Does Your Country Have a Tax Treaty With Kenya? What’s In Force, What’s Signed but Not Operative, and What’s Still Under Negotiation

A foreign investor asking whether their home country has a tax treaty with Kenya usually gets a one-word answer that isn’t reliable. A treaty being “signed” is not the same as it being “in force”, and being in force is not the same as its withholding tax provisions already applying. Kenya has treaties sitting at every one of these stages, and confusing them can mean an investor either overpays for years or relies on a treaty rate that its Kenyan payers are not yet entitled to apply.

Which Kenya Tax Treaties Are Currently In Force

The National Treasury’s register lists the following Double Taxation Agreements as in force: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, South Korea, Norway, Qatar, Seychelles, South Africa, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Zambia.

Two more belong on the in-force list, even though the register describes them differently. The register gives India no status label but links its agreement together with Legal Notice No. 147 of 2017, by which the Cabinet Secretary gave it effect in Kenya under section 41 of the Income Tax Act. India’s own tax department records the agreement as having entered into force on 30 August 2017. The register now lists Singapore as “Concluded (In force)”. Singapore’s Ministry of Finance confirms that the new Singapore agreement, signed on 23 September 2024, entered into force on 20 April 2026 and replaces the earlier agreement signed in June 2018. As with every treaty, check its effective-date article to see from which income year the new withholding rates apply.

Tax Treaties Signed But Not Yet In Force

A treaty being signed does not mean it can be relied on. The register lists China, the East African Community, Italy, Kuwait, the Netherlands and Mauritius as signed but not in force. Kenya has a documented pattern of signing treaties and not completing the steps needed to bring them into force, sometimes for years.

Mauritius is the clearest cautionary example, and its status is more complicated than the register suggests. The first Kenya-Mauritius agreement, signed in May 2012, was given effect by Legal Notice No. 59 of 2014. In Tax Justice Network-Africa v Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury & 2 others (Petition 494 of 2014, High Court at Nairobi, E. M. Muriithi J, 15 March 2019), the court declared that Legal Notice void. A replacement agreement was signed on 10 April 2019, and Kenya gave it domestic effect by Legal Notice No. 114 of 2020. However, the Mauritius Revenue Authority still lists Kenya among the treaties awaiting the notification needed for entry into force. A Kenyan legal notice alone does not bring a treaty into force; both states must complete their processes.

Treaties Concluded, Under Negotiation or Only Proposed

Botswana, Nigeria, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Turkey are listed as concluded but not yet signed. Belgium, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia and Spain are under negotiation, meaning no text has been agreed. Ireland is listed as proposed. Algeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Macedonia, Malawi, Mozambique, Russia, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan and Zimbabwe are under consideration only. None of these offers any treaty protection today.

A Practical Note on Checking Your Own Country’s Tax Treaty With Kenya

The National Treasury’s online register is the right starting point, but it is not always complete or current. Its Mauritius entry still refers to the 2012 agreement, and its India entry carries no status at all. Before relying on any treaty for a live transaction, cross-check the register against the Kenyan legal notice giving the treaty effect, and against the treaty partner’s own tax or finance authority. That second check is what settles cases like Singapore, where the partner country published the entry-into-force notice.

Having a Treaty Isn’t Always Enough

A treaty being in force doesn’t automatically mean every payment to a resident of that country gets the reduced rate. Kenya has its own statutory anti-treaty-shopping rule. Under section 41(2) of the Income Tax Act, a treaty exemption or reduced rate is not available to a resident of the other state if 50% or more of that person’s underlying ownership is held by persons who are not residents of that state. Companies listed on a stock exchange in the other state are carved out (section 41(3)). On top of this, most of Kenya’s treaties limit relief on dividends, interest and royalties to the “beneficial owner” of the income. A holding company interposed in a treaty country purely to access a lower rate, with no real staff or activity of its own, is exposed on both counts.

What the Mauritius Case Actually Decided

The Mauritius case is often summarised as a ruling that the treaty was not properly ratified. That is not what the court held. The petitioner argued that the 2012 agreement needed parliamentary ratification under the Treaty Making and Ratification Act. The court rejected that argument, finding that the agreement was a bilateral agreement the Government could enter into under section 3(4) of that Act, and that the constitutional challenge lacked merit.

The petition succeeded on a narrower, procedural point. The legal notice giving the agreement effect was a statutory instrument, and under section 11 of the Statutory Instruments Act, 2013 it had to be laid before Parliament. Because this was not shown to have happened, the court declared that Legal Notice No. 59 of 2014 had ceased to have effect under section 11(4). Section 41(1) of the Income Tax Act now also expressly makes every treaty arrangement subject to the Treaty Making and Ratification Act. The practical lesson is the same either way: a treaty appearing on a published list, or relied on by other taxpayers in the past, is not proof that every domestic step was properly completed.