Around 16% of land parcels across the country lack documents to support ownership, delaying meaningful development and exposing them to legal battles.
By last year, 15.9% of owners had no ownership documents, the second proportion after 66% of parcels traced by title deeds, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics’ (KNBS) 2025 Economic Survey.
Land ownership documents in Kenya are critical for establishing legal rights, promoting secure tenure, and facilitating economic development.
Rural areas have the highest rate of homeownership in the country, far above urban areas where the highest proportion are households paying rent or leasing.
According to the survey, land parcels with lease documents (Certificate of lease and short-term lease) accounted for 1.3% while 6.9% of all parcels had sale agreements, 3.3% had allotment letters and 1.2% had share certificates. However, 0.4% of parcels had no clear ownership documents.
Land documentation through settlement scheme legal documents, share certificate, trust deed, sectional title and power of attorney accounted for 0.5%, 1.2%, 0.2%, 0.2% and 0.1% respectively.
Home Ownership
The 2023/24 Kenya Housing and Real Estate Survey shows that nationally, 61.3% of the households are homeowners, while 33.4% pay rent/lease. Households in rural areas have higher rates of home ownership (85.5%) compared to households in urban areas (22.8%).
Urban areas have a higher proportion of households paying rent/leasing (72.3%) than rural areas (8.9%). The proportion of home ownership in rural areas is highest in Isiolo (98.0%), Marsabit (97.5%), and Baringo (96.9%), while in urban areas home ownership is highest in Wajir at 87.0%.
The proportion of squatters is highest in Mandera (14.0%), Lamu (9.0%), and Garissa (6.2%). The proportion of tenants who do not pay rent with the consent of owners was highest in Lamu (19.3%), Mandera (18.9%), and Nyandarua (12.0%).
“Bungalows were the dominant type of dwelling unit in the country, accounting for 51.8% of all dwelling unit. Swahili/compound houses with shared facilities followed with a share of 21.2%,” KNBS noted in the survey.
“Nationally, households paying rent spent 36.9% of their household expenditure on rent. As expected, households in urban areas spent a higher proportion of their household expenditure on rent compared to rural renting households at 38.0% and 29.6%, respectively.”
The survey findings also indicate that county governments take between 1 and 50 days to approve building plans, with 30 of them taking 14 days and below.