US investors' holdings of Kenyan stocks and bonds rise 45% to KSh258bn
US investors held about KSh258 billion of Kenyan stocks and bonds at the end of 2025, up 45% and the highest in four years, Business Daily reported on 6 November 2026.
US investors held US$1.989 billion of Kenyan equities and bonds at the end of 2025, up from US$1.374 billion a year earlier and the highest since 2021, according to the annual US Treasury survey of US portfolio holdings of foreign securities, released on 30 October 2026. Business Daily reported the figures on 6 November 2026, converting the total to KSh258 billion, up from KSh178 billion, and putting the increase at 45 per cent.
Long-term debt made up US$1.785 billion of the 2025 total, against US$1.261 billion in 2024, the Treasury data show. Equities stood at US$204 million, against US$112 million, and holdings of short-term debt were zero in both years. Business Daily converted the debt figure to KSh231 billion, up 42 per cent from KSh164 billion, and equities to KSh27 billion. It said debt accounts for nearly 90 per cent of US holdings in Kenya.
The survey is undertaken jointly by the US Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. It put total US holdings of foreign securities at year-end 2025 at about US$19.3 trillion, of which US$15.2 trillion was equity, US$3.6 trillion long-term debt and US$0.4 trillion short-term debt. Long-term debt covers securities with an original maturity of more than one year.
In the Treasury's list of the 30 destinations attracting the most US investment, South Africa is the only African country, with total holdings of US$100 billion.
US holdings in Kenya were US$3.009 billion in 2019, US$2.713 billion in 2021, US$1.549 billion in 2022 and US$1.371 billion in 2023, before edging up to US$1.374 billion in 2024.
Business Daily linked the 2025 rise to lower domestic interest rates. It cited Central Bank of Kenya data showing that Treasury bill rates averaged 8.7 per cent in June 2025, down from 16.5 per cent a year earlier, giving investors a chance to lock in relatively attractive returns on longer-dated securities.
The rise coincided with a recovery on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The NSE All Share Index (NASI) gained 24.3 per cent in the first half of 2025, central bank data show, and market capitalisation rose 24.6 per cent over the same period.
US holdings remain below the pre-Covid peak of KSh390 billion (US$3 billion).
Drafted and translated with AI assistance; reviewed and published by editor Fengyan Du. How we use AI
Sources
Reporting Desk research, human-reviewed Sources 4 Published 7 Nov 2026 Corrections none How we check
- U.S. Portfolio Holdings of Foreign Securities as of December 31, 2025 (country data, Kenya row) ticdata.treasury.gov
- Report on U.S. Portfolio Holdings of Foreign Securities at Year-End 2025 (US Treasury press release, 30 October 2026) home.treasury.gov
- U.S. Portfolio Holdings of Foreign Securities as of December 31, 2025 (report) ticdata.treasury.gov
- US investors raise Kenya portfolio holdings to four-year high businessdailyafrica.com about
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