Salary paid late in Kenya: when wages are due and what to do

When your pay falls due and how it must be paid

Section 18(2) of the Employment Act sets the default dates. A casual worker is owed pay at the end of each day. Someone hired for more than a day but not more than a month is owed it at the end of that period. Someone hired for longer than a month, or with no end date, as most permanent staff are, is owed pay at the end of each month.

Your contract or a collective agreement can set a better date, and that date then applies (section 18(3)).

Section 17(1) says the employer must pay the entire amount you earned, directly, in Kenya shillings: in cash, into a bank account you choose, by cheque, postal order or money order, or to a person you have authorised in writing. Section 17(2) adds that wages are paid on a working day, during working hours.

An employer who wilfully fails to pay wages earned commits an offence under section 17(10). The penalty is a fine of up to KSh 100,000, up to two years in prison, or both.

Records to keep from the first late payment

Claims are won or lost on paper. Start a folder, on paper or on your phone, the first time your pay is late.

• Your offer letter or contract, showing the agreed pay and the pay date.
• Every payslip. Section 20 requires a written pay statement at or before each payment, showing gross pay, deductions and net pay. It does not cover casual workers, people paid by piece or task rate, or engagements of six months or less (section 20(3)).
• Bank or M-Pesa statements showing the date and amount of every salary payment.
• Messages from your employer about the delay, saved as screenshots with the date visible.
• A simple table with five columns: month, amount due, date due, amount paid, date paid.

On 11 October 2026 only 249 of the 1,702 adverts on work.ke stated any pay at all. If your advert did not, your offer letter and payslips are the only proof of what you were promised.

Your employer must keep its own written records of your employment (section 74), and a labour officer can require it to produce them for the previous 36 months (section 74(2)). Under section 35(1)(a) of the Labour Institutions Act, a labour officer can also inspect and copy wage sheets.

A short letter asking for a payment date

Write before you complain. A polite letter or email fixes some delays, and if it does not, it proves you asked. Keep it factual, ask for a date, and keep a copy.

Dear [Name or HR Manager],

My salary for [month and year], KSh [amount] under my contract dated [date], was due on [due date] and has not been paid.

Please confirm in writing the date on which the full amount will be paid. I would be grateful for a reply by [date about seven days from today].

Kind regards,
[Full name]
[Job title, staff number, phone number]

If your employer offers to clear arrears in instalments, ask for the plan in writing, signed, with dates and amounts. In the Mokaya case described below, the court said an employer that cannot pay working employees should act at the earliest opportunity, for example by agreeing a structure for clearing the arrears.

Complaining to the labour officer, step by step

Section 87 of the Employment Act (section 86 in the revised edition on Kenya Law) lets you complain to a labour officer, or file a claim in the Employment and Labour Relations Court, when an employer neglects or refuses to fulfil a contract of service. The State Department for Labour describes the route for individual complaints like this:

• Go to the labour office for the area where you work. Take your ID, your folder of records and a copy of the letter you sent.
• A labour officer interviews you and registers the complaint on Form LD 64.
• If the complaint is not settled after seven days, the officer calls you and your employer to a conciliation meeting.
• If you both agree on the amount, you are paid and an agreement is signed. If you disagree, the officer can call another meeting.
• If the employer does not attend, the officer calculates your claim and sends the employer a demand notice for payment.

The State Department for Labour and Skills Development service charter lists the resolution of individual labour disputes at no cost, with a target of 45 working days. If anyone asks you for money to register or follow up a complaint, report it. No real job charges you to apply or to start, and a complaint to the labour office about unpaid wages costs nothing.

• Your rights at work in Kenya: leave, probation, overtime and notice

Going to court, and the time limits

If conciliation fails, you can file a claim in the Employment and Labour Relations Court. A labour officer can also institute proceedings against an employer for an offence under the Act (Labour Institutions Act, section 35(1)(k)).

Time matters. Under section 90 of the Employment Act (section 89 in the revised edition on Kenya Law), a claim must start within three years after the act, neglect or default, or within twelve months after a continuing injury ends. In the Mokaya case the court said it could only remedy wrongs within three years, counted back from the date her job ended. Arrears you wait too long to claim can be lost.

If you were dismissed, a shorter deadline also applies: a complaint about summary dismissal or unfair termination goes to a labour officer within three months of the dismissal (section 47).

Do not simply stop going to work. In Korir v Mediheal Group of Hospitals (2025), a pharmacist who walked out after months of late pay, without a resignation letter giving the unpaid salary as the reason, could not prove constructive dismissal. Her own salary register showed pay up to November 2023, so most of her claim for five months of arrears failed. If you decide to resign because you are not paid, put that reason in writing.

One case: three unpaid months and KSh 219,431.50 awarded

Mokaya v Christ the King Parish and another, decided by the Employment and Labour Relations Court at Nakuru on 25 January 2024, shows these rules at work. A nursery school teacher was not paid for May, June and July 2015. She resigned by a letter dated 30 July 2015 and said the unpaid salary was the reason.

The court held that not paying a working employee for three consecutive months was a fundamental breach of the contract and amounted to constructive dismissal. It awarded her KSh 219,431.50 in total: KSh 40,843.35 in salary arrears, KSh 83,287 in underpayments, KSh 13,614.45 in notice pay and KSh 81,686.70, six months of gross salary, as compensation.

Two lessons stand out. Her resignation letter tied her leaving to the unpaid salary. And her claim was filed in 2015 but decided in 2024, which is why the labour office and a written record come first.

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