DCI Certificate of Good Conduct Kenya: How to Get It for a UK Visa

The UK Home Office requires a police clearance certificate for any Skilled Worker visa applicant whose role involves working with children, vulnerable adults, or in healthcare. For Kenyan applicants, that certificate is the DCI Certificate of Good Conduct — also called the Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) — issued by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations through the eCitizen portal.

The process is entirely digital, costs KES 1,050, and takes 5 to 14 working days. It is also the single most common cause of missed CoS deadlines for Kenyan applicants who start it too late.

Apply Through eCitizen, Not a Third Party

As of 2026, the DCI Good Conduct Certificate is applied for exclusively through the DCI section of the eCitizen portal at dci.ecitizen.go.ke. Any agent or service offering to obtain it on your behalf is acting as an intermediary — they still use the eCitizen system. If you have access to a smartphone and an eCitizen account, you can do this yourself.

Steps:

1. Log in to your eCitizen account
2. Select the DCI service and choose "Certificate of Good Conduct"
3. Enter your personal details including national ID number
4. Pay the fee: KES 1,000 (processing) + KES 50 (convenience) = KES 1,050
5. Download and print the C24 Form

The C24 Form: One Critical Detail

The C24 form must be printed on both sides of a single A4 sheet. This is not an administrative formality — fingerprinting stations at DCI Headquarters and Huduma Centres will refuse to process a C24 form printed on two separate sheets. This is a common failure point, especially for applicants printing at cyber cafés where the attendant uses the default single-sided setting.

Print the form yourself, or specify explicitly when at a print shop: "double-sided, single sheet."

Where to Go for Fingerprinting

Fingerprinting is mandatory and must be done in person. Options in 2026:

• DCI Headquarters, Kiambu Road, Nairobi — the primary centre; consistently faster than most Huduma Centres
• Huduma Centres nationwide — available across all counties; GPO and City Square Nairobi have long queues, particularly on Mondays and Fridays
• Regional DCI offices — available in Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, and other major towns

Bring: your national ID, the printed double-sided C24 form, and your eCitizen payment receipt.

Processing Time: Budget for 14 Working Days

The eCitizen system shows a target of 5 working days. Reality in 2026 is 10 to 14 working days for most Nairobi applicants, and up to 21 working days during NHS recruitment peaks in January and August when volumes spike. The DCI sends an SMS notification when the PDF is ready for download from your eCitizen account.

The implication for UK visa planning: your Certificate of Sponsorship is valid for three months from the date of assignment. If you apply for the DCI certificate the day the CoS arrives and it takes 3 weeks, you have consumed a significant portion of your application window before you have even started the online form. Apply for the DCI certificate the moment your offer letter is signed, not when the CoS is assigned.

Convictions and the March 2026 Rule Change

If you have any previous conviction, apply for the certificate before engaging a solicitor to assess its impact on your visa application. From March 26, 2026, any conviction resulting in a custodial sentence of 12 months or more — including suspended sentences — triggers automatic refusal. The certificate will show the conviction regardless; the issue is what you do with that information before submitting the application.

Kenyan e-Passport: Required for the UK Visa

The UK Home Office accepts only biometric e-passports. The older machine-readable passports without a chip are no longer valid for UK visa vignettes or eVisa linkage. If your passport has not been renewed recently, check the cover: a biometric e-passport is marked with a chip symbol.

Current passport fees from the Department of Immigration Services in 2026:

Official processing times are 10 to 15 working days, but actual wait times at Nyayo House often run to 4 to 6 weeks. If your passport is within 6 months of expiry or is not a biometric e-passport, start the renewal process before your employer assigns the CoS — not after.

The Kenya to UK Skilled Worker Guide includes a Kenya-side document preparation timeline that sequences the DCI, passport renewal, KNEC, and IOM TB test in the correct order to avoid CoS expiry.

See more United Kingdom guides →