Sick leave rules for Kenyan employers
The paid sick leave the Kenyan Employment Act requires, when an employee qualifies, the medical certificate rule and how to record it properly.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in Kenya
An employee calls in on a Monday morning with a fever. By Wednesday they are still unwell, and the supervisor wants to know two things: does this come out of annual leave, and is the business still paying them?
Kenyan law answers both questions in the Employment Act. Sick leave is a separate entitlement from annual leave, part of it is on full pay, part on half pay, and the employer is entitled to see a medical certificate. Getting it wrong in either direction causes trouble: underpay a sick employee and you are in breach of the Act; let undocumented absences slide and you lose track of who is owed what.
Who qualifies
Section 30 of the Employment Act, as published on Kenya Law, ties sick leave to service. An employee qualifies once they have two consecutive months of service with the employer. A new hire who falls ill in their first weeks is therefore not yet covered by the statutory entitlement, although nothing stops an employer from being more generous by contract.
Once the two months are complete, the entitlement applies in each twelve months of employment. It does not wait for a full year, and it is not the same clock as annual leave, which section 27 sets at a minimum of twenty-one working days with full pay after every twelve consecutive months of service. Keep the two separate in your records and in your conversations with staff: a sick day is not a holiday day.
Full pay, then half pay
The Act sets a floor, not a ceiling. In each twelve months, a qualifying employee is entitled to sick leave of at least seven days on full pay, and then at least seven days on half pay.
A worked example in words: a qualifying employee is off sick for a long stretch, with a certificate. The first seven days of sick leave in that twelve-month period are paid in full. The next seven are paid at half the employee's pay. Anything beyond that is outside the statutory minimum, and how it is treated depends on the contract, the company's policy or an agreement with the employee.
Many employers offer more than the minimum. If yours does, write it into the contract or the staff handbook so that supervisors apply it the same way to everyone.
Medical certificates
The entitlement in section 30 applies on production of a medical certificate. That is the employer's protection: it may ask for a certificate before treating the absence as paid sick leave.
A clear policy saves arguments. Say in writing when the certificate must be handed in, to whom, and what happens if it is not provided. Apply the same rule to the managing director's nephew as to the newest packer in the warehouse. Where an employee cannot get a certificate quickly, for example because they are too unwell to travel, decide how you will handle it before the situation arises.
Recording sick leave in Achekam
The Act also requires a written record. Section 74 obliges the employer to keep a record for each employee that includes leave taken and due, maternity and sick leave, rest days and warning letters, and to let an authorised officer inspect the records for the preceding thirty-six months. The detail of that inspection is covered in employee records a labour officer can ask for.
Achekam's payroll keeps sick leave as its own leave type, alongside annual, family responsibility and unpaid leave, with monthly accrual. Because the Act frames sick leave as an entitlement in each twelve months rather than something earned month by month, check an employee's sick leave balance against the Act's entitlement before declining a request on the strength of the number on screen.
Approvals follow a simple rule: a line manager approves their own team's leave, and nobody approves their own. That stops a supervisor quietly booking their own sick days without anyone seeing them.
The pay side needs a deliberate decision. Achekam does not cut pay automatically for unpaid leave; payroll is warned and decides. Bring the same care to sick days that fall into the half-pay week: payroll should confirm how they are treated in that run rather than assume.
Applications through self-service
Where a staff member's login is linked to their payroll record, they can apply for leave themselves through self-service, as well as download their own payslips and submit expense claims or changes to their details for payroll to decide. For sick leave, that means the employee, or a family member helping them, can lodge the application from home, and the manager sees it in their team's queue.
Ask employees to note in the application when the medical certificate will follow, and keep the certificate with the leave record so the two can be matched when a labour officer, or your own auditor, asks.
Patterns worth a conversation
Most sick leave is exactly what it looks like. Occasionally the record shows a pattern: absences that cluster around weekends or public holidays, or a run of short absences without certificates. Good practice is to treat that as a reason to talk, not a reason to accuse.
- Look at the record over the full twelve months, not just the last absence.
- Check whether certificates were provided and whether the full-pay and half-pay days were applied correctly.
- Meet the employee privately and ask whether something is affecting their health or attendance.
- Record the conversation and any agreed support, and keep any warning letter in the employee's file as section 74 expects.
Before your next payroll run, pull the sick leave taken so far this year for each employee and check it against the Act's seven-plus-seven floor. Related rules on annual leave and rest days are in annual leave and rest days under Kenyan law, and leave around a birth or adoption is covered in maternity, paternity and pre-adoptive leave in Kenya.
The full text of sections 27 to 30 and 74 is in the Employment Act on Kenya Law, which is the version to quote in your staff handbook.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
