Kenya’s Strategic Goods Control Bill: Export Controls on Dual-Use Items

Kenya’s Strategic Goods Control Bill is currently before the National Assembly, tabled on 7 April 2026 by Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah. It is not yet law. Any company trading in dual-use goods, defence-adjacent technology, or sensitive chemicals, biological materials, or software with potential weapons applications needs to track this Bill closely, since it will introduce Kenya’s first dedicated export control licensing regime for strategic goods once passed.

What the Bill Actually Does

The Bill’s stated principal object is to control trade in strategic goods, technology, and related services, and to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery. “Strategic goods” in this context means dual-use items, goods and technology with both civilian and military applications, plus certain military items outright. The Interior Cabinet Secretary will maintain a National Control List specifying exactly which items fall under the law, referencing existing international control lists.

Critically, the Bill’s scope extends beyond physical goods. It also covers digital transmissions, meaning software and technical data that could contribute to weapons development. A company exporting certain categories of specialised software or technical documentation could find itself within scope even without shipping a single physical item.

The Strategic Goods Control Committee

The Bill establishes a Strategic Goods Control Committee chaired by the Principal Secretary for Internal Security, with membership drawn from the Principal Secretaries for Defence, Finance, Health, ICT, and Trade, plus the Solicitor General, the Chief of Defence Forces, the Director General of the National Intelligence Service, and the Inspector General of Police. This is a security-establishment-heavy body, not a trade facilitation one, and its functions include formulating and reviewing the National Control List, issuing, suspending, and revoking licences or certificates, and establishing end-use controls and compliance checks.

Under the earlier draft framework, a Board issues licences with the Committee’s approval, following registration procedures that include maintaining a register of persons engaged in strategic trade and provisions for cancellation, suspension, or restoration of that registration.

Who the Bill Targets

The Bill specifically extends to brokers and intermediaries, including those operating in digital spaces, not just manufacturers or direct exporters. A company facilitating a transaction involving strategic goods, arranging financing, logistics, or introductions between a supplier and buyer, could fall within the licensing requirement even without ever taking title to the goods itself. This broker-focused scope is a deliberate design choice referenced repeatedly in official statements about the Bill, aimed at closing a gap where intermediaries facilitate proliferation-sensitive trade without being directly regulated.

Penalties

The 2026 version significantly increased penalties from the original 2024 draft. Persons who fail to meet licence conditions, trade illegally in strategic goods, or facilitate such trade face fines of between Kshs 3 million and Kshs 50 million, or imprisonment of up to 10 years. The Bill also includes a general penalty provision, a fine not exceeding Kshs 5 million or imprisonment not exceeding 5 years, for contraventions not otherwise specifically penalised. A voluntary disclosure provision encourages self-reporting of contraventions, which is worth noting for any company that discovers a past compliance gap once the law comes into force, voluntary disclosure regimes typically offer materially better treatment than waiting to be caught.

International Obligations Behind the Bill

Kenyan officials have consistently framed this legislation as fulfilling obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540, which requires states to adopt and enforce effective controls over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. The Bill is intended to complement, not replace, Kenya’s existing sector-specific instruments, the Nuclear Regulatory Act, the Pest Control Products Act, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Environment Management and Coordination Act, and the Explosives Act.

What Businesses Should Do Now

Since the Bill is not yet law, there is no current licensing obligation to comply with. But companies in sectors that plausibly touch dual-use goods, chemicals manufacturing, biotech and life sciences, telecommunications equipment, aviation and drone technology, advanced software, and specialised laboratory equipment, should treat this as a live compliance project rather than something to address only after enactment. Practical steps worth taking now: map which products or services in your catalogue could plausibly appear on a dual-use control list modelled on international frameworks, identify any broker or intermediary relationships that could bring you within scope even without direct exports, and track the Bill’s progress through Parliament rather than assuming its 2024 or 2025 drafts represent final terms, both the scope and the penalties have already changed materially between versions.

The Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s Role

The Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority (KNRA) has been a vocal advocate for the Strategic Goods Control Bill, and its Director General has framed the legislation as giving Kenya a legal tool to track the full lifecycle of strategic and dual-use goods, from manufacturing and storage through to export and trans-shipment. This lifecycle framing matters practically: the Bill is not simply a point-of-export check, it contemplates ongoing oversight of how controlled goods are stored, who has access to them, and where they move within Kenya, not just at the moment they cross a border.

KNRA’s involvement also signals which sectors regulators are watching most closely as this legislation develops: nuclear-adjacent materials and technology, but by extension anything with a plausible CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) application. A life sciences company working with select agents, a manufacturer of precision instruments with dual civilian-military uses, or a software company building modelling tools with potential weapons-design applications should all be tracking this Bill’s committee stage closely.

Confidentiality and Voluntary Disclosure

Two procedural provisions in the draft framework are worth flagging for compliance planning. First, confidentiality: information obtained by the Committee under the Act is not to be disclosed to third parties except in defined circumstances, which matters for companies concerned about competitively sensitive information being exposed through a licensing application. Second, the voluntary disclosure provision explicitly directs the Committee to encourage self-reporting by anyone who may have contravened the Act. Regimes with this structure typically treat voluntary disclosure before detection more leniently than enforcement action following an external discovery, a pattern consistent with equivalent regimes such as the US Export Administration Regulations. Companies building a compliance programme in anticipation of this law coming into force should design their internal reporting escalation path now, rather than treating it as an afterthought once the Act is in force.

How the Bill Compares to Established Regimes

Kenya’s Strategic Goods Control Bill draws deliberate parallels with the United States’ Export Administration Regulations and the European Union’s dual-use export control regime, both of which similarly combine a control list, a licensing authority, and broker regulation. The comparison matters practically for multinational companies already compliant with EAR or EU dual-use rules, since a compliance programme built for those regimes will likely map reasonably well onto Kenya’s eventual requirements, control list classification, end-user screening, and record-keeping obligations tend to follow similar logic across jurisdictions implementing UNSCR 1540. That said, companies should not assume automatic equivalence. Kenya’s National Control List, once published, may diverge from the US Commerce Control List or the EU’s Annex I list in scope and classification detail, and a product cleared under one regime is not automatically cleared under another.

One structural difference worth flagging: the Bill’s Committee is chaired by the Internal Security Principal Secretary and dominated by security and defence officials, whereas the US and EU systems typically place primary licensing authority within trade or commerce ministries, with security agencies playing an advisory or interagency-consultation role. This suggests Kenya’s regime may weigh national security considerations more heavily relative to trade facilitation than comparable Western frameworks, at least in its current legislative design, a factor worth monitoring as the Bill moves through committee stage and potentially gets amended.