The draft Virtual Asset Service Providers Regulations, 2026 sit underneath the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act (VASPA), which received presidential assent on October 15, 2025 and came into force on November 4 of that year. The regulations are the implementing detail the parent law was waiting for. Without them, no crypto business can be legally licensed in Kenya. The National Treasury and Economic Planning, Republic of Kenya is now inviting submissions to the draft via email at pstnt@treasury.go.ke or by phone at +254 20 2252299.

The Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority issued a joint notice on November 18, 2025 confirming that licensing would not begin until the subsidiary regulations were finalised. That bottleneck is now being addressed. Under VASPA's dual-regulator structure, the CBK will oversee payments, custody, wallets, and digital asset issuance, while the CMA will regulate exchanges, trading platforms, tokenization, initial coin offerings (ICOs), security token offerings (STOs), and investment advisors. The Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury retains authority to issue supplementary guidance and to involve additional agencies as required.

Several structural requirements are already clear from the parent legislation. Only companies limited by shares may apply for a licence; individuals are excluded. Applicants must be registered in Kenya or registered as foreign companies under the Companies Act, and must maintain a physical office in the country suitable for record-keeping. Businesses face fines of up to KSh 25 million (roughly $190,000) and up to five years in prison for operating without a licence after the November 3 deadline. The full text of the draft regulations is available as an 80.5 KB PDF through the Treasury website. Verse Press has not independently reviewed the document, and key details including fee schedules, prescribed application forms, and the public comment submission deadline have not been confirmed at the time of publication. Readers are encouraged to consult the PDF directly or contact the Treasury at the channels listed above.

Cabinet Secretary John Ng'ongo framed the government's intent plainly when the draft national policy was released in December 2024. "The Government of Kenya is committed to creating the necessary legal and regulatory framework" to address both opportunities and risks in virtual assets, he said at the time. Legal analysts at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, writing in January 2026, noted that while VASPA "does not answer every question" about crypto's role in Kenya's economy, it "provides a foundation" for digital finance development in the region.

The stakes for Kenya are significant in regional terms. According to Chainalysis 2025 and 2026 Adoption Index data, Kenya ranked third globally for peer-to-peer exchange trading volume and recently debuted in the top 20 of the 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, up from 21st out of 155 countries in the prior year. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, the region received more than $205 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, a year-on-year increase of roughly 52 percent. Stablecoin adoption across Sub-Saharan Africa grew 180 percent over the same period, accounting for about 43 percent of total regional crypto volume. That grassroots activity in Kenya has largely operated outside any formal licensing structure. The regulations being drafted now will determine how much of it gets formalised versus pushed further underground, depending on where fees and compliance thresholds land.

Kenya's move also carries direct consequences for its standing with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global anti-money laundering standards body. Both Nigeria and South Africa were removed from the FATF grey list in October 2025, in part because of the progress each country made on virtual asset oversight. South Africa enforced its own crypto licensing deadline in June 2025, requiring all crypto asset service providers to be licensed or exit the market. Kenya remains on the grey list. Completing and enforcing the VASP regulatory framework is widely viewed as a meaningful step toward changing that status.

One commercially significant milestone is tied directly to the outcome of this consultation process. The Kenya Digital Exchange, a partnership between the Nairobi Securities Exchange, DeFi Technologies, and SovFi, is planning to tokenize real-world assets including equities, bonds, and commodities. The project is targeting a commercial launch in mid-2026, and that timeline depends on the final regulations being in place.

Builders and businesses with Kenya exposure should treat the current public comment window as an operational priority. The shape of licensing fees, the definition of which activities fall under the CBK versus the CMA, and the specific compliance requirements for areas including anti-money laundering controls, cybersecurity, data protection, and customer asset segregation will all affect product and market entry decisions. With roughly seven and a half months to the compliance deadline, the runway is shorter than it looks.