Where to put your savings

What each option pays after tax, with the things that can be compared compared — and the one that cannot kept separate.

What these pay, after tax

All of these are interest, all taxed at 15% withholding, all quoted as an annual rate — so they can be compared directly. Today they are all within a whisker of each other, so the order below is not a ranking.

Where	After tax	Before tax	Locked up	Backed by
182-day Treasury bill	7.74%	9.13%	182 days	Government of Kenya
364-day Treasury bill	7.71%	9.07%	364 days	Government of Kenya
Money market fundour estimate, not a published rate	7.70%	9.06%	none — usually 1 to 3 working days to withdraw	the fund's holdings; CMA-regulated, not guaranteed
91-day Treasury bill	7.66%	9.06%	91 days	Government of Kenya

We currently assume a money market fund returns the same as the 91-day Treasury bill. Their gross yields are therefore identical, and the small difference you may see after tax is a methodology gap — an MMF quotes a nominal annual rate while a bill quotes an effective annual yield, so tax lands over different periods. It is not a finding about either product.

On today's figures every option here is level — within 0.35 percentage points of each other, which is closer than these figures can reliably separate. Choose on lock-up and access, not on the rate. All of it is before inflation — what it leaves you in real terms is a different and smaller number.

Government bonds are deliberately not in this table. A bond's return depends on the price you pay and how long you hold it, and putting a fifteen-year commitment in a row beside a three-month bill invites a comparison the number cannot support.

SACCO dividends — why this is not in the table above

Commonly 8%–15% across the sector, as of 2025-12-31.

A SACCO pays a dividend on share capital out of its annual surplus. That is not interest on a deposit: it is declared once a year, at the society's discretion, and a bad year can mean a lower one or none.
The figure is a sector range across many societies — 8% to 15% — not a rate any one of them quotes you.
It is as of 2025-12-31, so it is older than every other figure on this page.
The Deposit Guarantee Fund under the Sacco Societies Act is not yet operational, so unlike a Treasury bill there is no statutory protection standing behind the money.

Source: SASRA Supervision Annual Report and Quarterly Statistical & Soundness Reports to Q4 2025

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15%

withholding tax comes off every interest option here, so the headline rate is never what you keep

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Not insured

the SACCO Deposit Guarantee Fund is not yet operational, so SACCO money has no statutory protection behind it

Sacco Societies Act; Amendment Bill 2025 pending

Spotted a figure that looks wrong? Tell us what it should be. Tax bands and rates change on somebody else’s schedule — a reader with their own payslip catches a stale one faster than we do.