The Employment Contract in Kenya: What the Law Requires, What It Implies, and What a Well-Drafted One Adds

In brief

• Kenyan law does not leave the employment contract to the parties. The Employment Act prescribes when the contract must be written, what particulars it must contain, and a floor of rights that applies whether the document mentions them or not.
• The internet is full of Kenyan employment contract templates, and most of the ones that rank in search were written for other countries, other decades or no country at all. A contract that misses the statutory particulars is not a lean document, it is an employer’s liability dressed as one.
• The clauses that actually protect a business, on confidentiality, intellectual property, data protection and restraint, are the ones no statute writes for you, and they only work if they are drafted for Kenyan law and for the job in question.

The employment contract is the most consequential commercial document most Kenyan businesses sign, and the one they spend the least on. A supplier agreement worth two hundred thousand shillings gets a lawyer; the hire who will handle the company’s money, customers and secrets for years gets a template somebody found online. This guide sets out what the Employment Act, 2007 actually requires of the document, the terms the law writes into every employment relationship whether the paper mentions them or not, and the clauses a well-advised employer adds because no statute will add them for it. It is written for employers, but an employee reading an offer letter tonight will find it answers the same questions from the other side of the table.

When the law requires writing, and whose job the document is

A contract of service for three months or more, or for work that cannot be completed within three months, must be in writing, and the Act places the duty of preparing it on the employer. An employee who cannot read or understand the document is entitled to have it explained in a language they understand, with the explanation acknowledged. Two consequences follow that employers routinely miss. First, the absence of a written contract is the employer’s breach, not the employee’s problem, and when a dispute later turns on what was agreed, the tribunal resolves the uncertainty against the party whose statutory job the writing was. Second, oral employment is still employment. Every protection in the Act, from notice to unfair termination, attaches to the relationship, not to the paper, so an employer who avoided a contract has avoided nothing except the evidence that might have helped it.

The particulars the Act prescribes

The Act lists the particulars every written contract must state, and they read like a checklist because that is how they should be used. The names of employer and employee, the date employment began, the job description, the place and hours of work, the remuneration, its components and the intervals at which it is paid, and the entitlements to leave, among others. Where any particular changes during employment, the change must be recorded and the record given to the employee. None of this is onerous, which makes its absence from so many working contracts the more striking. The particular that does the most quiet work is remuneration and its components, because the split between basic pay and allowances drives the arithmetic of overtime, leave pay, service dues and the statutory deductions, and a contract that states one round figure has deferred those questions to the day they are hardest to answer. On the deductions themselves, our guide to the 2026 payslip works the figures from gross to net, and it explains why the contract should always speak in gross.

The terms the law implies whether you write them or not

Beneath every Kenyan employment contract sits a floor of statutory terms that the parties cannot contract below, and a drafter who knows the floor stops wasting ink restating it badly. Annual leave of twenty-one working days with full pay after each consecutive twelve months of service. Sick leave, after two months of service, of seven days with full pay and seven days with half pay in each twelve months, on production of a certificate. Maternity leave of three months with full pay, with the employee’s right to return to the job she held, and paternity leave of two weeks. Housing, or a housing allowance, unless the computation of wages already accounts for it. An itemised pay statement. Notice of termination which, for monthly-paid employees, is twenty-eight days unless the contract provides a longer period, because shorter is not an option the law allows. A contract may always be more generous than the floor; the common drafting error is the opposite one, a clause copied from a foreign template that offers fourteen days of annual leave or at-will termination, both of which are simply void here, and both of which tell a tribunal exactly how much care went into the rest of the document.

Probation, fixed terms and casuals, where the templates go wrong

Three categories of employment attract special rules, and they are where the downloaded templates fail most expensively. A probationary period must be stated in the contract, may not exceed six months, and may be extended only with the employee’s agreement for a further period not exceeding six months, with termination during probation on seven days’ notice. Probation that was never written down does not exist, and an employer who treats month eight as probation because the letter said so is already in breach. A fixed-term contract ends when it says it ends, but an employer who renews it year after year and then declines to renew should take advice before assuming the expiry does the work of a termination, because the courts have been willing to look hard at serial renewals, and the safest fixed term is one genuinely tied to a project, a season or a defined need. And casual employment, paid by the day, converts by operation of law once the engagement becomes continuous over months, at which point the casual acquires the rights of a term employee whether or not anyone updated the paperwork. The business that runs on perpetual casuals is not running a lean labour model, it is accumulating undocumented employees.

