Is crypto legal in Kenya? What the law actually says

Holding and trading virtual assets is not prohibited in Kenya. Since 4 November 2025 the law takes a different approach: the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 licenses the businesses that provide virtual asset services, and section 8(2) says a person shall not carry on, or purport to carry on, the business of virtual asset services, or hold itself out as carrying on that business in or from Kenya, unless licensed to do so by the relevant regulatory authority under the Act.

This page is education, not legal advice. It quotes the Act, the Regulations and the regulators’ own notice, and it says where our knowledge stops.

What the Act is and when it took effect

The law is the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025, which is Act No. 20 of 2025. The joint public notice from the Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority, dated 18 November 2025, says the Act was gazetted on 21 October 2025 and became effective on 4 November 2025.

That same notice describes the Act as the legislative framework for regulating and supervising virtual asset service providers, and says it sets out their obligations in preventing money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing. It does not prohibit holding or trading virtual assets.

The licence duty sits on the business, and the penalty is in section 40(3)

Section 8(2) is the operative restriction, and it is written about a person carrying on the business of virtual asset services. Section 8(3) makes a contravention of section 8 an offence, and section 40(3) sets what follows on conviction.

Section 8(1) adds a structural requirement: a virtual asset service provider must be a company limited by shares registered under the Companies Act (Cap. 486).

We are quoting section 8(2) and stopping there. We are not telling you whether your own buying, selling, holding or P2P advertising falls inside or outside it.

The date to have in mind is 4 November 2026

Section 47 of the Act, headed transitional and saving provisions, says that upon the commencement of the Act, any person providing virtual asset services shall, within one year of the commencement, comply with the provisions of the Act. Commencement was 4 November 2025, so that one-year window closes on 4 November 2026.

What happens after that date is not something we will guess at. The Act sets the period; nothing in our sources says it has been extended, enforced or changed.

Two regulators, split by activity

The public notice says the Act designates the Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority as the authorities responsible for licensing, supervising and regulating virtual asset service providers in Kenya, licensing them according to the services listed in the First Schedule.

The First Schedule assigns each activity to one of the two:

So the regulator that matters depends on what the business actually does. A platform where you swap USDT for shillings and a custodian that holds your keys for you are not answerable to the same authority.

Where licensing itself stands

In the same notice of 18 November 2025 the two regulators stated three things together: that the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury was developing Regulations, that the licensing of VASPs would commence upon issuance of those Regulations, and that at that date neither the CBK nor the CMA had licensed any VASP under the Act to operate in or from Kenya.

Section 49 of the Act is the power those Regulations are made under: the Cabinet Secretary may, on the advice of the relevant regulatory authority, make Regulations to give effect to the Act, and may prescribe among other things the form of application.

The Regulations now exist. The Virtual Asset Service Providers Regulations, 2026 were made under the Act as Legal Notice 134 of 2026, dated 22 July 2026.

Two things in them are worth knowing as a reader rather than as an applicant:

1. Capital. The Regulations define paid-up capital as issued and fully paid-up ordinary shares paid by the shareholders of the company, and require a licensee to keep its core capital at or above the prescribed minimum at all times, and its shareholder funds at or above the prescribed minimum paid-up capital at all times.
2. Advertising. The Regulations carry a definition of advertisement covering a representation that directly or indirectly promotes virtual assets and virtual asset services through any medium and in any form.

We hold only those definitions. We do not have the capital figures, the licence category counts, the fees or any application deadline from the Regulations, so none appear here.

What we read, and on what date

We read the Act and the Regulations on Kenya Law, and the regulators’ public notice on the Central Bank of Kenya’s own site, on 22 October 2026.

We also read the daily P2P advert lists in Kenyan shillings on Binance, OKX, Bybit and MEXC, and publish them at /rates/usdt-to-kes/. Reading a public advert list tells us nothing about whether a venue is licensed, and we are not treating it as evidence either way.

One practical note from the venues themselves rather than the law: OKX’s guidance for African P2P traders says Kenya and Nigeria are its two largest P2P markets in Africa, and names as a Kenyan pitfall an advert priced in a different currency, such as one quoting US dollars inside a shilling list.

What we could not confirm

• Whether any provider has been licensed since the notice of 18 November 2025. The Capital Markets Authority site did not respond when we tried it on 22 October 2026, so the only licensing position we can state is the one in that notice, as at its date.
• The licence categories, capital amounts, fees and application timelines set by the Regulations. We have only the definitions quoted above.
• Whether any named exchange is licensed, unlicensed, legal or illegal in Kenya. We have no list of licensees.

Education only, not financial advice. Trading carries a risk of loss.