IMF debt load puts Kenya behind only one African nation

Kenya is now the second-largest borrower from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Africa, with outstanding credit totalling about $4.02 billion as of 27 June 2025, exposing taxpayers to the Bretton Woods institution-led tax hikes and austerity measures.
This places the country just behind Egypt, which leads the continent with about $9.96 billion in IMF debt, according to the latest figures published by the IMF.
The data underscores Kenya’s rising dependence on external concessional financing to manage its budgetary pressures while losing policy independence to foreign lenders.
With no repayments or new disbursements recorded during the latest IMF reporting window, Kenya’s debt stock remains unchanged from the previous month.
The outstanding credit is part of multiple arrangements, including the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreements that Kenya signed with the IMF in recent years.
Due to the 2024 protests over high taxation, thanks to the Finance Bill 2024, IMF borrowing was temporarily halted.
Kenya then decided to voluntarily forgo its ninth and final IMF programme review, leaving a planned $800 million disbursement undrawn.
However, Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Kamau Thugge in June confirmed that the country had last October applied for a new IMF-supported programme to roll over the remaining funds.
The IMF confirmed that its staff are currently on the ground, conducting macroeconomic assessments.
“IMF team will examine graft risks across six key state functions, including fiscal and central bank governance, the rule of law and public procurement,” Bloomberg reported.
Zambia, once a major IMF borrower in Africa, now has a much smaller outstanding balance of around $1.32 billion, placing it significantly below Kenya in terms of IMF exposure.
Other notable African borrowers include Ghana ($3.26 billion), Côte d’Ivoire ($4.13 billion), and Angola ($3.66 billion).
Kenya’s rising IMF debt is part of a broader fiscal challenge facing the country. The National Treasury data shows that total public debt had surpassed KSh11 trillion by June 2025.
The government’s borrowing strategy has increasingly shifted toward multilateral institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, to secure lower-interest loans with longer repayment periods.
In the recently announced 2025/26 financial year budget, Kenya’s government plans to raise KSh3.4 trillion in total revenue, including ordinary revenue of KSh2.92 trillion.
However, total expenditure is projected at KSh4.23 trillion, leaving a fiscal deficit of KSh786.6 billion, or about 4.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
To finance this gap, the Treasury intends to borrow KSh256 billion externally and an additional KSh479.6 billion domestically.
A portion of the external borrowing is expected to come from ongoing arrangements with the IMF and other development partners, although exact disbursement timelines have not been disclosed.
While the IMF loans provide critical budgetary support and signal confidence in Kenya’s macroeconomic policies, they also come with structural adjustment conditions.
These include tax policy reforms, subsidy rationalisations, and efforts to enhance domestic resource mobilisation—all of which have faced domestic political resistance.
The latest IMF data shows that among African countries, Kenya’s IMF debt now surpasses even Nigeria, which has no outstanding IMF credit at present.
Ethiopia ($1.88 billion), Tanzania ($1.34 billion), and Uganda ($1.32 billion) also trail Kenya by a wide margin in their IMF borrowings.
Globally, Argentina remains the single largest borrower from the IMF with an outstanding balance of over $53 billion, followed by Ukraine and Pakistan.