Money in Kenya for Visitors: Cash, Cards and M-PESA

Kenya takes three kinds of money, and a visitor needs all three: Kenyan shillings in notes from 50 to 1,000, a bank card for anything you pay online, and M-PESA on a Safaricom line for shops, tips and the small payments of daily life. The one place cash fails outright is a national park gate. Kenya Wildlife Service takes park fees through its KWSPay portal by M-Pesa, Visa card or bank transfer, not in notes at the barrier. If you carry a foreign passport you can open an M-PESA wallet, but only at a Safaricom Shop, not at the agent kiosks on every street. Below: what each way of paying covers, how to register, the limits and fees Safaricom publishes, and which notes to carry.

Park gates are cashless: pay on KWSPay or book a tour with fees included

Kenya Wildlife Service answers the question itself. If you are on a package tour, your operator includes park entry in the price. If you organise your own visit, you pay in advance on KWSPay, the official KWS platform for park entry, permits and licences, and the accepted methods are M-Pesa, Visa card and direct bank transfer through Kenya Commercial Bank, ABSA or Equity Bank. Which fee you pay depends on your passport and residency; our guide to citizen, resident and regional rates explains who qualifies for which tier, and Nairobi National Park entry fees and opening times gives the numbers for the park most visitors see first.

The easiest way round the gate is a tour that bundles the fee. The Nairobi National Park Half-Day Game Drive with Excellent GameSpotting Adventures is US$95 per person when six to fifteen of you travel together (US$205 solo, US$135 each for two or three, US$105 each for four or five), and Nairobi National Park entrance fees, the driver-guide, the vehicle and hotel or airport pickup are all in that price. You wait in your hotel lobby before the confirmed pickup time and choose a morning or afternoon start. Food, drinks and tips are not included, and a hotel outside the pickup zone adds a US$30 transfer surcharge.

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Experience

Nairobi National Park Half-Day Game Drive

An early-morning or afternoon half-day game drive in Nairobi National Park, the wildlife reserve on the capital’s doorstep. After hotel or airport pickup, a professional driver-guide enters the park for approximately three hours of game viewing across open plains, forest, valleys and scrub. Possible sightings include black or white rhino, lion, buffalo, cheetah, giraffe, zebra, antelope and extensive birdlife; elephants are not resident in this park and no wildlife sighting is guaranteed. The official product detail table captured 5 August 2026 starts at USD 95 per person for six to fifteen travelers, with USD 205 solo, USD 135 each for two to three, and USD 105 each for four to five. The page headline separately advertises “from USD 85,” but because its detailed table does not contain an USD 85 tier, Visatile uses the verifiable USD 95 table rate. Tripadvisor lists Excellent GameSpotting Adventures at 5.0/5 from 136 operator reviews. Feedback about its Nairobi wildlife outings highlights knowledgeable guides, punctual pickup, careful photo positioning and rhino and bird sightings.

per person · 4 hours

$95

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Cheaper group tours often leave the fee out. Wango Trail's Nairobi National Park Sunrise Group Safari is US$75 per person for a shared pop-up-roof van, a driver-guide, hotel pickup between about 5:30 and 6:00 AM and bottled water, but park entry is paid separately at the official rate for your age and residency. Budget for it before you book, and have M-PESA or a card ready rather than notes.

Self-guided park visits work the same way. Hike the Mt Longonot Crater Rim covers Mount Longonot National Park entry only: KES 500 for a Kenyan citizen adult, with the resident, African-citizen and non-resident tiers converted from KWS's dollar rates at checkout. You arrive with identification for the tier you booked, gates open at 6:00 AM and close at 6:00 PM, the minimum age is 10, and single-use plastic is prohibited inside Kenya's national parks. Transport, a guide, water and food are yours to arrange.

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Experience

Hike the Mt Longonot Crater Rim

Climb the steep volcanic slopes of Mt Longonot and earn a wide-open view across the Great Rift Valley. The trail rises through rugged ridges to the crater rim, where the mountain opens into a deep forested interior and the landscape stretches in every direction. Turn back after the viewpoint or continue around the rim if weather, daylight and fitness allow. This listing covers park entry for the selected visitor category. It is a self-guided visit, so transport, a guide, water and hiking gear need to be arranged separately.

per person · Full day

$1.92

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Register M-PESA at a Safaricom Shop, not an agent, if you carry a foreign passport

M-PESA runs on a Safaricom SIM registered in your own name, so start with the SIM (our guide to SIM cards in Kenya covers where to buy one and what the tourist bundles cost). Safaricom's registration page, updated 15 October 2026, sets out the rules that matter to a visitor:

• You must be 18 or older and hold a valid original ID. A foreign passport counts; photocopies and photos of it do not, and nobody can register on your behalf.
• Where you register depends on the document. A Kenyan national ID can be registered at any M-PESA agent or dealer. A Kenyan passport, a foreign passport, an alien ID or a Kenya military ID can only be registered at a Safaricom Shop or Customer Care Desk.
• The name on the SIM registration has to match your passport exactly.
• Registration is free. You get an SMS with a start PIN, then activate the wallet from the Safaricom menu on your phone (M-PESA, then Activate, or Wezesha), enter the ID number or date of birth you registered with, and set your own four-digit PIN. From then on you transact by dialling *334# or through Safaricom's app.

