How Much Does Therapy Cost in Nairobi in 2026?

One thing to know before any figure: Kenya's NHIF no longer exists. It was replaced by the Social Health Authority under the Social Health Insurance Act No. 16 of 2023, and financing now runs through three funds. Any page still telling you what "NHIF covers" is describing a scheme that has been dissolved: that included this page, until we corrected it.

Nairobi practices that publish a fee mostly sit between KES 3,000 and KES 6,000 for an individual session. A few go well above that: one Nairobi clinical psychologist holding a UK doctorate publishes KES 16,000 an hour. One Nairobi psychiatric group publishes consultations from KES 5,000, VAT included. Care through the SHA route costs a fraction of any of these, and the section below sets out how to reach it.

These are guiding estimates. Therapists set their own fees, and Nairobi practices rarely publish them, so the band above is built from the few who do.

How the new system treats mental health

The Ministry of Health's own 2026 tariff assessment sets out "SHIF Mental Wellness Tariffs for Healthcare Services, Level 2-6": outpatient mental health services are reimbursed within the outpatient package at Level 2, 3 and select Level 4 primary healthcare facilities empanelled by the Authority, and inpatient behavioural care is provided at the higher levels under set tariffs. In practice: register with the SHA, and the funded route runs through empanelled public and contracted facilities, starting at primary care level.

In Nairobi the chain starts at your nearest empanelled health centre and runs up through the county referral system. Kenyatta National Hospital runs mental health within its medical services division, and Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital is the country's specialist psychiatric hospital; both are reached by referral rather than walked into. Several Nairobi universities run supervised counselling clinics staffed by trainees, which are the cheapest structured therapy in the city when they are open to the public, so they are worth phoning before you settle for a private rate.

If you are paying privately

Ask the fee and the session length; whether a sliding scale exists; and whether online sessions cost less. Nairobi holds most of Kenya's registered practitioners, so the question online answers here is price and fit rather than availability. Therapists and counsellors are registered with the Counsellors and Psychologists Board under the Counsellors and Psychologists Act, and asking for a registration number is a fair question to put alongside the fee. Fees track the practitioner's profession and seniority: counsellors generally charge less than psychologists, and psychiatrists, as medical specialists, the most.

If you need someone now

Befrienders Kenya offers free, confidential emotional support on +254 722 178177, by phone, SMS or WhatsApp, Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm. For children and young people the National Child Helpline is free on 116, around the clock. In an emergency call 999 or 112.

Sources

• Ministry of Health, Regulatory Impact Assessment for Tariffs for Healthcare Services as amended 2026: the SHIF Mental Wellness tariffs, the three-fund structure and the facility levels, read at source.
• Social Health Authority, sha.go.ke: registration and the funds.

Reviewed August 2026. The scheme structure and tariffs are from the Ministry's own statutory-instrument assessment, February 2026. The NHIF references previously on this page were removed because that fund has been dissolved.