Kenya’s court ruling gives Uber and Bolt room on commissions while putting NTSA data powers under pressure
Kenya’s ride-hailing commission cap is facing a major reset after the High Court blocked enforcement of the 18% ceiling imposed on digital taxi platforms and found key parts of the regulatory framework unconstitutional. The court also stopped the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) from enforcing a requirement that platforms retain detailed passenger and driver information for three years and surrender it to the authority on demand.
Justice Florence Muigai Aburili suspended her declaration of invalidity for 12 calendar months, giving the government time to undertake fresh public participation, conduct a formal regulatory impact assessment and bring the rules into line with the Constitution and enabling legislation. The decision came in a petition filed by Bolt Operations OU in 2025, but its implications extend across Kenya’s ride-hailing market.
At the centre of the dispute is Regulation 9 of the Transport Network Companies, Owners, Drivers and Passengers Regulations, 2022, which requires an agreement between a digital taxi platform and its drivers or vehicle owners to set a platform commission at no more than 18% of total trip earnings. The rule also prohibits contractual arrangements designed to push the effective commission above that ceiling.
The court has now barred enforcement of that limit against the petitioner and digital transport operators during the 12-month suspension period. That gives platforms considerably more room in determining how fares collected from passengers are divided, although the judgment itself does not require Uber, Bolt or other operators to increase their commissions.
The 18% figure has a complicated history
The commission ceiling did not appear in a vacuum. It followed intense pressure from ride-hailing drivers who argued that platform charges were taking too large a share of their earnings. In 2022, drivers working with Uber, Bolt and Little Cab in Nairobi staged protests over commissions that had reached roughly 25% or more, putting pressure on both the companies and government.
Uber subsequently reduced its commission from 25% to 18%, while the government moved ahead with regulations that formally established the 18% ceiling. At the time, the measure could be presented as a straightforward response to an obvious imbalance: drivers depended on digital platforms to access passengers, while platforms controlled the terms under which that access was provided.
The court’s latest ruling complicates that story. It accepted that the government could have legitimate reasons for addressing the relationship between platforms, drivers and vehicle owners, but found that the state had not demonstrated why this particular price control was necessary or proportionate.
The problem was therefore less about the existence of a policy objective than the evidence and legal process used to pursue it.
The High Court found that the government had not produced empirical evidence establishing the necessity or proportionality of the commission restriction. It also found no adequate regulatory impact statement assessing the economic consequences of imposing the price ceiling.
That absence became decisive because the 18% rule effectively regulates the price at which private parties can contract. The court described the restriction as an unconstitutional deprivation of property and contractual autonomy, concluding that the government had failed to justify the interference as a reasonable limitation under Article 24 of the Constitution.
For the government, that is a much bigger warning than simply losing a dispute over an 18% figure. A future commission rule could still be possible, but policymakers would have to demonstrate its economic necessity, consider its consequences and follow the required regulatory process before imposing it.
Ride-hailing data retention rules also fail the privacy test
The second major part of the judgment concerns data.
Under Regulation 17, digital taxi platforms were required to retain detailed trip and payment information for three years and provide it to NTSA when demanded. The information covered driver and passenger identifiers, pickup and drop-off locations and times, payment methods and fare information.
That gives the regulator access to a remarkably detailed record of people’s movements. A ride-hailing trip is not simply a transaction showing that someone paid for transport; combined over time, location and journey records can reveal patterns about where people live, work, meet others and travel.
The High Court found that Regulation 17 infringed the constitutional right to privacy under Article 31 and contravened principles contained in Kenya’s Data Protection Act 2019. Justice Aburili described the arrangement as creating a “regime of continuous surveillance”, particularly because platforms were effectively being compelled to act as custodians of extensive surveillance data.
The ruling does not mean NTSA can never obtain ride-hailing information. The more important issue is the architecture through which that access occurs. Government agencies still have legitimate interests in transport safety, investigations, licensing and enforcement, but the court has made clear that broad, compulsory access to personal information must have a sufficiently clear legal basis and appropriate safeguards.
That distinction will matter as Kenya develops rules for a transport sector where digital platforms generate vast quantities of mobility data.
It also arrives at an interesting moment for the industry. Ride-hailing companies are no longer confined to moving passengers in conventional cars. Bolt has expanded its footprint into tuk-tuks and motorcycle-related services, while both Uber and Bolt operate in courier and delivery markets where government agencies are also seeking greater visibility into transactions and participants.
The regulatory challenge is consequently becoming more complicated: authorities want enough information to enforce safety and market rules, while passengers and drivers have constitutional and statutory rights over their personal information.
The regulations faced a deeper procedural problem
The commission and privacy provisions were only part of the court’s concern. The judgment also found problems with the way the 2022 regulations were brought into force.
The regulations were gazetted while Parliament was in recess, and the court found that enforcement began before Parliament had completed the required scrutiny and approval process. That deprived stakeholders of an important constitutional safeguard because regulatory power exercised through delegated legislation remains subject to legislative oversight.
