Informal workers in Kenya can lose as much as 20 per cent of their daily earnings to bribes demanded by frontline officials, adding to the financial pressures facing people who depend on daily income, the World Bank has warned.
In its November 2026 Kenya Economic Update, the lender said informal workers frequently face demands for payments from institutions such as traffic police and municipal inspectors. These demands reduce what workers take home and increase uncertainty for people operating in an already unstable income environment.
The report identifies boda boda riders and informal traders among those exposed to such demands. For workers whose earnings depend on completing trips, selling goods or accessing public spaces, even relatively small payments can take a significant share of the money earned in a day.
The burden comes on top of other challenges facing informal workers, including difficulty raising initial capital and volatile incomes. Corruption further reduces what the report describes as their post-corruption earnings, making it harder for workers to build savings or expand their activities.
Kenya’s informal economy accounts for 83.8 per cent of the workforce, according to the report. This means that demands for informal payments affect a substantial part of the country’s working population, particularly those who operate outside formal employment arrangements.
The World Bank said corruption can deepen the disadvantages faced by informal workers by increasing the cost of doing business and creating uncertainty around routine interactions with public institutions. Workers may have limited options to challenge demands or seek redress without risking disruption to their livelihoods.
The report recommends reducing opportunities for corruption in day-to-day public administration. Among the proposed measures are clearer rules for inspections, streamlined procedures and stronger complaints mechanisms for informal vendors facing overly aggressive enforcement.
It also calls for digital and administrative reforms that reduce official discretion and make government services more predictable. Such measures would need to be implemented consistently so that workers can access services without being pressured to make unofficial payments.
Reducing these costs could leave informal workers with a greater share of their earnings and improve the conditions in which small businesses and self-employment operate.
The World Bank’s analysis places the protection of informal livelihoods among the wider governance reforms needed to improve productivity, incomes and job creation in Kenya.
