On 8 September 2026, President William Ruto assented to the Trust Administration Bill, 2026, one of four bills signed into law that day. The new Act replaces two colonial-era statutes, the Trustees (Perpetual Succession) Act (Cap. 164, dating to 1923) and the Trustee Act (Cap. 167, dating to 1929), with a single modern framework covering how trusts are created, registered and administered in Kenya. For families with trust-based succession plans, corporate trustees, and anyone using a trust to hold shares, land or other assets, this changes real obligations, not just terminology.
A note on sourcing before the detail: as of this writing, the assent is confirmed by multiple independent news reports of the signing ceremony, but the Kenya Gazette notice and the Kenya Law Acts database had not yet been updated to reflect it, and no Act number had been published. This is normal lag of a day or two after a signing, not a reason for doubt, but we have not been able to independently verify the exact wording of every clause against the final gazetted text, and we flag below the handful of details still worth confirming once the Act is published.
Why Kenya rewrote its trust law
The old framework was thin. The Trustees (Perpetual Succession) Act mainly let corporate bodies (family trust companies, NGOs, religious organisations) incorporate for succession purposes; the Trustee Act set out general trustee powers and duties in language largely unchanged since the 1920s. Neither statute requires a trust to be registered anywhere, and neither compels disclosure of who actually benefits from a trust’s assets.
That gap has consequences beyond estate planning. Kenya was placed on the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list in February 2024, and FATF’s Recommendation 25 specifically requires countries to ensure authorities can obtain accurate, up-to-date beneficial ownership information on trusts. Our own explainer on sanctions compliance and the FATF grey list covers the wider exit programme; the new Trust Administration Act is Kenya’s specific answer to the trust-transparency piece of that programme, and Business Daily’s reporting on the bill frames it explicitly in those terms.
Mandatory registration and beneficial ownership disclosure
The headline change is that trusts will need to be registered, most likely through a centralised register kept by the Registrar of Companies, as a condition of legal recognition. Registration is expected to require disclosure of the trust’s beneficial owners, meaning the natural persons who ultimately control or benefit from the trust, not just the named trustee. Trustees are expected to face retention obligations for these records, with figures circulating in commentary on the precursor 2025 draft suggesting a seven-year retention period and an update window measured in weeks after any change in beneficial ownership.
Practically, this ends the option of running a trust as a purely private arrangement between settlor, trustee and beneficiaries with no state-facing footprint. Anyone currently relying on an unregistered trust, whether for a family succession plan, a charitable purpose, or as part of a corporate holding structure, should expect a transition period requiring registration, and should start assembling the beneficial ownership information the Act will likely require.
Recognising different types of trusts, and a new “enforcer” role
Commentary on the bill indicates it formally recognises charitable trusts, non-charitable purpose trusts, and family trusts as distinct categories, each with its own rules. Non-charitable purpose trusts, which have no human beneficiary to enforce the trustee’s duties (a trust for the maintenance of a grave or a family monument, for example), reportedly gain a new “enforcer” role: a person with standing to hold the trustee to account even though no beneficiary can. This is a genuine gap-filler; under the old law, a purpose trust without an enforceable beneficiary interest sat in a grey zone that made such structures difficult to use with confidence.
The Act is also expected to set minimum trustee numbers for certain trust types and to impose a residency requirement on corporate trustees, likely meaning a corporate trustee must have a genuine Kenyan presence rather than operating as a pure offshore shell administering Kenyan trust assets.
Higher fiduciary standards and licensing for corporate trustees
Trustee duties are expected to be elevated and made more explicit: standard of care, conflict-of-interest management, and duty to account to beneficiaries appear throughout descriptions of the bill’s content. Corporate trustees, firms whose business is acting as trustee for a fee, are expected to face a professional licensing or registration requirement of their own, separate from the trust-registration obligation. If your trustee is a bank’s trust department, a law firm’s trust company, or a dedicated corporate trustee, expect a compliance step on their end as well as yours.
Penalties for non-compliance are real but the exact figures are not yet settled in the sources available to us; commentary on drafts of the bill has cited individual penalties in a range from roughly KES 500,000 up to several million shillings, and corporate penalties higher still, but the figures have shifted between drafts. We would rather flag that range as indicative than state a specific number that the final Act may not match.
What this means before the Act is gazetted
Until the Gazette notice and the final text are published, treat the following as the direction of travel rather than settled detail: expect a registration requirement with a transition period, expect beneficial ownership disclosure to be mandatory going forward, expect elevated trustee duties and a licensing step for corporate trustees, and expect the old Cap. 164 and Cap. 167 regime to be repealed rather than amended. What is not yet clear is the exact commencement date, the precise registration deadline for existing trusts, and the final penalty figures. Anyone with an active trust structure, or planning one, should treat this as the moment to get their beneficial ownership records in order rather than waiting for the commencement notice to force the issue.
How We Can Help
Clay & Associates Advocates advises settlors, trustees and beneficiaries on structuring, registering and administering trusts under Kenyan law, including the compliance obligations arising from Kenya’s FATF grey-list exit programme covered in our guide to sanctions compliance and the FATF grey list. We also advise on the anti-money-laundering obligations that intersect with trust and property holding structures, discussed in our piece on AML compliance for real estate agents and developers. Contact our Corporate & Commercial team to review an existing trust structure against the new Act once it is gazetted, or to plan a compliant structure from the outset.
Sources: reporting on presidential assent, 8 September 2026, including The Star and Citizen Digital; bill text, Trust Administration Bill, 2026 (Parliament of Kenya); Financial Action Task Force, Recommendation 25 on transparency and beneficial ownership of legal arrangements.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Trust Administration Act already in force?
It has received presidential assent as of 8 September 2026, but had not yet been published in the Kenya Gazette as of this writing. An Act generally commences on the date the Gazette notice specifies, which may be the date of assent or a later date, so check the commencement provision once it is published before assuming it already applies.
Do I need to register an existing family trust?
Based on the bill’s reported content, yes, existing trusts are expected to need to register once the Act commences, likely within a transition period. We recommend beginning to compile beneficial ownership information now rather than waiting for the exact deadline to be confirmed.
What happens to trusts set up under the old Trustee Act or the Trustees (Perpetual Succession) Act?
The new Act is expected to repeal both statutes, but existing trusts should continue to be recognised, transitioned into the new registration and disclosure regime rather than dissolved. The precise transitional provisions will only be clear once the final text is published.
Does this Act affect offshore or foreign trustees administering Kenyan trust assets?
Likely yes. Reports of the bill’s content point to a residency requirement for corporate trustees, which would affect purely offshore corporate trustee arrangements administering Kenyan assets. If your structure relies on a non-resident corporate trustee, this is worth reviewing once the Act is gazetted.
