The permit stops working the moment you are dismissed, automatically and without notice. And to hire a newcomer, the employer must name a Kenyan who will be trained as their replacement.
On paper Kenya looks open: many permit classes, no salary floor, no language or integration exams to live there, and dual citizenship is recognised. But the state makes hiring a foreigner hard and expensive: the employer must prove no Kenyan was found and train a Kenyan to replace the foreigner, there are no shortage lists, and the annual fee rose 2.5 times in 2024.
The country's main story is the gap between a digital shop window and reality. Paper applications have not been accepted since 2025, yet the portal is often down, notifications do not arrive, an application can take up to 10 working days to show as received, and people travel in person to the immigration headquarters in Nairobi to get an answer. The state sets no processing deadline and publishes no refusal statistics.
Pressure on people living on work permits has grown in the past year. Since December 2025, when you leave a job or change employer, the permit is cancelled only after you show a ticket and proof of departure, and a new employer's application is not processed until your exit is confirmed; advisers suggest planning about two weeks abroad. In July 2025 a foreign human rights worker with valid status was deported without being shown a deportation order, and the agency can declare a foreigner undesirable without public criteria.
Status is the most fragile in our sample. By law, when the job ends the permit ceases to be valid automatically, with no notice and no grace period, and your stay becomes unlawful. The law gives no right to stay while a renewal is pending; the bridge is a paid special pass issued at the agency's discretion.
Families have it hard too: a dependant's pass gives no right to work, a spouse needs their own permit through the full procedure, and a child needs a separate pupil's pass for school. Foreigner registration is due within 90 days. Banks ask for a tax PIN, which is issued on the basis of a permit, so opening an account before you have one is difficult.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
You need an electronic travel authorisation (eTA) before travelling, usually processed within 3 working days. For work, the same route through a Kenyan employer.
Work permits and dependant's passes are free for them, and since 2025 there is a separate simplified Class R permit. Entry without an eTA for up to 180 days.
Citizens of most African countries enter without an eTA for 60 or 90 days. Libya and Somalia are excluded from this regime.
An eTA is required to enter, usually processed within 3 working days. After that, the same work permit procedure as for everyone.
When we checked on 9 August 2026 we found no direct nationality restrictions. Entry requires an eTA, usually processed within 3 working days.
The place interval 70-88 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Access to entry: 70 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.7. The weakest is Agency processing: 37 against 48.7. Above the world average: 2 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
The state sets no overall deadline; in practice it takes 1-6 months. Just getting the application to show as received on the portal can take up to 10 working days.
Yes, but either expensively or without the right to work locally. The Class G business permit needs an investment from $100,000, while the Class N digital nomad permit needs foreign income of at least $24,000 a year and bans work in Kenya.
KES 500,000 for each year plus KES 20,000 processing, and KES 10,000 for a dependant's pass. Over five years about KES 2.56 million (about $19,800) for one person, about KES 2.62 million (about $20,300) for a family of three.
Yes, instantly: when the job ends, the permit ceases to be valid automatically, with no grace period. Since December 2025 you must leave the country before moving to a new employer.
Permanent residence after 7 years on work permits, the last 3 continuously in Kenya. Citizenship by registration after 7 years of lawful residence, with an understanding of Kiswahili or a local language; dual citizenship is allowed.
The doors are formally open, but hiring a foreigner is costly and full of conditions, the portal is unreliable, and status depends on the employer and breaks on the day you leave the job. Since late 2025 the agency has become tougher on people already living there.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.