This finding gives the government a fairly demanding assignment during the 12-month suspension.
It cannot simply amend the wording of the 18% commission provision and leave everything else untouched. The court has directed the state towards fresh public participation and a formal regulatory impact assessment, alongside alignment with the Constitution and the legislation under which the regulations were made.
That process could reopen questions that were largely settled in 2022: what problem is government actually trying to solve, what evidence demonstrates that intervention is needed, which intervention is least restrictive, and what consequences will the rules have for platforms, drivers, vehicle owners and passengers?
Those questions are particularly relevant because Kenya’s ride-hailing market has changed since the regulations were drafted.
Drivers may have the most complicated reaction
For ride-hailing drivers, the judgment is a mixed result.
The original 18% ceiling was driven in large part by concerns that commissions were consuming too much of drivers’ income. Removing the government’s ability to enforce that ceiling could therefore revive fears about higher platform deductions.
But the judgment does not order platforms to raise their commissions. It simply removes the government’s ability to enforce this particular ceiling during the suspended period.
That leaves drivers negotiating in a market where platform economics, passenger demand and competition between operators still matter. If a platform raises its commission significantly, drivers may have an incentive to move to another service, while passengers can also switch platforms when prices or availability become less attractive.
Recent consumer research adds another dimension. A TIFA survey reported in August found that 59% of Nairobi ride-hailing users opposed a proposed government minimum fare, while 63% said fares should be determined through competition between platforms rather than government regulation. The same research estimated that ride-hailing supports roughly 300,000 to 350,000 active drivers nationally.
That suggests policymakers are dealing with a market where the interests of drivers and passengers do not always point in the same direction. Drivers want sustainable earnings, passengers remain sensitive to fares, and platforms need enough margin to operate and invest.
A regulatory intervention that benefits one group can therefore create consequences elsewhere in the system.
The government is unlikely to walk away from platform regulation
The High Court ruling should not be read as the end of government intervention in Kenya’s digital transport economy.
The state has other regulatory tools available, including competition law, licensing requirements, safety standards and data protection rules. The proposed Competition (Amendment) Bill 2026 is particularly relevant because it seeks to give competition authorities greater scope to address superior bargaining positions, platform dependence, data control and other forms of power that may not fit neatly within traditional market-dominance tests.
That approach could become important in ride-hailing because the relationship between a platform and an individual driver is fundamentally different from a conventional commercial negotiation between two companies of comparable size.
The difference is that competition law can potentially address bargaining power without setting a fixed commission percentage for an entire industry. That would allow regulators to investigate specific market behaviour and structural problems while leaving more room for commercial arrangements to vary.
Whether that produces a better outcome will depend on how the rules are designed and enforced, but the High Court’s decision makes one point clear: economic intervention requires more than a plausible policy objective.
Counties retain a role in the ride-hailing economy
The court also addressed the constitutional division of transport responsibilities between the national and county governments.
It found that counties retain responsibility for local transport services, including taxis and parking, while the national government has responsibility for transport safety standards and policies that cross county boundaries. NTSA can therefore license digital platforms operating across counties without taking over county powers relating to individual vehicles, drivers, parking and local transport operations.
That distinction becomes more relevant as platforms expand outside Nairobi.
Bolt’s recent activity in Mombasa, including its work with tuk-tuk operators and a programme to license delivery riders, illustrates how digital transport platforms are becoming embedded in local transport systems. Platforms can now be subject to national licensing, county requirements and sector-specific rules at the same time.
A coherent regulatory framework will have to account for those overlapping responsibilities without creating a maze of conflicting requirements for operators and drivers.
Kenya now has 12 months to rewrite the rules
The immediate consequence of the judgment is uncertainty, but the longer-term opportunity is more important.
The High Court has preserved the broader regulatory framework for the moment because immediately nullifying the rules could remove driver verification requirements, vehicle standards, passenger safeguards and other operational protections. Justice Aburili warned that an immediate end to the regulations could destabilise the transport sector.
The 12-month suspension therefore gives government breathing room to rebuild the framework rather than leaving the market without rules.
The clock also creates a clear test for policymakers. A revised commission framework would need credible economic evidence. Any system for accessing passenger and driver information would need a defined purpose, safeguards and compliance with constitutional privacy and data-protection principles. The regulatory process itself would need to withstand parliamentary and public scrutiny.
That could ultimately produce a more durable framework than the one introduced in 2022.
The irony is that the dispute began with a straightforward question about how much of a passenger’s fare should reach the person providing the ride. It has now expanded into a much broader debate about how Kenya regulates digital platforms, where the boundary lies between protecting workers and interfering with private contracts, and how much personal data the state can demand from companies that sit between millions of transactions and their customers.
The 18% commission cap was one answer to the first question. The High Court has now said that answer was imposed without enough evidence and without the necessary constitutional safeguards.
What comes next will determine whether Kenya can build a ride-hailing regime that protects drivers and passengers without turning regulation itself into another source of legal and commercial uncertainty.
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