Kenya SIM Recycling Rules: Six-Month Wait Before Numbers Are Reassigned

Kenya · TECH

Kenya SIM recycling rules are about to change fundamentally: phone numbers will no longer be treated as disposable inventory but as protected pieces of digital identity, with a mandatory six-month wait before any inactive line can be reassigned.

Kenya SIM recycling rules published in draft by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) on 1 September 2026 will force mobile operators, including Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya, to hold an inactive number for at least six months before deactivating it and returning it to the pool for a new customer. The change ends a two-decade practice under which lines that generated no revenue for about 90 days were routinely purged and recycled.

What the draft rules change

The draft procedures replace single-stage deactivation with a multi-tier pipeline built around subscriber notification. Instead of disappearing after a quiet quarter, a dormant line now moves through defined stages, with public notices and warnings before any reassignment can happen.

The framework also creates formal safelisting mechanisms. Within three months of a court conviction carrying a sentence longer than six months, the Commissioner-General of Prisons can submit prisoner registries to operators so inmates’ numbers are protected for the duration of their incarceration. Caregivers or family members can safelist lines belonging to people who are hospitalised, studying abroad or otherwise incapacitated, with a twelve-month renewable protection status.

All operator notices must carry the unified USSD shortcode *106#, which lets any citizen check which SIM cards are registered under their national ID and see the operational status of each line. The CA’s public consultation on the draft ran to 11 September 2026, with stakeholder feedback submitted to the regulator’s numbering desk.

The court case that forced the shift

The catalyst was a High Court judgment delivered on 19 March 2026 by Justice Lawrence Mugambi, in a petition brought on behalf of incarcerated citizens whose mobile lines had been deactivated and recycled while they served their sentences. New holders of the recycled numbers effectively inherited access to the prisoners’ mobile-money accounts, banking alerts and private communications.

Justice Mugambi ruled that a registered mobile number in Kenya functions as a personal digital identifier: it anchors the national ID, the tax authority’s KRA PIN, M-Pesa wallets, two-factor authentication codes and the government’s eCitizen portal. Arbitrarily reassigning such a number, the court found, creates severe security risks and violates the constitutional right to privacy under Article 31.

The judgment gave the state, including the Attorney-General, the CA, the Prisons Service and the Data Protection Commissioner, a strict six-month window to build a compliant statutory and technical framework. That window lapses at midnight on 19 September 2026, which is why the CA’s draft landed on 1 September and why the final rules are expected within days.

Why fraud numbers made this urgent

The recycling debate sits on top of a documented fraud surge. Actual fraud losses reported by Kenyan banks reached KES 1.594 billion (about US$12.3 million) in 2024, up from KES 412 million (about US$3.2 million) in 2023, while reported fraud cases more than doubled to 353 from 173, according to Central Bank of Kenya data cited by Business Daily. The total value exposed to fraud reached about KES 1.963 billion (about US$15.2 million).

Mobile banking was the largest single attack channel, with losses of KES 810.68 million (about US$6.3 million) in 2024. A major driver is SIM-swap and SIM-based identity fraud: criminals who hijack or inherit a phone number can defeat two-factor authentication and drain bank and mobile-money accounts.

Exchange rate basis for all conversions in this article: 129.45 Kenyan shillings per US dollar, Central Bank of Kenya indicative rate of 10 September 2026.

What it means for users and expats

For ordinary subscribers, the most immediate tool is the *106# self-audit code: anyone can check which lines sit under their ID and flag registrations they do not recognise. People leaving Kenya for an extended period, whether expats rotating home or Kenyans studying abroad, should use the safelisting route rather than risk losing a number tied to their financial life.

For operators, the economics run the other way. Holding dormant numbers for six months raises inventory carrying costs and tightens the available numbering blocks, a cost the industry has flagged during consultation. For banks, fintechs and the data-protection regulator, the framework closes a loophole that enabled identity theft and unauthorised M-Pesa takeovers through recycled lines.

What to watch next

The first checkpoint is 19 September 2026, the court’s hard deadline. Watch for the gazettement of the final procedures and for any operator requests for phased implementation. The second is enforcement: how quickly the Commissioner-General of Prisons and operators stand up the safelisting registries, and whether the *106# audit becomes a standard consumer habit.

Kenya’s approach, treating a phone number as protected digital identity rather than commercial inventory, is being watched across the region, where mobile money underpins daily commerce. It fits the broader pattern tracked in our Africa: The New Scramble coverage: control over digital rails is now a sovereignty question, not just a telecoms detail.

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