NACOSTI Research Permit Kenya: Fees and How to Apply

If you need permission to collect research data in Kenya, the document you are looking for is called a research licence — not a “permit,” although almost everyone searches for it that way. It is issued by NACOSTI (the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation), it is applied for online, it costs between KES 100 and KES 20,000 depending on who you are, and it is valid for one year.

This page answers the four questions people actually ask, in order: how much it costs, how to apply, how long it takes, and how to renew it. Fees are given as a full table by applicant category, because there is no single price.

Where you apply (and a warning about the wrong website)

Applications are made through NACOSTI’s Research Information Management System (RIMS) at research-portal.nacosti.go.ke. Since a platform migration dated 17 November 2023, sign-in to that portal is handled by eCitizen, Kenya’s government single sign-on. You do not create a separate NACOSTI password. See CASRAI’s guide to NACOSTI login and the eCitizen migration for the sign-in steps and what to do if your account will not connect.

A caution worth reading before you search again. At the time of writing, NACOSTI’s main public website at www.nacosti.go.ke is compromised and is serving unrelated foreign gambling content on its home page. This is a real and current problem, not a browser fault at your end. The application portal (research-portal.nacosti.go.ke) and the eCitizen service are separate systems and are unaffected. Go directly to the research portal or to eCitizen; do not enter personal details or card details on the main www site while it is in that state, and do not trust fee figures shown there.

How much is a NACOSTI research licence?

The fee depends on two things: what kind of research you are doing (student attachment, Masters, PhD, post-doctoral, institutional) and your nationality or country of registration. The table below reproduces the service-charge schedule published on NACOSTI’s own application-guidelines page, as accessed in August 2026.

Category of research	Kenyan citizens	EAC countries	Rest of Africa	Non-Africa
Student attachment (undergraduate or diploma)	KES 100	KES 100	KES 200	USD 150
Masters	KES 1,000	KES 1,000	KES 2,000	USD 350
PhD	KES 2,000	KES 2,000	KES 4,000	USD 400
Post-doctoral / individual researcher	KES 5,000	KES 5,000	KES 10,000	USD 500

Three points that catch people out:

• Kenyan citizens and EAC nationals pay the same rate. If you hold citizenship of an East African Community member state, you are not charged the “rest of Africa” rate.
• Non-African applicants are billed in US dollars, not shillings. The USD figures are not conversions of the KES figures — they are a separate, substantially higher schedule. A non-African PhD student pays USD 400 where a Kenyan PhD student pays KES 2,000.
• All fees are non-refundable. NACOSTI’s guidelines state this explicitly. If your application is rejected, you do not get the money back, so it is worth getting the supporting documents right the first time.

Institutional and company rates

NACOSTI also publishes rates for organisations rather than individuals: public institutions, private institutions, and companies, charged in the region of KES 10,000 to KES 20,000. We are being deliberately imprecise here for a reason. The institutional rows of the published table are rendered inconsistently across NACOSTI’s own pages and the third-party sources that reproduce them, with the public-institution and private-institution figures appearing transposed between versions. Rather than print a number that might be wrong, we recommend that institutional and corporate applicants confirm the exact figure on the portal at the point of payment, where the amount due is calculated for the category you actually select. The individual and student rates in the table above are consistent across every source checked and can be relied on.

Separately, NACOSTI opened a public dialogue on research licensing fees in early 2026. Treat all figures on this page as the schedule current in August 2026 and check the portal before budgeting for a future project.

How to apply for a NACOSTI research licence

The sequence matters. In particular, ethical clearance comes before the licence application, not after — this is the single most common reason an application stalls.

1. Get ethical approval first. Your protocol must be approved by an ethics review committee accredited by NACOSTI, normally one attached to a Kenyan university or research institution. You cannot substitute an approval from your home institution abroad. CASRAI’s guide to Kenya’s national research-ethics framework and NACOSTI accreditation explains how committees are accredited and how to identify one.
2. Secure a Kenyan affiliation if you are not Kenyan. Non-Kenyan applicants must supply an affiliation letter from a Kenyan institution. Arrange this early; it commonly takes longer than the licence itself.
3. Create or sign in to your eCitizen account, then open the RIMS portal at research-portal.nacosti.go.ke.
4. Complete the online application and select the category that matches your status. The category you choose determines your fee.
5. Upload the supporting documents (full list below).
6. Pay through the eCitizen payment gateway. Payment is part of the online process; there is no over-the-counter route.
7. Track the application in RIMS and download the licence once approved.

