Freelancers, remote workers and online sellers in Kenya are paid from abroad in a few common ways. Each has different costs, and the cheapest depends on who is paying you and how.

PayPal

PayPal works in Kenya for receiving and sending money. To get money out:

  • To M-Pesa, through the PayPal service in the M-Pesa app or on Safaricom’s PayPal page. Link your PayPal account to your M-Pesa number, then withdraw. A conversion charge of about 3% applies, and money usually arrives within minutes. Normal M-Pesa limits apply.
  • To a Kenyan bank account, which takes a few days and has its own fees.

The receiving fee on business payments is often the larger cost - check what PayPal charges on the payment itself, not just the withdrawal.

Payoneer

Payoneer is widely used by freelancing platforms and marketplaces. It gives you receiving account details in dollars and other currencies, so clients can pay you by local transfer in their country.

  • Withdraw to a Kenyan bank account, in shillings or into a dollar account.
  • Fees are charged on some incoming payments and on withdrawals, with a currency conversion margin when you convert. Check Payoneer’s pricing page for your account.

Wise

Wise is cheap for converting and sending money, and sends straight to M-Pesa and Kenyan banks at the mid-market exchange rate with a visible fee. Whether you can hold a Wise account and receive into it depends on where you are resident and what Wise currently supports - check on Wise’s Kenya site. Many people use Wise mainly for their clients to send to them.

A dollar account in Kenya

Most Kenyan banks offer US dollar accounts. Getting paid in dollars and converting only when you need shillings avoids converting twice, and gives you the choice of when to convert. See Opening a bank account.

Which is cheapest?

Work out the shillings that reach you for a typical payment through each route:

  1. What the client pays, including their fees.
  2. The fee to receive.
  3. The exchange rate you convert at, compared to the mid-market rate.
  4. The fee to withdraw.

For regular clients, a direct bank or Wise transfer is often cheapest. For platforms that only pay through PayPal or Payoneer, you have less choice - convert in larger, less frequent amounts.

Tax

Income from foreign clients is taxable in Kenya if you live here. Keep records of every payment and fee: you declare the income on your annual return, and fees are allowable expenses. See Freelancing in Kenya and the turnover tax calculator.

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