The clauses no statute writes for you

Everything above is the floor. What a well-drafted contract adds is the ceiling, the protections the employer only gets if it asks for them. Confidentiality that survives termination and defines what is confidential, rather than gesturing at everything. Intellectual property vesting, because the presumption that work product belongs to the employer is narrower than most founders assume, and an invention clause costs a paragraph now or a lawsuit later. Data protection consents and obligations running both ways, which the Data Protection Act has turned from boilerplate into compliance. A disciplinary and grievance procedure, or an incorporation of the staff handbook that contains one, so that when trouble comes the process the Act requires has a map to follow. And restraint of trade, the most misunderstood clause in Kenyan employment drafting, because a non-compete is enforceable here only so far as it is reasonable in scope, geography and time and protects a legitimate interest rather than merely preventing competition. The twelve-month, country-wide, all-work restraint in the average template is unenforceable comfort; a six-month restraint on soliciting the clients the employee actually served is a clause a court can uphold. The difference between the two is drafting, which is to say, the difference is advice.

The mistakes that generate the disputes

A short and honest list from the matters that reach this desk. Contracts that state net salary, which make the employer the insurer of every future statutory rate rise. Job descriptions so vague that redeployment becomes constructive dismissal. Consultants who are employees in everything but the heading, because the test is control and integration, not the label, and the misclassification surfaces precisely when the relationship sours and the statutory claims arrive with it. Termination clauses that promise procedure the employer never intends to follow, which is worse than silence, because the employer is then held to its own document. And the offer letter that differs from the contract that differs from the handbook, leaving three versions of the same promise for a tribunal to choose between. Every one of these is cheaper to fix at signing than at hearing, which is the whole argument for treating the employment contract as the legal document it is. Where the relationship has already broken, the position on dismissal and its remedies is set out by our employment and labour practice.

What happens next

Employment legislation is rarely still. The statutory deductions have moved every February for four years, the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2025 has put new obligations on employers, and the regulation of remote and platform work is plainly coming. A contract drafted this year should be reviewed when the law moves, and a staff handbook even more so, because the handbook is where most employers keep the detail the contract incorporates. I will take up redundancy, dismissal and the employer’s disciplinary process in the coming instalments of this series.

Frequently asked questions

Is a verbal employment contract valid in Kenya?

The employment relationship is valid and fully protected, but for engagements of three months or more the law requires writing and places that duty on the employer. The missing document is the employer’s breach, and disputes about unwritten terms tend to be resolved against the employer for that reason.

What must an employment contract in Kenya contain?

The statutory particulars: the parties, start date, job description, place and hours of work, remuneration and its components and payment intervals, and leave entitlements, among others, together with any probation stated within the lawful limits. Everything else is drafting.

Can an employer change the terms of employment unilaterally?

No. Varied terms must be recorded and consent obtained, and a unilateral change to fundamentals such as pay, role or station can amount to constructive dismissal. Changes are negotiated and documented, not announced.

What notice applies if the contract says nothing?

For employees paid monthly, twenty-eight days under the Act. The contract can lengthen that period but cannot shorten it, and pay in lieu of notice is permitted.

Is a non-compete clause enforceable in Kenya?

Only to the extent it is reasonable and protects a legitimate business interest. Narrow restraints on soliciting clients or staff, for a modest period, are the clauses that survive scrutiny; blanket bans on working in an industry rarely do.

Peter Maina is a Partner of Peter Maina & Company Advocates. This article states the law as at 12 October 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. For the drafting or review of employment contracts and handbooks, reach out on e-mail peter@pmlaw.co.ke or WhatsApp +254 714 644 080.