THE BEAST OF THE KENYAN VISA PROCESS

You can’t imagine how much talk goes on between expats here in Nairobi about visas.  You hear all sorts of stories, experiences and especially read all sorts of comments on the NES Facebook page.  Now that I am geared to get a visa that is not a tourist visa, I am asking people about their experiences and if they can recommend someone to help with the process.  You can lodge and process the work permit yourself, but I have only heard about setbacks, delays and ‘extra’ payments when people try this on their own accord.  I spoke to a lady last week who has waited 8 months (and still waiting) because the company she works for refuses to pay any bribes, and all of a sudden her file goes to the bottom of the pile.  Another lady, has 2 businesses here and her visa is currently up for renewal and told me to be prepared to pay said bribes, from what I can tell cannot really be avoided, and last time she paid 150,000KSH in bribes, which is insane as it is just over 1800AUD, and the cost of the visa for one year is 1200AUD-there is no way that I can afford to even remotely pay that type of bribe, but these are just the types of stories that do the rounds and it seems like it really depends on who you get at immigration, who you get as your legal aid and throw in a little bit of luck.  Most people that come to Kenya are transferring with a company or organisation, so they are ‘sponsored’ as such and the company pays and does all the processing for the correct visa.  Not many people are in my boat, where I am a semi-retired and don’t have the backing of a company, so my situation is different from everyone else’s to start with. 

Let’s start with the basics.  Before you move to Kenya, you should make sure to get the appropriate information on visas well in advance. In any case, you need a valid passport that has at least one blank page for the Kenyan visa stamp (sticker). If you are simply planning a short-term visit of less than three months or less, several visa options may apply to you.  Nationals of selected countries (e.g. member states of the East African Community) do not need a visa at all. They can obtain a visitor pass at the immigration counter of the airport. By contrast, the citizens of various other nations (e.g. Iraq) can only apply for a Kenyan visa with a personal reference.  Before starting your Kenyan visa application, you should check with your nearest Kenyan mission if you can get a visitor pass on arrival (most countries are permitted this way) or if you need a reference for the application process as the information can change all the time. 

For the basic visa option for all sorts of visits to Kenya, there are two visa categories: the single-entry visa and the multiple-journey visa. As the names imply, the main difference lies in the number of times the visa allows you to enter into Kenya.  After talking to a lot of people, even though you are not supposed work on these two types of visas, a lot of people do this, but then they are not here for an extended amount of time and generally will work on short term contracts.  This is what I have currently been on the last 5 months and I did ask an immigration official on my last entry into Nairobi if there is a maximum amount of these 3 month tourist visas you can have and he said no.  So legitimately, I could skip out of the country every 3 months to reset the tourist visa and I would technically not be in the wrong.  So why pay for a work permit?  I want to do the right thing firstly.  It is my new home, and the thought that I am exiting and entering in a loop hole is a little unsettling to me and secondly because I plan to be here long term, if I get the right visa, the idea is that once I have been on a work permit for 7 years, I will be eligible for Citizenship. The other way for citizenship is after 7 years of marriage to a Kenyan (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves) however, even with marriage I am still required to constantly be either on a dependency pass (very cheap cost) or a work permit for those 7 years in order to be eligible.  It’s a long term goal for citizenship and becoming a dual national of both Kenya and Australia.  The great thing is that both countries allow dual citizenship so that I don’t have to decide whether to renounce my citizenship of Australia. 

So the grand-daddy of all visas and what you hear so much about is the work and residence permits.  If you need to/decide to stay longer then you need a different type of visa (usually for more than three months), you must obtain a work and residence permit.  The permit will be part of the visa application. There are 12 classes for such permits, depending on your motive for coming to Kenya, as well as special passes for short-term assignees and international students.  I won’t bore you with all the types of visas but the 2 visas that are applicable to me are quite different in price and the legality of what type of work that I am permitted to do and this is what I needed to talk to someone about.  The word on the streets is that if you attempt to do it yourself, it could be a lengthy process taking months and months, it could end up costing you a lot more than what you would have paid an immigration advisor and then you hear of people contracting an advisor to help expats through the process and then turn out dodgy and either do a runner with your money or it takes just as long as having done it yourself.  Oh yes nothing seems like it is an easy option for the beast of the visa here in Kenya.

As mentioned there is a lot of discussion on the NES Facebook page about visas and a lot of questions are asked and bounced around.  I think the most frustrating thing for everyone is that there are no clear guidelines on the process as everyone has a different experience that it is hard to judge just how your own application and the time period that it will take.  From the forum I sourced 3 names of immigration advisors that had been recommended by expats that had done either good jobs or had given sturdy advice and really that is the way things are done here.  Whether it is looking for drivers, cleaners, job vacancies and other things-it is referrals and recommendations that gets you around here in Nairobi.  So it is these 3 names that I emailed on Sunday and first thing Monday morning I had my first response and over the course of the day with a few emails back and forth I knew that I had found the company to represent me, found my immigration advisor and it was time for me to just take the leap, pay the money and make myself a legal resident of Kenya.  I think to pay someone a fee to help with the process in this instant is going to be worth every penny and the most stress free way of getting this official tick in the box.    

So my first question was to define what the fees were of my immigration advisor.  I know that time is money and I didn’t want to waste people’s time if their fee was going to be out of my ball park.  I was told their fee was negotiatable, which I did and managed to get a lower fee that was reasonable for both of us and as mentioned before I think it will be worth every schilling.  I will be required to pay 70% of the fee at the onset of the application process and 30% after the work permit is approved. If the Class K is rejected, they keep the 70% as this is paid for the work they have actually done to get my application to the meetings of approval (getting my file to that meeting is actually 90% of the process-after approvals all that is left is submission of payments and endorsement of the permit into my passport) but I would not need to pay them the rest of the 30%.

