Ardhisasa Portal Kenya (Ardhi Sasa): Login, Fees, Counties

Before you start: create one Ardhisasa account using your own real ID, phone number, and email. The system allows only one account per national ID and per mobile number, and it’s the account that will hold your land records going forward, not a throwaway login.

What exactly is Ardhisasa?

“Ardhisasa” combines the Swahili words ardhi (land) and sasa (now). It’s the public-facing platform for the National Land Information Management System (NLIMS), which the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning launched in April 2021 to replace the paper-based registers previously kept at Ministry of Lands offices around the country.

Its legal basis sits in the Land Registration Act, 2012. Section 9 requires the Land Register to be kept in a “secure, accessible and reliable format,” including electronically. Section 10 allows land information to be published electronically, and Section 44(3A) permits documents to be executed digitally. Amendments to the Land Registration (General) Regulations in 2020 filled in the procedural detail needed to run transactions online.

In practice, Ardhisasa is meant to be the single point of entry for land registration, land administration, physical planning, surveying, valuation, and National Land Commission functions. These used to require visits to several different offices.

What can you actually do on the Ardhisasa portal?

• Official land search. Look up a title number to confirm the registered owner, land size, and any encumbrances (mortgages, caveats, or restrictions) recorded against it. This is the most common reason ordinary buyers open the portal, and it’s covered in detail in our companion guide on verifying a title deed.
• Land transfer. Buyer and seller (or their advocates) initiate and approve a transfer of ownership online, replacing the old manual transfer forms lodged at the registry counter.
• Stamp duty assessment and payment. Stamp duty (the tax charged on land transactions) is assessed and paid through Ardhisasa’s ArdhiPay module, which replaced the old iTax-based payment process on 17 November 2023.
• Charges and discharges. Registering a mortgage or charge against land (for example, when a bank finances a purchase) and discharging it once a loan is repaid.
• Lease registration, extension, and renewal. Applying to extend or renew a leasehold term, and registering new leases, subdivisions, and amalgamations of parcels.
• Caveats and title deed replacement. Lodging a caveat (a legal notice that stops dealings on a parcel while a dispute or claim is resolved) and applying for a replacement title if the original is lost or damaged.
• Land rent payment. Paying annual ground rent on leasehold land, which keeps a lease in good standing.
• Physical planning, surveying, and valuation. Development plan approvals, survey and mapping requests, and property valuation services, used mostly by professionals (surveyors, physical planners, valuers) rather than individual landowners.

How do you register for an Ardhisasa account?

Registration happens directly on ardhisasa.lands.go.ke. It’s a separate account from eCitizen, not a login you carry over. There are three account types, and which one you choose depends on who you’re transacting as:

• Individual account. You’ll need your national ID number, a working phone number, an email address, and a passport-style photo. The process: select “Individual” registration, enter and verify your ID, confirm your phone number with an OTP (one-time password) code, confirm your email the same way, then set a password containing at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, and one special character. After your first login you’ll complete your profile: passport photo, both sides of your ID, a digital signature, and three security questions for account recovery.
• Company or organisation account. You’ll need the certificate of incorporation, the company’s registration number, and the company’s own KRA PIN (Kenya Revenue Authority Personal Identification Number), not a director’s personal PIN. The company must also use contact details (phone and email) that haven’t already been registered elsewhere on the platform.
• Professional account. Advocates, licensed surveyors, valuers, and physical planners acting on a client’s behalf register under a professional category that ties their account to their practising credentials. If you’re instructing a professional to transact for you, ask your advocate or firm to confirm this is set up correctly on their end. The verification steps differ from the individual flow.

Once verification is complete, Ardhisasa issues you a unique Ardhisasa identification number, separate from your ID number, which the system uses to track every application you make. From then on, every login also requires an OTP sent to your registered phone.

Which counties and services are actually live on Ardhisasa?

Rollout has been phased rather than instant nationwide, and this is one of the most common sources of confusion for buyers. As of 4 October 2026, the State Department for Lands says Ardhisasa was launched in Nairobi in 2021 and has since been rolled out to Murang’a, Isiolo and Mombasa Island. Mombasa is moving across section by section. Blocks XVI and XVII went onto the platform on 21 July 2025, and further sections have been handled exclusively on Ardhisasa since 20 July 2026. Other counties are being onboarded progressively, so check the Ministry’s notices for the area where you are buying.

