How to pay Kenyan university fees via M-PESA: the complete 2026 directory

Paying university fees in Kenya looks simple from the outside (open M-PESA, enter the paybill, type your reference, send) but the system has two distinct routes that trip up new students every semester. Get the wrong route and your money lands in a holding account that the finance office has to manually post, which can delay registration by days. This guide lists every paybill we have verified for Kenyan universities and colleges, the account-format conventions that differ across institutions, and the small mistakes that cause most of the "I paid but the portal still says unpaid" cases.

The two payment systems

Kenyan universities fall into two groups for M-PESA payments:

1. eCitizen Single Payment (paybill 222222)

Most public universities and a few state-funded colleges route through paybill 222222, the Government of Kenya Single Payment shortcode administered via the eCitizen Jiunge platform. The flow has two steps:

1. Log in to your university's student portal (each public university has its own, named differently: SMIS at UoN, ERMS at JKUAT, Student Self-Service at Egerton, etc.) and generate a fee-payment reference. The portal returns a unique code that encodes the institution and your student record.
2. Pay paybill 222222 on M-PESA using that generated code as the account number.

The government settlement engine reads the code, routes the cash to the correct institution, and the institution posts it to your fee balance. Reflection time is usually under an hour, sometimes longer over weekends and holidays.

2. Direct university paybill

Every private university has its own paybill, often routed through a bank (Stanbic runs Strathmore's, I&M runs USIU's). Three public universities also still operate a direct paybill alongside the 222222 route: University of Nairobi (300059) and Moi University (883183). Kenyatta University does not: it routes everything through the payment link in its student portal. The account format varies by institution; most use your student or registration number directly, some require a bank-prefix code (Strathmore: 99020 then your student number).

Direct paybills usually reflect faster (5 to 30 minutes) because there's no government clearing layer between Safaricom and the university bank account.

The exact steps to pay

Universal flow that works for both routes, with the branching point at step 2.

1. Open M-PESA. SIM toolkit on any Safaricom phone, M-PESA app, or Safaricom OneApp. All three work; the menu structures are slightly different.
2. Generate (or look up) your account reference.
   • If your university uses 222222: log in to your student portal first, navigate to the fee-payment section, enter the amount, and copy the code the portal generates. This step is non-negotiable; without the code, your payment lands in the wrong bucket.
   • If your university has its own paybill: your account is typically your registration number or student number (see table below for exact format). Triple-check on your admission letter or invoice.
3. Choose Lipa na M-PESA, then Pay Bill. (Buy Goods is for tills, not paybills; do not use it here.)
4. Enter the business number (the paybill) from the directory below.
5. Enter the account number exactly as your portal or invoice showed it. Copy-paste rather than typing wherever possible.
6. Enter the amount in KES, your M-PESA PIN, and confirm.
7. Wait for two SMS confirmations: one from M-PESA confirming the payment, one from your university (or the eCitizen platform) confirming the credit. The second message can take up to an hour for 222222 payments.

Public university directory

All paybills below verified May 2026. Click any university name to open its dedicated page with deeper detail, payment troubleshooting, and links to the official student portal.

Private university directory

Private universities have their own paybills, often routed through a partner bank. Account formats vary; check the institution-specific page for the exact rule.

Colleges and professional schools

State-funded colleges also route through paybill 222222 via eCitizen. Three commonly searched ones:

• Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC): paybill 222222, KMTC student/admission number as account. See our KMTC fees guide for campus differences and HELB funding.
• Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC): paybill 222222, KIMC student/admission number as account.
• Kenya School of Law (KSL): paybill 222222, KSL admission/student number as account. See our KSL fees guide for ATP and pupillage fee structure.

Account-format conventions

Three distinct patterns show up across Kenyan universities, and getting the right one is the single biggest cause of payment delays:

1. Portal-generated payment reference (most public universities, paybill 222222). A unique code per payment, encoding the institution and your record. The code is regenerated each session in your student portal. Do not reuse old codes; they may have expired or already been applied.
2. Plain student or registration number (most private universities and three publics). Your admission number or registration number, copied exactly from your admission letter or student card. Punctuation matters: D61/1234/2019 is not the same as D6112342019.
3. Bank-prefix + student number (Strathmore, MKU, a few others). A fixed prefix issued by the partner bank, then your student number. Strathmore: 99020 + 6-digit student number. MKU: 989500 + student ID. Get this wrong and the payment lands at the bank but not at the school's sub-account.