The discussion initially was which visa I was to apply for.  Without giving all the information to my IA (immigration advisor) up front I would be required to apply for the Class D permit, even though I only want to volunteer, Immigration officials have officially placed volunteering as “working” in Kenya and will not permit me to apply under the K permit (it is no longer legal to volunteer under a K permit).  The kicker here was the cost of this D class visa.  The Application cost is 400,000KHS…. WHAT? Choke choke choke choke.  WHAT!?  My stomach just dropped when I first saw that amount as it is approximately 4819AUD!!!!  Nearly FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  It is a 2 year visa, but there was no way I was going to pay that-it is ridiculous.  Based on that I would be prepared to just stay on the tourist visa and skip out of the country every 3 months-this would be cheaper than paying for the correct permit assuming that I wanted to volunteer/work in Kenya but then that wouldn’t help with my vision to become a citizen as the tourist visa doesn’t count towards the 7 year time frame.  But the cost does not stop there for the D class.  A new rule has recently been introduced where you will need to have clearance from the NGO board before you can apply at immigration. So for someone like myself who wants to volunteer in Kenya, the applicant that is being employed by an NGO, whether paid or on a volunteer basis, must first be cleared by the NGO Board.  The NGO Board will provide the applicant with a clearance letter which the applicant will then include as part of the documents required for by Immigration.  The NGO Board meets ONCE a month to clear applicants so it is, therefore, important that applicants submit their applications way in advance of the start date of employment or visa application and that is an additional cost of for the application at a cost of KES 20,000 (240AUD).  But wait the cost doesn’t finish there.  To complete the last of the paper work you are also required to pay a security bond of usually KES 100,000 (1204AUD) to be made into a Kenyan bank account which is to be done once the work permit is approved.  Add to that the immigration advisor bill of 80,000KSH (963AUD) and the processing fee (non-refundable) of KES 10,000 (120AUD) the grand total comes to, and I hope that you are sitting down, a TOTAL of 7830AUD (1204 of that in my account) but SEVEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY………………………………………………………………

THAT threw a spanner in my wanting to be here on the right kind of visa.  I had checked the immigration web site and I thought I would be eligible for the K class visa.  So I asked IA about that and was told that the Class K permit is not an easy one to gain as officials are extremely picky about individuals retiring in Kenya due to the large amount of people who have illegally started working on a Class K permit. The ‘official’ wording of the application requirements are:

“Independently wealthy foreigners wishing to settle in Kenya need a class K permit. They have to submit proof of sufficient income.  They should have in their own right and at their full and fee disposition on assured annual income derived from sources outside Kenya and will be remitted to Kenya or derived from property situated, or a pension or annuity payable from a sufficient investment capital to produce such assured income that will be brought into and invested in Kenya.

Applicants for Entry/Work Permit(s) of this class must undertake not to accept paid employment of any kind should they be granted Entry/Work of this class”.

This class of permit is issued to a person who has an assured income derived from sources outside and undertakes NOT to accept paid employment of any kind.  I thought this was perfect for me and after giving some more information to IA about my financial history I was told that I had a good chance of getting the K class permit, which is great news all round as the breakup for this permit is:

200,000KSH for the actual 2 year visa

  10,000KSH for the processing fee

  80,000KSH for the IA fee

100,000KSH for the bond into my account

Giving us a grand total of 4700AUD- keeping in mind that 1200AUD of that will be in my own back account here.  It is still a lot of money, but it looks better than 7830AUD right!!!  You do have the option to apply for a one year permit which is half the cost of the 2 year, but then knowing that I will be staying on it doesn’t seem worth it as I would have to pay the IA fees again after 12 months, so I have decided to apply for the K class, hope that my investments get me over the line and the approval needed and when push comes to shove I’ll get the 2 year permit to be sure.  My IA seems confident that I will get the K class, and the only thing I lose should it not be approved is the 10,000KSH fee and the IA fees.  If it is not approved I am not sure what I will do, but I won’t stress about that until the time comes and I am just going to send positive vibes out that the K class will be approved.  My IA gave some last words of advice to seal the deal and if I chose to process the Work Permit application on my own, I would be at the mercy of the officials who are notorious for foul play with expats’ applications. Officials will tell you it will take about 2 months but from our frequent experience, most expats who have approached us for help had been waiting for a year…….. I didn’t want to say that she had me at the first email, that she was preaching to the converted and I can see the value in her services in what can be quite a stressful process.

My only gripe is that I am going to be out of Kenya for the last 4 months of the year and when you are paying BIG bucks for a visa you would want to at least be in the country, as I see it as a waste of money and was going to apply for the permit in January upon my return from Australia.  But not really knowing the time frame, even though my IA was confident it would only take 4 weeks, there is the small possibility of it not being approved and I would want to know that before I head out on my West Africa trip in September.  It will give me time to think and work out what my next step will be and I will have time to think about it while I am on the road.  The way time is ticking, by the time I submit my application sometime in July, add on 4 weeks for processing makes it sometime in August and then once the visa is approved you are given 4 weeks to make the payment, taking us into the month of September and I am happy to basically forfeit October, November and December to have it all dusted by the end of the year.  I am also assuming that there would be an influx of people in January with new expats entering the country on new contracts and new permits to issue, fix and extend and I would think it would be immigration's busiest time of year.  Yes I think now is the time to get this ball rolling.   

So wish me luck people.  Cross your fingers and toes and I will keep you all updated.