KENYA · MARKETS
Key Facts
- What US investors held about US$2 billion of Kenyan securities at the end of 2025, up from US$1 billion.
- Mix Nearly all of it was government debt. Kenyan shares were below US$0.5 billion.
- Why The US government counts these holdings in an annual survey, rounded to the nearest US$1 billion.
- Trend The 2025 figure matches 2022. It is below the US$3 billion of 2019 to 2021.
- As of Sunday, 8 November 2026, 08:00 UTC.
US investors held about US$2 billion of Kenyan securities at the end of 2025, almost all of it government bonds.
US investors held about US$2 billion of Kenyan securities on 31 December 2025, up from US$1 billion a year earlier. The US Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the US central bank’s New York arm) and the Federal Reserve Board (its Washington governing body) published the figure in their annual survey of US holdings of foreign securities.
The result is a rebound, not a record. Holdings sit at the level of 2022, and they are still below the US$3 billion shown for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
What the US Survey Shows
The survey, titled “U.S. Portfolio Holdings of Foreign Securities as of December 31, 2025”, was released on Friday, 30 October 2026. It lists Kenya at US$2 billion in total, almost all of it long-term debt, with short-term debt at zero.
Kenyan equity, meaning shares, was below US$0.5 billion, which the tables mark with an asterisk. The survey also classes nearly all of the debt as government debt, with private Kenyan debt below US$0.5 billion.
From 2019 to 2025 the long-term series reads 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 1 and 2, in billions of dollars. Every figure is rounded to the nearest US$1 billion, so a move from 1 to 2 can be small in real terms.
Why It Matters
Debt is almost the whole story, because the survey shows Kenyan shares as a rounding error. A higher holding may reflect US money returning to Kenyan bonds after the 2023 and 2024 low of US$1 billion.
Washington and Nairobi are also close on security. The US designated Kenya a major non-NATO ally on 24 June 2024, a US status for close partners outside NATO, the Western military alliance, that makes Kenya eligible for certain US defence-trade and security-cooperation benefits, though it carries no security guarantee.
Related reading on foreign money in Kenya: our reports on the share transfer between NCBA, a Kenyan lender, and Nedbank, a South African bank, on NCBA investors and Nedbank and on the Kenya bank plan of FirstRand, a South African banking group. They cover bank ownership, not the Treasury survey.
What It Means for You
A US fund that owns emerging-market bond indexes probably holds some Kenyan debt without saying so. Direct stock exposure is far smaller, so Kenyan shares are unlikely to move a typical US portfolio.
Watch Kenya’s bond prices rather than its stock market if you want to track this money. The next survey will show whether the rise holds.
What Is Not Known
The survey does not give unrounded figures in its country tables, so the true change from 2024 is unclear. It also does not say which investors bought or why holdings rose.
It does not split the debt between Kenya’s dollar bonds and shilling bonds in the tables we used. We also cannot say whether the rise reflects new purchases or price gains.
More: Kenya news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much Kenyan debt do US investors hold?
The US government survey puts US holdings of Kenyan securities at about US$2 billion at 31 December 2025. Nearly all of it was government debt, and the figure is rounded to the nearest US$1 billion.
Is this the highest level in four years?
Not in this rounded series. The 2025 figure of US$2 billion equals 2022 and is below the US$3 billion of 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Do US investors own Kenyan shares?
Only a tiny amount. The survey shows Kenyan equity held by US investors at less than US$0.5 billion in 2025.
Sources: US Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Portfolio Holdings of Foreign Securities as of December 31, 2025, Tables A1 to A4 and A10, and press release of 30 October 2026, read 8 November 2026: ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/shc2025r.pdf. US Federal Register, Designation of Kenya as a Major Non-NATO Ally, 12 July 2024.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated AI newsroom. Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. How we use AI · Report an error