyer twelve thousand kilometres away is unable even to ask. So here are the parts, in the order they fall due.
Stamp duty
Stamp duty is a tax on the transfer, charged under the Stamp Duty Act on the value of the property and paid by the buyer before the transfer registers. The rate is 4 percent for land within a municipality, which in practice means Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Eldoret and the other gazetted urban areas, and 2 percent for land outside them, which is most agricultural and rural land. Since February 2026 the duty is assessed and paid through the National Stamp Duty Module on Ardhisasa, and the value it is charged on is the higher of your contract price and the Government valuer’s figure. Where the valuer’s figure exceeds your price, the duty rises with it, so a buyer who negotiated a bargain should expect to pay duty on what the registry thinks the land is worth rather than on what he paid.
Duty is payable within thirty days of the transfer being signed, and late payment attracts penalties. A handful of transfers are exempt, the two which matter most to individual buyers being a transfer between spouses and the purchase of a first home under the affordable housing programme. Everyone else pays.
The advocate’s fee
An advocate’s fee on a sale or purchase is not a matter of negotiation downwards. It is fixed by the Advocates Remuneration Order, a statutory instrument under the Advocates Act, and an advocate who charges less than the scale commits a disciplinary offence. The scale for the buyer’s advocate and the seller’s advocate is the same, and each side pays its own.
On the first KES 5,000,000 of the price the fee is 2 percent, with a minimum of KES 35,000. On the next KES 95,000,000, up to KES 100,000,000, it is 1.5 percent of the excess. From there to KES 250,000,000 it is 1.25 percent of the excess, from KES 250,000,000 to KES 1,000,000,000 it is 1 percent, and above a billion shillings it is 0.1 percent. The bands are cumulative, so a KES 10,000,000 purchase carries a fee of KES 100,000 on the first five million and KES 75,000 on the second, or KES 175,000 in all. VAT at 16 percent is added to the fee, and disbursements the advocate pays on your behalf, such as search and registration fees, are charged on top at cost.
What the fee buys is the due diligence, the sale agreement, the completion documents, the stamping and the registration through to a title in your name, and the advocate’s professional liability for all of it. What it does not buy, unless you ask, is the surveyor’s site verification and the root of title investigation described in our article on verifying a title deed. We include both as standard, and the fee we charge on diaspora purchases, a fixed 2 percent of the price with a minimum of USD 1,000, covers the whole protocol together with a written due diligence report and a go or no go recommendation before you commit.
The smaller charges
The registry fees are modest. An official search, the registration of the transfer and certified copies of the new title are each charged at a few hundred shillings under the Land Registration (General) Regulations, 2017, and the whole registry bill on an ordinary transfer is under KES 5,000. The Government valuation for stamp duty carries its own small fee. The county charges for a rates clearance certificate, which in Nairobi runs to about KES 10,000, and for leasehold land the Ministry charges a small fee for the land rent clearance. Agricultural land needs Land Control Board consent, for which the board charges a nominal application fee, and leasehold land from the Government or a county needs the lessor’s consent to transfer, again for a small fee. A licensed surveyor’s confirmation of the beacons, which we never skip, costs between KES 20,000 and KES 50,000 depending on the parcel and its distance from Nairobi.
A worked example
Take a three bedroom apartment in Kilimani bought for KES 15,000,000, on a sectional title, with no bank financing. The buyer’s bill looks like this.
| Item | Basis | KES |
| Purchase price | Contract | 15,000,000 |
| Stamp duty | 4 percent of value, Nairobi | 600,000 |
| Advocate’s fee | 2 percent of first 5,000,000 plus 1.5 percent of the next 10,000,000 | 250,000 |
| VAT on advocate’s fee | 16 percent | 40,000 |
| Registry fees | Search, registration, certified copies | 5,000 |
| Government valuation fee | Ministry schedule | 5,000 |
| Rates clearance certificate | Nairobi City County | 10,000 |
| Surveyor’s verification | Beacons and index map | 30,000 |
| Total cost of acquisition | 15,940,000 | |
| Costs over and above the price | 6.3 percent of the price | 940,000 |
Change the facts and the figures move in predictable ways. Take the same price for two acres outside Nakuru town and the duty falls to 2 percent, or KES 300,000, but the Land Control Board consent and a longer surveyor’s journey are added. Finance the purchase with a bank loan and the bank’s advocate charges a further fee on the charge, on a separate scale, plus the stamp duty on the charge itself at 0.1 percent of the loan. Buy a commercial building rather than a home and VAT at 16 percent attaches to the price of the building, which is the single largest surprise in Kenyan property and the reason commercial purchases are structured with care.
