|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Victoria Fakiya
Lagos, Nigeria: Imagine being told for years that your ride-hailing app can only take 18% of every trip, and then, suddenly, a court says that rule shouldn’t have been enforced in the first place.
That is the position Uber and Bolt now find themselves in Kenya after the High Court blocked enforcement of the 18% commission cap on ride-hailing platforms. The ruling, delivered on September 2, 2026, came from a petition filed by Bolt in 2025 challenging parts of Kenya’s 2022 transport regulations.
For drivers, though, this isn’t necessarily the win it sounds like. The 18% ceiling was introduced in 2022 after drivers complained that platforms were taking commissions of around 25% to 30% of trip earnings.
The court has now found that the government did not provide enough evidence or conduct the required regulatory impact assessment to justify imposing the price cap. It said the restriction interfered with platforms’ contractual freedom and amounted to an unjustified limitation on their property rights.
The court has suspended its declaration for 12 months, giving the government time to review the rules.
Another important part of the ruling concerns passenger data. The same 2022 regulations required ride-hailing companies to retain detailed trip and payment information for three years and hand it over to the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) when requested.
That included information such as passenger and driver identities, pickup and drop-off locations, trip times, payment methods and fares. Justice Florence Muigai Aburili found the requirement unconstitutional and disproportionate, describing it as creating a form of continuous surveillance and conflicting with Kenya’s Data Protection Act.
The commission fight has been brewing for years. In March 2025, for instance, local ride-hailing company Yego told Parliament that the 18% cap should actually be lowered to 15% for boda bodas and three-wheelers, arguing that lower-value trips and rising operating costs made the existing limit too high.
Uber, on the other hand, had argued that the cap could hurt platforms’ revenues and reduce one of the ways companies compete for drivers. The debate also became messier in 2023 when Bolt faced questions from NTSA over an additional 5% booking fee, although Bolt maintained that passengers paid this fee rather than drivers having it deducted from their earnings.
So, for now, Uber and Bolt have more room to decide what they charge, but that does not automatically mean drivers will suddenly earn more. The government has 12 months to conduct public participation, carry out the required regulatory assessment and fix the regulations; otherwise, the contested provisions will cease to be enforceable.
The court also declined to immediately scrap the entire regulatory framework because doing so could disrupt Kenya’s ride-hailing sector, including driver verification and safety rules. In other words, Kenya’s fight over who gets what share of every ride is far from over.