Two safety lines worth copying into your notes: Safaricom says it only calls customers from 0722 000 000, and a suspicious SMS can be forwarded to 333. The Hakikisha prompt shows the recipient's name before a payment goes through, which is how you avoid sending money to a mistyped number.

M-PESA is free to load and cheap to spend, up to KES 500,000

Safaricom's tariff page, last updated 4 August 2026, gives the ceilings: a maximum balance of KES 500,000, a daily transaction limit of KES 500,000 and a maximum of KES 250,000 per transaction. Deposits at an agent are free, as are registration, buying airtime, checking your balance and changing your PIN. The catch for travellers in a group is that an agent can only deposit into your own registered account, not into a friend's, so each person who wants a wallet needs their own line. For cash deposits and withdrawals the accepted IDs include a foreign passport, and there are more than 160,000 agents countrywide.

Paying a shop is the cheap part. A Lipa na M-PESA Buy Goods till costs the customer nothing at any amount; the merchant pays the charge. Sending money to another M-PESA user is free up to KES 100 and then climbs from KES 7 to a flat KES 108 above KES 20,000. Taking cash back out is where the fees sit, whether at an agent or at an ATM.

The practical reading of that table: load the wallet once with what you expect to spend on shops, taxis and tips, pay tills directly, and avoid turning M-PESA balance back into cash more than you must. Small traders without a till may use Pochi la Biashara, a merchant wallet that Safaricom lists with its own band of charges from zero on amounts up to KES 200 to KES 50 on anything from KES 2,500 up, on a tariff it dates from 1 August 2026.

Shillings come in five notes, and the pre-2019 KES 1,000 note is no longer valid

The Central Bank of Kenya's currency page lists the banknotes in circulation as 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1,000 shillings, and the coins as 50 cents, 1, 5, 10, 20 and 40 shillings. The current notes were issued in June 2019 with new security features, and the old 1,000-shilling note was withdrawn by gazette notice on 31 May 2019, so a note from an older series is not money. A torn or marked note is replaceable at a commercial bank or the Central Bank if it is genuine, more than half of it is intact and continuous, and it carries at least one complete serial number; the bank is not obliged to exchange it and will not exchange a counterfeit at any value.

For a sense of scale, the Central Bank's indicative rates posted on 30 October 2026 were KES 129.95 to the US dollar, KES 173.20 to the pound and KES 144.74 to the euro. Bureaux and banks set their own buying and selling rates around those figures, so treat them as the midpoint, not the price you will get.

Our prices show the currency the host charges in

Experiences on Visatile are priced in whatever currency the host works in, which is why a Nairobi game drive appears in US dollars and a forest zipline in shillings. The Kereita Forest Flying Fox Zip Tour at The Forest Adventure Centre in Limuru is KES 2,100 per person for roughly 750 metres across two lines, about 45 minutes including the harness fitting and briefing, with a minimum height of 1.4 metres and a maximum weight of 115 kilograms. Booking is required; arrive at least 15 minutes early in trousers and closed shoes. Food is not included and picnics are not allowed, so lunch is bought at the on-site restaurant, which is exactly the kind of purchase you want a loaded M-PESA wallet or small notes for. Public activity days are Thursday to Sunday and public holidays, with sessions from 9:00 AM and the last starting at 4:00 PM.

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Experience

Kereita Forest Flying Fox Zip Tour

Clip in, step off and glide above the Kereita Forest canopy on an exhilarating two-line Flying Fox tour. The route covers approximately 750 metres and takes about 45 minutes including setup and briefing. The activity team handles the harness, helmet and safety checks so you can focus on the views, the speed and that first brave step into open air.

per person · 45 minutes

$16.17

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More on Kenya: SIM Cards in Kenya: Where to Get One and What to Expect, Kenya Visitor Rates: Citizen, Resident and Regional Eligibility, Nairobi National Park Entry Fees and Opening Times, Tipping in Africa: A Country-by-Country Guide and Getting Around Kenya Solo.

Prices checked 1 November 2026.