Parents hoping for relief from the quadrupled cost of registering a birth were told on Tuesday to forget it. The Ministry of Interior and National Administration informed the National Assembly that the Sh200 application fee for a birth certificate, introduced in November 2024, "will remain in force", and that it has taken no steps to return to the old Sh50 charge.

The position was contained in a ministry statement read to the House by Gabriel Tongoyo, chairman of the Administration and Internal Security Committee, in response to concerns raised by MPs and a steady stream of public complaints since the new rates took effect.

The inflation argument

Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang, whose docket oversees civil registration, said the Sh50 fee had not been reviewed since 1998. Once inflation over the intervening years is factored in, he argued, Sh200 today is roughly what Sh50 was worth then. "There are no steps taken to restore charges to the previous rates," the statement said.

The ministry also leaned on regional comparisons, telling MPs that a birth certificate costs the equivalent of about Sh320 in Tanzania and about Sh180 in Uganda, so the Kenyan charge sits within the range of its neighbours. Part of the increase, it said, pays for better-quality paper and new security features on the digital-era certificate that is now issued.

What else went up

The 2024 review did not stop at new applications. Other charges that MPs had hoped to see trimmed will also stay:

  • Late registration of a birth: up from Sh350 to Sh500
  • Replacing a lost or damaged certificate: up from Sh90 to Sh1,000
  • Amending details on a certificate: up from Sh130 to Sh1,000

The replacement and amendment fees have drawn the loudest criticism, because they fall on families correcting clerical errors or recovering documents lost to floods, fires and house moves, and because a birth certificate is now a gateway document for school enrolment, national ID applications, passports and the Social Health Authority.

Why it matters

Civil registration is one of the few government services almost every household uses, and the fee row has become a proxy for a wider grievance about the rising cost of dealing with the State. Earlier this year Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen floated the idea of scrapping application fees altogether as registration services are taken closer to citizens; Tuesday's statement makes clear that idea is not being pursued for now.

The ministry did not say whether it would consider waivers for vulnerable groups or bulk registration drives in schools, which previously allowed children to be registered at little or no cost. For now, the message from Harambee House is that the price of being counted at birth is Sh200, and the price of losing the paper is five times that.

Photos: Ministry of Interior via Kenyans.co.ke (PS Belio Kipsang and CS Kipchumba Murkomen at the National Registration Bureau); Kenyans.co.ke (sample digital birth certificate). Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.