Moving to Kenya from Australia

Our residency index: 60/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Kenya is for Australian citizens, based on the routes Kenya publishes. Long-term residence is realistic via the Class K ordinary-residents permit for self-funded retirees with assured passive income, the Class G investor permit for those starting or buying into a business, or employer-sponsored work permits, with permanent residence available after several years.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Income: about $2,000 a month (Class K (Ordinary Residents) permit, assured income USD 24,000/year (USD 2,000/mo), applicant must be 35+; as of June 2026)
• Investment: about $100k (Class G (Investor) permit, minimum capital USD 100,000 invested in a registered Kenyan business; as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, Australian passport holders need an e-visa or eTA before a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold Australian passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.

1. 1

   1. Nairobi

   67% match

   Est. cost

   €2,159/mo

   Avg temp

   19°C

   Safety index

   42/100

2. 2

   2. Nakuru

   66% match

   Est. cost

   €2,025/mo

   Avg temp

   19°C

   Safety index

   42/100

3. 3

   3. Mombasa

   55% match

   Est. cost

   €2,075/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   42/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €2,025 a month in Nakuru to €2,159 in Nairobi. For comparison, we estimate €4,094 a month in Melbourne. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Kenya is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); Australia is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in Australia after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Best places to live in Africa
• Cheapest cities to live abroad
• Best cities for a couple on €2,500 a month

• Moving to Kenya from the US
• Moving to Kenya from the UK
• Moving to Kenya from Canada
• Moving to Kenya from Ireland
• Moving to Kenya from New Zealand

Every country and origin we cover

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

• Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
• Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
• City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding Australian passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
• Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
• Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.