Documents you must upload

• Passport photograph — 2×2 inches, JPG or PNG, under 450 pixels
• Identification — national ID, passport bio-data page, or alien ID, in PDF
• Introductory letter from your university or employing institution
• Affiliation letter from a Kenyan institution — non-Kenyan applicants only
• Grant letter from your funding agency, where the work is funded
• Ethical approval from a NACOSTI-accredited review committee
• Clinical trial approval from the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, if your study is a clinical trial — see CASRAI’s guide to the PPB clinical trial authorisation pathway
• Genetic resources documentation — Prior Informed Consent (PIC), Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT), and a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA), where the research involves genetic material
• Research proposal in PDF
• Payment confirmation

How long does it take?

This is the most-asked question about NACOSTI, and the honest answer is that NACOSTI does not publish a guaranteed processing time. Its application guidelines set out the fees, the documents and the validity period, but state no service-level turnaround, and we will not invent one here.

What you can plan around are the things that are documented and the things that are predictably slow:

• The steps that reliably consume the most time are ethical clearance and, for foreign researchers, obtaining a Kenyan affiliation letter. Both happen before you can submit, and both are outside NACOSTI’s control.
• An application missing a required document will not simply be held — and because fees are non-refundable, a rejection is expensive.
• Build the licence into your project timeline months ahead of fieldwork, not weeks.

If you need a current estimate, ask the Kenyan institution providing your affiliation. University research offices process these continuously and will have a realistic recent figure; NACOSTI’s own published materials will not give you one.

Validity and renewal

A research licence is valid for one (1) year from the date of issuance. Projects lasting longer than a year must be renewed.

To renew:

• Apply at least 30 days before the licence expires. This is a stated requirement, not a suggestion.
• Submit a progress report in place of the research proposal.
• Pay the renewal fee, which follows the same schedule as the original application.

Renewal payments, like initial payments, are non-refundable.

When you do not need a licence

One useful exception: access to the Kenya National Archives in Nairobi does not require a NACOSTI research licence. Purely archival or desk-based work may fall outside the licensing requirement, though anything involving human participants, fieldwork, or the collection of biological or genetic material does not. If your project sits near that boundary, confirm with your affiliating institution rather than assuming.

Frequently asked questions

How much is a NACOSTI permit?

Between KES 100 and roughly KES 20,000, or USD 150 to USD 500 for non-African applicants. A Kenyan Masters student pays KES 1,000; a Kenyan PhD student pays KES 2,000; a non-African PhD student pays USD 400. See the full table above.

How do I apply for a NACOSTI permit?

Online only, through research-portal.nacosti.go.ke, signing in with eCitizen. Obtain ethical clearance from a NACOSTI-accredited committee first, then complete the application, upload the required documents, and pay through the eCitizen gateway.

How long does it take to get a NACOSTI research permit?

NACOSTI does not publish a guaranteed turnaround. Plan on months rather than weeks, because ethical clearance and (for foreign researchers) a Kenyan affiliation letter must be completed before you can even submit.

How do I renew my NACOSTI research permit?

Apply through the same portal at least 30 days before expiry, submit a progress report instead of a proposal, and pay the renewal fee.

Is it called a permit or a licence?

Officially a research licence. “Permit” is the common usage and NACOSTI’s own communications sometimes use it too, so the two terms refer to the same document.

Do I need ethical approval before applying?

Yes. In Kenya, ethical clearance must be in hand before the licence application, and it must come from a committee accredited by NACOSTI.

Can I get a refund if my application is rejected?

No. NACOSTI states that all fees paid for this service are non-refundable.

Related CASRAI resources

• NACOSTI Login and the eCitizen Migration — how sign-in now works and how to fix a failed login
• Kenya’s National Research-Ethics Framework: NACOSTI Accreditation — how to find an accredited ethics committee
• Kenya Clinical Trial Authorization: The Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) Pathway
• NRF Kenya (National Research Fund): Funding Overview
• What Is CUE? Kenya’s Commission for University Education
• KENET: Kenya’s Research and Education Network (NREN) Explained

Sources: NACOSTI Research Information Management System application guidelines and login pages (research-portal.nacosti.go.ke), accessed August 2026, for the service-charge schedule, required documents, one-year validity, and the 30-day renewal requirement; IFRA Nairobi’s research-permits guidance for the ethical-clearance sequencing and the National Archives exception. Fee figures are the schedule published as at August 2026 and are stated in the currency in which NACOSTI bills them. Institutional and company rates are given as a range because published versions of that part of the table are mutually inconsistent; those applicants should confirm the amount at the point of payment. NACOSTI does not publish a processing time, and none is asserted here. NACOSTI’s main www site was compromised at the time of writing and was not used as a source.

Related reading: research project format — A breakdown of the sections every strong research project proposal needs — title through references — with annotated, clearly-labeled illustrative example excerpts and guidance on how structure shifts for grants, theses, and coursework.

Further reading: the national research act of 1974 — The National Research Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-348, 88 Stat.