Two things follow from that. First, “live” doesn’t always mean fully migrated: a county can be live on Ardhisasa for new transactions while older parcel records within it are still being scanned and verified against the historical paper register. A blank or incomplete search result doesn’t automatically mean a title doesn’t exist; it can mean the record hasn’t been migrated yet. Second, confirm your specific registry’s status before assuming anything. Because rollout dates shift, check directly with your county’s Land Registry or on ardhisasa.lands.go.ke before assuming a transaction can (or must) be done online.

How much does it cost to use Ardhisasa?

Fees depend on the specific service, but the two you’ll hit most often as a buyer are the land search and stamp duty. An official land search costs KSh 1,000 per search, as set out on the Ministry of Lands search certificate page, payable through M-Pesa, card, or bank options built into the portal. Some payment channels add a small transaction charge on top, and a few older guides still quote KSh 500, so confirm the total shown at checkout.

Stamp duty is charged as a percentage of the transaction price or the government valuation, whichever is higher. The long-standing rates are 4% for land within a gazetted municipality or urban area, and 2% for agricultural or rural land outside those boundaries. It’s assessed and paid through the ArdhiPay module, via Paybill 222222 or bank RTGS, after the Land Registration Department reviews your application and issues an invoice.

Other services, such as lease extension, subdivision, caveat lodging, and title replacement, each carry their own fee set out in the Land Registration (General) Regulations fee schedule. These change from time to time, so confirm the current figure on the invoice Ardhisasa generates for your specific application rather than relying on a number quoted elsewhere.

Why can’t I log in, and how do you fix common Ardhisasa problems?

• OTP code not arriving. This is the single most reported issue. Check that your registered number has network coverage and isn’t on a call-barring or spam filter, check your email spam folder if you’re waiting on an email OTP, and wait a few minutes before requesting a resend rather than repeatedly retrying, which can trigger a temporary lock.
• “This ID/phone number is already registered.” Ardhisasa allows only one account per national ID and per mobile number. If you or a family member registered an account previously (even by accident, or through an agent), you can’t create a second one. You need to recover the existing account instead.
• Personal details don’t match during verification. Ardhisasa checks your details against government identity databases. A mismatch (a misspelled name, an outdated ID record, a changed phone number tied to your ID) will block verification until it’s corrected at the source, typically Immigration or the National Registration Bureau, not on the portal itself.
• Forgotten password or security questions. Use the account recovery flow on the login page; this is why setting memorable (but not guessable) security questions at registration matters.
• Company registration rejected. The most frequent cause is submitting a director’s personal KRA PIN instead of the company’s own KRA PIN, or using contact details already tied to another Ardhisasa account.

If none of these resolve your issue, Ardhisasa’s customer support can be reached on 0746 962239 or 0794 067815, or through the help channels listed on the portal itself. Keep a note of your Ardhisasa ID number when you contact them; it speeds up troubleshooting.

How does Ardhisasa compare to the old manual land registry?

Under the previous system, land records existed as physical paper registers (often called “green cards”) held at individual Ministry of Lands offices. That created real, well-documented problems: records could be lost, damaged, or duplicated; a search meant physically visiting the registry and waiting on a clerk; and the gap between what a register said and what a buyer could verify left room for middlemen and forged titles to slip through.

Ardhisasa fixes some of that directly. You can search a title from anywhere with an internet connection, applications are tracked with a reference number instead of a physical file that can go missing, and payments generate an electronic receipt as proof. It also cuts the number of human touchpoints in a transaction, which reduces (though doesn’t eliminate) opportunities for informal “facilitation” fees.

It isn’t problem-free, though. Common, documented friction points include low public awareness of how the system works, occasional technical downtime, data quality issues from old paper records that were scanned or migrated imperfectly, and limited support for users without reliable internet access or digital literacy. For a step-by-step walkthrough of running an official search safely once you’re on the portal, see our broader complete guide to verifying land and title deeds in Kenya.