Kenya's total public and publicly guaranteed debt rose to KSh 12.84 trillion at the end of February 2026, the highest level on record, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 69.5% and narrowing the gap to the 73.4% peak recorded in 2023, according to the National Treasury's monthly bulletin.
- •The KSh 448 billion single-month increase, the largest since June 2023, was triggered by Kenya's US$2.25 billion dual-tranche Eurobond issuance on 20 February, which lifted international sovereign bonds in the external stock by KSh 290.21 billion.
- •Year-on-year, total debt has risen KSh 1.71 trillion (+15.4%) from KSh 11.13 trillion in February 2025, with domestic debt up KSh 1.00 trillion (+16.5%) to KSh 7.07 trillion and external debt up KSh 708 billion (+13.9%) to KSh 5.78 trillion.
- •T-bill rates have eased, with the 91-day down 146 basis points year-on-year to 7.64%, but the government spent KSh 1.72 trillion servicing debt in FY2024/25, equivalent to roughly 69% of ordinary revenue collected, more than double the IMF's 30% threshold.
Treasury bonds drove domestic accumulation, growing KSh 722 billion year-on-year to KSh 5.74 trillion, with the bond-to-bill ratio at 83:17.
Cumulative net domestic financing reached KSh 463.45 billion through eight months of FY2025/26, equivalent to 73.0% of the KSh 634.75 billion full-year target.
Cumulative domestic interest payments of KSh 580.89 billion against an annual budget of KSh 851.42 billion illustrate the compounding cost of a bond stock that has more than doubled since 2019. Banks held KSh 2.48 trillion of domestic debt by February, up KSh 115.25 billion in the month alone, while insurance companies and pension funds collectively held KSh 1.91 trillion.
On the external side, multilateral debt grew KSh 263.82 billion year-on-year to KSh 3.09 trillion, now accounting for 53.4% of total external debt. China's bilateral exposure fell to KSh 615.36 billion, down KSh 170.14 billion (-21.7%) since September 2022 when President Ruto took office, as Kenya has steadily shifted toward multilateral and commercial sources.
The broader numbers since September 2022, when President William Ruto was sworn in, frame the scale of accumulation plainly. Total debt has grown by KSh 4.14 trillion (+47.6%) from KSh 8.70 trillion, domestic debt has expanded 61.8%, and the debt-to-GDP ratio has risen 7.5 percentage points, all while GDP itself grew 31.6% with debt growing at roughly 1.5 times the pace of the economy.
The IMF's April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook projects the ratio rising to 71.6% in 2026 and 72.4% in 2027, on fiscal deficits of 6.4% of GDP in both years. Kenya's US$3.6 billion IMF programme expired in April 2025 without a successor agreed, and the Fund has urged Kenya to reclassify US$2.6 billion in securitized revenue streams as public debt, a move that would add roughly 3% to the reported stock.
The statutory 55% of GDP debt anchor under the Public Finance Management Amendment Act 2023, due by 2028, sits 17 percentage points below the IMF's 2027 projection.