Who pays what
The convention in Kenyan conveyancing is settled, and it is written into every properly drawn sale agreement. The table below is the ordinary position. It moves only by agreement, and a seller who asks the buyer to pay the seller’s costs is asking for a higher price by another name.
| Cost | Who pays | Note |
| Stamp duty on the transfer | Buyer | On the higher of price and Government valuation |
| Buyer’s advocate | Buyer | On the scale, plus VAT |
| Seller’s advocate | Seller | On the same scale |
| Capital gains tax at 15 percent of the gain | Seller | Paid before the transfer registers |
| Registration of the transfer | Buyer | Registry fees |
| Government valuation fee | Buyer | Assessed for stamp duty |
| Land rates and land rent arrears | Seller | Up to the completion date |
| Rates and rent clearance certificates | Seller | The seller must deliver clean certificates |
| Discharge of an existing bank charge | Seller | Including the bank’s advocate |
| Land Control Board consent | Shared in practice | Both parties attend or are represented |
| Surveyor’s verification | Buyer | The buyer is the one who needs to know |
| Estate agent’s commission | Seller | Unless the buyer engaged the agent |
| Spousal consent | No cost | But it must be obtained |
Capital gains tax, from the buyer’s side
Capital gains tax is the seller’s liability, charged at 15 percent of the difference between what the seller paid and what you are paying, and it is due before the transfer registers. It concerns you for two reasons. The first is timing, because a seller who has not paid it is unable to complete, and a seller who has not budgeted for it discovers the fact late and looks for it in your price. The second is the exemptions, which a seller will sometimes claim in order to avoid the tax and which you should understand before you rely on them. A private residence occupied by the seller for the three years before the sale is exempt. So is land sold for KES 3,000,000 or less, agricultural land of under fifty acres outside a municipality, and a transfer between spouses. Where the seller claims an exemption which does not fit the facts, the registry declines the transfer and your completion stalls.
Apartments and off-plan units
An apartment on a sectional title costs what the table above shows. An apartment bought off-plan carries two further items which buyers seldom see coming. The first is the developer’s advocate’s fee, which most developers pass to the buyer for the preparation of the lease or the sectional unit documents, and which commonly runs from KES 50,000 to well over KES 100,000. The fee does not buy you independent advice, because the developer’s advocate acts for the developer, and you still need your own. The second is the timing of stamp duty, which on an off-plan unit falls due on the transfer at completion, sometimes years after the deposit, on the value at completion. We set both out in the fee estimate before a client signs a reservation form, and we structure the payments so the deposit sits in the client account rather than the developer’s.
The deposit and the balance
The custom is a deposit of 10 percent on signing the sale agreement and the balance on completion, usually ninety days later, though the parties agree what they like. The deposit is paid to the seller’s advocate or, better, to your own advocate, to be held as stakeholder and released on completion. A deposit paid to the seller directly is an unsecured loan, and if the seller is unable to complete you are suing to get it back. Kenya has no escrow law. The advocate’s client account, regulated and audited by the Law Society, is the only mechanism which protects the money, and it costs you nothing extra.
How long it takes
A clean freehold purchase in Nairobi completes in sixty to ninety days from the day the search comes back. The stamp duty assessment on Ardhisasa is the step which most often slows things, followed by the rates clearance at the county. Agricultural land adds the Land Control Board’s sitting, leasehold adds the lessor’s consent, and a seller with a bank charge adds the bank’s discharge, each of which is a month or more on its own. Off-plan runs on the developer’s programme, not yours.
Questions we are asked every week
How much does a lawyer charge to buy land in Kenya?
The scale under the Advocates Remuneration Order, which is 2 percent of the first KES 5,000,000 with a minimum of KES 35,000 and 1.5 percent of the next KES 95,000,000, plus VAT. On a KES 10,000,000 purchase the fee is KES 175,000 before VAT.
Who pays the lawyer when buying land in Kenya?
Each side pays its own advocate. The buyer pays the buyer’s advocate and the stamp duty. The seller pays the seller’s advocate and the capital gains tax.
What is the stamp duty on land in Kenya in 2026?
Four percent of the value within municipalities and 2 percent outside them, paid by the buyer through the National Stamp Duty Module on Ardhisasa before the transfer registers.
Is it possible to use one lawyer for both buyer and seller to save fees?
It is done, and we advise against it. An advocate acting for both sides is unable to press either side’s interest when the deal turns, and the fee saved is small against the money at stake.
Does the buyer pay capital gains tax?
No. It is the seller’s tax. But a seller who has not paid it is unable to complete, so confirm early it has been provided for.
Are there hidden costs?
The ones buyers miss are the Government valuation pushing stamp duty above the contract price, the developer’s advocate’s fee on off-plan units, VAT on commercial buildings and the bank’s advocate on a financed purchase. All four are known before signing if you ask.
Next step
Send us the price and the title number, or the developer’s offer letter, by e-mail to peter@pmlaw.co.ke or WhatsApp through +254 714 644 080, and we reply within one working day with a complete cost estimate for your purchase, itemised as above. Nothing is charged until you instruct us.
Peter Maina is a Partner of Peter Maina & Company Advocates, Hazina Towers, Nairobi. He is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya practising in conveyancing and real estate, corporate and commercial, and capital markets law, and acts for buyers in Kenya and abroad on land and property purchases.
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