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Free Kenya Payroll & PAYE Calculator (Excel) — PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, Housing Levy

Running payroll by hand means getting five moving parts right for every employee — the PAYE bands, personal relief, NSSF tiers, SHIF at 2.75% and the Affordable Housing Levy at 1.5% — in the correct order. This free workbook does all of it: type each employee's pay and allowances, and gross, every statutory deduction and net pay compute automatically, exactly the way our live payslip generator does.

Download free — Excel (.xlsx) ↓Opens in Excel or Google Sheets · no sign-up

What's inside

  • 2023 PAYE bands + personal relief, applied band by band
  • NSSF (current tiers), SHIF 2.75%, Housing Levy 1.5% — deducted in the correct order
  • Every rate on an editable, sourced, dated Rates tab (no hard-coded numbers)
  • 'What to remit' totals: KRA, NSSF and SHA
  • Printable single-employee payslip via a dropdown

The tabs

  • Start Here (guide)
  • Rates (editable + dated)
  • Payroll register
  • Payslip (printable)

Yellow cells only. You type in the yellow cells; the rest are locked formulas. Gridlines are off and it prints clean on A4.

The workbook keeps every statutory rate on one Rates tab — the PAYE bands, personal relief, NSSF Tier I/II limits, the SHIF rate and the Housing Levy rate — each labelled, dated and linked to its source (KRA, NSSF, SHA). Nothing is hard-coded into a formula, so when a rate changes by law you edit one cell and the whole workbook follows. That is the honest way to keep a tax template accurate: the calculation engine is exact, and the inputs are transparent and easy to update.

The Payroll tab is a register — one row per employee — that also totals what you owe each authority: PAYE and Housing Levy to KRA, NSSF to NSSF, SHIF to SHA. The Payslip tab lets you pick an employee from a dropdown and print (or save as PDF) a clean, individual payslip with no retyping.

It was checked against worked examples up to the top 35% PAYE band and the NSSF cap, so the numbers match our online payslip generator to the shilling. When you'd rather generate one payslip in your browser, the free tool is one click away.

Do it online instead

Generate one payslip online — free

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Frequently asked questions

Are the 2026 PAYE, SHIF and Housing Levy rates correct?

The template ships with the current PAYE bands, personal relief, NSSF tier limits, SHIF (2.75%) and Housing Levy (1.5%), each dated and linked to its source on the Rates tab. Because statutory rates change by law, always confirm the current figure at the linked source before a payroll run — and if one has moved, edit that single cell.

In what order are the deductions applied?

Taxable pay = gross minus NSSF, SHIF and the Housing Levy (all three are allowable deductions before PAYE). PAYE is then charged band by band on taxable pay, less personal relief. Net pay = gross minus PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, Housing Levy and any HELB or other deductions.

Can I print a payslip for each employee?

Yes. The Payslip tab has a dropdown — pick the employee and their figures fill a clean payslip you can print or save as PDF. Nothing is retyped; it reads straight from the payroll register.