HELB Salary Deductions: What Employees and Employers Should Check

Check your HELB deduction schedule, employer remittance deadline and loan statement without treating repayment as PAYE relief.

3 min readReviewed 21 October 2026

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HELB repayments are loan repayments. They reduce the amount you receive, but they are not a general deduction from taxable salary for PAYE. Your employer should use the repayment details supplied through HELB’s employer process, not an assumed universal percentage of salary.

HELB Salary Deductions: What Employees and Employers Should Check illustration

How the amount is established

HELB directs employers to disclose staff and obtain the outstanding balance and monthly deduction rate through its employer portal. Borrowers can check their own loan statement. Do not rely on an unofficial table claiming that every graduate starts repayment at the same salary threshold or pays the same percentage.

The employer’s monthly task

The employer deducts the instructed amount, submits the deduction information and remits it to HELB. HELB’s employer portal guidance specifies the 15th day of the following month. This is a separate obligation from paying PAYE to KRA; entering a deduction in payroll does not prove HELB has received it.

Example of the cash effect

If take-home before HELB is KES 70,441.65 and the instructed repayment is KES 5,000, the resulting bank payment is KES 65,441.65, assuming no other deductions. PAYE does not fall by treating that KES 5,000 as pension or mortgage interest. The loan balance should reflect the amount actually credited by HELB.

Check more than the payslip

  1. Compare the payroll deduction with the current HELB instruction.
  2. Check the same period in your HELB statement.
  3. If a credit is missing, request the employer’s remittance reference and schedule.
  4. Raise an unmatched payment with HELB using the reference and borrower details.
  5. Keep the correspondence until the statement has been corrected.

When you change jobs or finish repayment

Tell the new employer about the loan and use HELB’s current process to establish the amount due. Near settlement, obtain an up-to-date balance and arrange confirmation of clearance and deduction stoppage. Do not stop repayments solely because your own spreadsheet reaches zero: interest, prior unmatched payments or adjustments may affect the balance.

If the repayment is unaffordable

Contact HELB about your situation and request a documented arrangement. Neither a blog nor an informal agreement with payroll changes the lender’s instruction automatically. Avoid sending payments using old account details copied from third-party articles; follow HELB’s current official payment instructions.

See the PAYE guide to distinguish tax deductions from loan deductions.

Sources and review date

Reviewed on 21 October 2026. Use the rules for the period being calculated; historical payslips may use different limits.