Common mistakes that delay fee reflection

1. Paying 222222 without generating a portal reference first. The payment reaches the government collection account but cannot be auto-routed to your institution. Recovery requires the finance office to do a manual lookup using your M-PESA transaction code.
2. Typing the reference instead of copy-pasting. A single transposed digit silently misroutes the payment. Always copy-paste from the portal.
3. Using an old or expired reference for a new payment. Generate a fresh code per payment, especially across semesters.
4. Confusing fee categories. Most universities use the same paybill for tuition, accommodation, examination, and graduation, but the portal reference encodes the category. Generate a fresh reference per fee type.
5. Paying close to a deadline. Fee reflection can take up to 4 hours on 222222 over weekends and holidays. Pay at least 24 hours before any registration or graduation cutoff.
6. Paying via Buy Goods instead of Pay Bill. A surprisingly common mistake when the kiosk has both options visible. Buy Goods routes to a till, which does not credit to the same university account. Always choose Pay Bill.
7. Missing the difference between similar paybills. 222222 (government Single Payment) and 222100 (older eCitizen variant) are not the same. Confirm the last six digits before sending.

HELB, scholarships, and what you pay out of pocket

Most Kenyan undergraduates qualify for HELB (Higher Education Loans Board) support, and many also receive partial scholarships. The split usually works like this:

• HELB tuition portion: paid directly by HELB to the university per semester, on a fixed disbursement calendar. You do not handle this; check your student portal after disbursement to see the HELB credit reflected.
• HELB upkeep portion: paid directly to your M-PESA, used at your discretion for accommodation, food, books, and personal expenses.
• Your out-of-pocket fee: invoice total minus HELB tuition portion minus any scholarship. This is what you pay via M-PESA each semester. Confirm the figure with the finance office before paying; HELB disbursements occasionally arrive late and you may need to pay a smaller portion if the credit lands after registration.

See our HELB repayment guide for the post-graduation flow (HELB now takes repayments through eCitizen: on *642# choose Loan Repayment, then Mpesa, and confirm the PIN prompt).

Paying from abroad (diaspora students and parents)

Three paths work consistently:

1. M-PESA Global: if you hold a registered M-PESA account overseas (UK, USA, UAE, South Africa, and other supported countries), pay the university paybill directly. Same flow as paying from Kenya, with a small FX margin in the Safaricom rate.
2. Send to a Kenyan family member who pays the paybill: for many corridors this is cheaper than M-PESA Global FX. Wise vs Sendwave is the usual decision; Wise wins on larger amounts (above KES 50,000 equivalent), Sendwave is faster for smaller monthly transfers.
3. Direct international bank transfer: every Kenyan university also accepts SWIFT/USD wire to their settlement bank account, listed on the fee structure document. Useful for full annual prepayments; less practical for monthly installments because of wire fees.

See our cheapest send-to-Kenya guide for current corridor pricing.

How we verified these paybills

Each entry above links to a paybill-specific page on paybillke. Every paybill in our directory is verified against at least one of: the institution's official finance-office page, a publicly-listed fee-payment instruction on the university site, the Safaricom Mobile Banking Codes 2025 PDF (for bank-routed paybills), or a recent confirmation from a verified student source. Verification status and the sources used are shown on each individual paybill page.

Paybills do occasionally change. If a number on this page does not match what your student portal shows, the portal is authoritative; let us know via the report button on the relevant paybill page and we update within 24 hours.

Resources

• All Kenyan school paybills
• Kenyatta University fees guide
• JKUAT fees guide
• KMTC fees guide
• Kenya School of Law fees
• HELB repayment via M-PESA
• M-PESA fees calculator
• Cheapest way to send money to Kenya (diaspora)