Kenya’s draft VASP Regulations 2026 demand KSh 500M minimum capital from stablecoin issuers, with public comments open until April 10, 2026.
Kenya’s National Treasury has dropped its most consequential crypto policy document yet. The draft Virtual Asset Service Providers Regulations, 2026 landed March 17. Stablecoin issuers got the steepest number in the whole document. KSh 500 million minimum paid-up capital. Non-negotiable.
The rules come out of a Multi-Agency Task Force working alongside the Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority. Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi published the formal notice in MyGov, the state-owned newspaper. Public input closes April 10, 2026.
KSh 500M and the Rules Nobody Saw Coming
Liquid capital for stablecoin issuers must sit at KSh 100 million, or 100% of current liabilities, whichever figure runs higher. That second condition is the one most firms will hit first. Reserve rules go further still.
As Julians Amboko reported on X, stablecoin issuers must park at least 30% of all received funds in segregated accounts at Kenyan commercial banks. The rest goes into short-term government securities. Maturity cap: 90 days. Repurchase agreements must close within seven days.
Kenya ranked fifth globally in crypto transactional use per the 2025 Bybit World Crypto Ranking, sitting behind Ukraine, the US, Nigeria, and Vietnam. That ranking runs mostly on stablecoin activity tied to remittances and mobile money volumes. KSh 500M is the price of entry now.
Interest payments on stablecoin holdings. Outright banned under the draft. No exceptions written in.
Two Regulators. One Market. Split Down the Middle.
The CBK takes charge of stablecoin dealers, wallet providers, and payment processors. CMA gets exchanges, brokers, and tokenization platforms. The split mirrors structures already running in several major international markets, the Central Bank noted in the regulatory impact statement.
Token issuance platforms pay a 0.05% transaction fee charged to both parties. Initial virtual asset offerings carry a 0.5% levy on the total raise. These numbers appear in the First Schedule of the draft.
Foreign firms cannot walk straight into a Kenyan license. They need a compliance certificate first. After that, they apply. Every licensed operator must keep a physical office inside the country. Directors and senior officers face background checks and competence assessments before approval comes through.
What Got Built After the Grey-Listing
The FATF placed Kenya on its grey list in February 2024. The citation: gaps in AML and counter-terrorism financing controls. The VASP Act of 2025 was the legislative response. President William Ruto signed it in October. It took force November 4, 2025.
@NyakundiReport posted on X that the draft regulations “set licensing requirements for local and foreign crypto firms, mandate physical presence and governance standards,” drawing wide engagement from Kenya’s crypto community the same day the Treasury published.
The draft regulations are the final operational step needed before the VASP Act runs at full effect. Licensing provisions now cover limited liability partnerships too, expanding eligibility beyond companies only, as Amboko noted. Regulatory authorities have 90 days to respond to license applications. License validity runs 12 months from issuance, not from a fixed December 31 date like the original bill proposed.
ICO white paper standards, cybersecurity mandates, tokenization of real-world assets, market manipulation offenses including front-running and insider trading. All covered. The VASP framework Kenya built makes it one of the few African jurisdictions attempting to regulate the full digital asset lifecycle.
Eleven public forums begin March 30, spanning Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Eldoret, and seven other venues across the country. Kenyans hold an estimated $1.2 trillion in virtual assets per government figures. These KSh 500M rules, if adopted, set the floor every firm serving those users must clear.
