How to Increase Fuliza Limit: What Actually Works in Kenya

You’re paying at a till or sending money for a matatu fare, and the Fuliza prompt either never comes up or only covers half of what you need. If you want to know how to increase your Fuliza limit, you won’t find a secret code or a phone call that raises it overnight. Your limit comes from your Safaricom and M-PESA habits, and you can change those habits.

This guide covers how Safaricom sets your limit, the steps that tend to raise it, the official way to ask for a review, and why some limits stay at zero for a long time.

Before trying to raise your limit, it helps to know what you’re dealing with. Fuliza M-PESA is an overdraft run by Safaricom with its partner banks, NCBA and KCB. If your M-PESA balance is too low for a payment, Fuliza covers the gap up to your limit. The amount is then taken back automatically the next time money lands in your M-PESA account.

Nobody at Safaricom picks your limit by hand. A scoring system works it out from your behaviour and updates it over time. Safaricom has publicly named the main factors:

Limits can go up or down. A good month can raise yours, and late repayments or going quiet can bring it down.

No single step below will double your limit. What they do together is show the scoring system a steady customer who repays, and that’s what it’s built to reward.

Timely repayment is the factor Safaricom stresses most. Each time you clear your balance soon after borrowing, the system records a low-risk borrower. If your balance sits there for weeks, you’ll often see your limit stall or drop.

Quick repayment also costs less. Most borrowers don’t need to send anything to a paybill, because the next deposit into M-PESA clears the balance on its own. If you want to repay sooner, deposit money at an agent or ask someone to send you money.

Every deposit, Lipa na M-PESA payment, bill payment and transfer adds to your record. Someone whose salary or business income goes through M-PESA gives the system much more to work with than someone who only receives KSh 200 now and then.

Here’s an example. If you usually withdraw your whole salary at the bank and pay for things in cash, move part of that spending to M-PESA. Pay rent, KPLC tokens, school fees and shopping at tills through M-PESA. That’s real activity, not invented transactions, and it builds a history the system can score.

Your savings and loan records on M-Shwari and KCB M-PESA count towards your Fuliza score. Small regular deposits into M-Shwari, even KSh 50 or KSh 100 a week, show you can keep money aside.

If you take loans on either platform, repay them on time. A late M-Shwari loan can hurt your Fuliza limit, and it can also lead to a negative CRB listing.

Your CRB score is used beyond M-PESA. If an unpaid loan from a digital lender, a bank or a Sacco has you negatively listed, that can hold your Fuliza limit down even if you use M-PESA all the time.

Ask for your credit report from one of the licensed bureaus, such as Metropol, TransUnion or Creditinfo. Clear or settle any loans in default. When the lender updates your status, your Fuliza score usually starts to recover.

Many people miss this one. Safaricom has said your voice calls, data bundles, SMS use and how often you top up airtime all affect your limit. If you keep a Safaricom line only for M-PESA and do everything else on another network, the system has less to go on.

You don’t need to spend more than usual. Buying your regular bundles and airtime on the line that holds your M-PESA account is enough.

Okoa Jahazi lets you borrow airtime, and it’s also credit. Safaricom has told customers that paying it back on time counts when Fuliza limits are reviewed. If you often leave Okoa balances unpaid, the system may see you as a risk even though the amounts are small.

Opting out of Fuliza can lower your limit, and so can a line that goes unused for a long time. If you’re trying to build a higher limit, don’t opt out and back in just to dodge charges. Keep the service on and make sure you use the line regularly.

Once you’ve worked on the habits above, you can ask Safaricom to recheck your limit. This is the only official way to request a review:

This asks the system to recalculate your limit using your latest activity. It doesn’t promise an increase. If your behaviour hasn’t changed since the last review, the number might stay the same. When your limit does go up, Safaricom normally sends an SMS with the new figure.

You can also see your current limit through the same *334# menu or in the M-PESA app under the loans section. Be careful with anyone who offers to raise your limit for a fee. Safaricom doesn’t sell limit increases, and those offers are scams.

A zero limit is frustrating, especially when you use M-PESA every day. The usual reasons are:

Each M-PESA line is treated as a separate Fuliza account, so a second line has its own limit based on how that line is used. Using one line properly as your main account usually works better than spreading your activity over several.

When people try to raise their limit, they often forget to check what borrowing costs. Fuliza charges a one-off access fee of 1% of the amount you use, and a daily maintenance fee for each day the balance stays unpaid. Excise duty of 20% is added to these charges.

The steepest jump comes at KSh 1,000. A KSh 900 balance cleared within three days costs you only the access fee and tax. A KSh 1,200 balance costs KSh 18 a day plus excise from the first day. The highest Fuliza limit available is KSh 70,000. On a large balance, the daily fee can pile up quickly if you leave it unpaid for weeks.

The way to raise your Fuliza limit is the same for everyone. Repay early, keep your money moving through M-PESA, save a little on M-Shwari, keep your CRB record clean and use your Safaricom line for more than M-PESA. After a few weeks of this, dial *334# and use Refresh My Limit to ask for a review.

Most limits go up over months, not days. Treat Fuliza as a short-term fix for small gaps, clear the balance quickly, and a higher limit usually comes with time.

Vincent Nyagaka is the founder of Chweya, where he breaks down complex financial topics into simple insights. A trader since 2015, he uses his market experience to help readers better understand investing, trading, and personal finance.

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