From Monday, October 12, 2026, over 700,000 small‑scale tea growers registered with the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) will be able to collect their annual bonus payments together with September earnings.

KTDA Holdings chairperson Enos Njeru said the funds were released on Friday and will be accessible during normal banking hours.

Unlike previous years, each tea factory will announce its own bonus rate – known as the second payment – rather than the KTDA board setting a uniform rate for all factories.

The 77 factories have been merged into 54 units, including satellite factories that operate under parent factories.

While the total payout for the current period has not been disclosed, bonus rates are expected to vary between Sh12.50 and Sh50 per kilogram of green leaf, depending on the factory’s earnings from the Mombasa Tea Auction and direct sales.

In the 2024/25 financial year, farmers received Sh69.8 billion in bonuses, roughly Sh20 billion less than the Sh89.6 billion paid in 2023/24.

Bonus calculations start with the total revenue a factory earns from tea sold at auction and direct markets, then deduct operating costs such as salaries, fuel, loan repayments, taxes and equipment maintenance.

After expenses, the remaining amount is divided by the total kilograms of green leaf processed, giving a per‑kilogram rate that is applied to each farmer’s annual bonus after monthly payments are subtracted.

Multinational and private tea companies that operate outside the KTDA system pay slightly higher leaf prices but do not provide the annual bonus payments to growers.