Article 209 (3) and (4) of the constitution empowers the County Governments to raise their own revenue through the imposition of taxes and charges for services. Own-revenue capacity is a keystone of local fiscal discipline, particularly in a decentralised environment. Without access to their own revenue, County Governments have fewer options when faced with fiscal pressure (or even with year-to-year infrastructure development needs).

The sources and number of sources of revenue vary across counties depending on the economic activities. The sources include vehicle parking fees, game park fees, hospital fees, land rates, market fees, property rates, sand cess, transport and infrastructure, and single business permits as shown below;

Source: National Treasury Annual OSR by Stream Performance between 2013/14-2016/17

County Governments from the inception of devolution in the financial year 2012-13 have grown their Own Source Revenue (OSR) by five folds over the last five years. A sharp increase in the collection of own-source revenue was noted for the first three consecutive years before beginning to decline in the financial year 2016-17. Although dwindling minimally from the previous year, County Governments continued to collect low revenue in 2017-18. Figure 2 shows the trend of OSR for the period 2012/13 to 2017/18, while Figure 2 shows the OSR as a % of the equitable share.