Kenya overtakes Ethiopia as East Africa's largest economy, IMF data show

Kenya overtook Ethiopia as East Africa's largest economy in 2025, with nominal GDP of US$135.92 billion against Ethiopia's US$126.35 billion, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures from the World Economic Outlook, as reported by Kenya's Business Daily on 15 October 2026.

Ethiopia's nominal GDP, measured in US dollars at current prices, was US$210 billion in 2024, according to the IMF database. Business Daily, which said Kenya had trailed Ethiopia for five years, put the fall at about 40 per cent and linked it to the devaluation of the Ethiopian birr.

Ethiopia's real GDP, which strips out price changes, still grew 9.2 per cent in 2025, against 4.6 per cent for Kenya, the IMF figures show.

Kenya's dollar GDP in the same database was US$108.21 billion in 2023, US$119.36 billion in 2024 and US$135.92 billion in 2025. Business Daily said the Kenyan shilling's recovery against the US dollar helped lift Kenya's GDP in dollar terms.

Ethiopia loosened its grip on its exchange rate to secure a four-year IMF loan of US$3.4 billion (KSh 440 billion). "That was just the currency effect," Charlie Robertson, chief economic adviser to Equity Group Holdings CEO James Mwangi, said of the fall in Ethiopia's dollar GDP, as quoted by Business Daily.

The result lifted Kenya one place to seventh in Africa by size of economy. The IMF projects Kenya to pass oil-producing Angola in 2028.

The IMF database projects Kenya's 2026 GDP at US$151.15 billion and Angola's at US$157.30 billion.