How we build the extract
Every row on this site traces to a public document. When we cannot trace it, we do not print it.
Sources
| Data | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Licensees and status | CMA licensees register — cma.or.ke | 2026-09-29 |
| Law and categories | Published by the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya | 2026-09-29 |
| Session times | IANA time zone database | On change |
| Exchange rate | open.er-api.com — USD/KES | 2026-09-28 |
Reconciliation, step by step
- 1Read the register as the regulator publishes it and record the retrieval date.
- 2Map every row onto four columns: licensee, licence number, activity, status.
- 3Drop anything we could not reconcile rather than print it from memory.
- 4Publish with the check date. If the register cannot be read, the table is replaced by a notice and a link to it — which is what some countries on this network show today.
What we do not do
We do not rank brokers, score them, or publish reviews. We do not show a licensee table we have not reconciled; the page shows the gap and links the regulator instead.
About the symbols in the table
Where a licensee publishes its own logo, that is the logo you see, taken from the firm's own website. Many of the smaller licensed firms publish none. Those rows carry a plain symbol we drew ourselves so the table reads evenly; it is our illustration, not the firm's trademark, and it says nothing about the firm. The licence number and status beside it come from the register and nowhere else.
Regulatory facts are checked against the CMA register, not broker marketing
The Capital Markets Authority of Kenya is the regulator named throughout this guide. The public list to check is the CMA licensees register at cma.or.ke. If a firm does not appear there, this guide does not treat it as licensed, whatever its website says.
That register is the single source for licensing claims on these pages. No licence numbers, company names or approval dates are reproduced here because they change and belong on the register itself. You can open cma.or.ke on the same phone you use to fund an account and confirm a firm in a few minutes.
Where a broker is mentioned, it is only as an example of a process, never as a recommendation. Judgements about which broker suits you are yours, made with the register open beside the broker's own pages.
| Field | What it says |
|---|---|
| Regulator | Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA) |
| Register | CMA licensees register |
| Published at | cma.or.ke |
| Covers retail forex | Yes — the register has a category for it |
| Last read by us | 2026-09-29 |
| Entries transcribed here | 16 |
A register says whether a firm holds a licence on the day you look, and nothing about how it treats clients. Search the legal entity from the broker's own footer, not the brand.
Money details come from the funding page and your own apps, never from us
Deposit minimums, withdrawal fees, spreads and processing times are not published in this guide. They differ by broker, by account type and by payment method, and they change without notice. The correct place to read them is the broker's funding page and your M-Pesa, Airtel Money or banking app before you send anything.
M-Pesa is the main rail for Kenyan traders, with Airtel Money, bank transfer and card also in use. The steps for each live in the app or on the broker's deposit screen, and that is where you confirm charges. If a figure is not visible there, treat it as unknown until you find it.
Tax treatment is not covered here either. Rules depend on your circumstances and are set by the relevant authority, so confirm them directly rather than relying on any guide, including this one.
| Rail | What it is | Who sets the limit and the fee |
|---|---|---|
| M-Pesa · used most | Mobile wallet | The wallet provider and the broker |
| Airtel Money | Mobile wallet | The wallet provider and the broker |
| Bank transfer | Bank transfer | Your bank and the broker |
| Card | Card payment | Your card issuer and the broker |
Limits and fees are set by the provider and the broker and change without notice, so they are not printed here. Confirm both in the provider's app and on the broker's funding page, and withdraw to the same account you paid from.
Session times are kept in East Africa Time so the page matches your clock
All session hours in this guide are written in EAT, UTC+3, so you can plan around your day without converting anything. Sydney runs 00:00 to 09:00 EAT, Tokyo 03:00 to 12:00 EAT, London 10:00 to 19:00 EAT and New York 15:00 to 00:00 EAT.
The London and New York overlap falls at 15:00 to 19:00 EAT, which is late afternoon into evening in Kenya. That window is when two major sessions run at once, and it sits after the working day for many readers.
Daylight saving changes in London and New York shift these local times by an hour for part of the year. When that happens, the page is corrected rather than left to drift.
A trading day on an EAT clock
- Busiest window
- 15:00-19:00 EAT — London and New York open together
- Thinnest stretch
- 00:00-09:00 EAT — Sydney alone, wider spreads
- European open
- 10:00-19:00 EAT
- US open
- 15:00-00:00 EAT
- Closed
- Friday New York close until the Sydney open on Monday
Hours are shown for the clocks in force today: London is on BST until 25 October, New York is on EDT until 1 November. Kenya does not change clocks, so each move shifts these local times by an hour and the page is rebuilt on the day it happens.
Updates, corrections and what we will not publish
Pages are reviewed when a fact source changes, such as the CMA register, a session schedule or a payment process. If something on a page conflicts with cma.or.ke or with your app, the source wins and the page is fixed.
This guide does not publish profit claims, return estimates or performance figures of any kind. It does not name a broker as safe, licensed or best. It does not carry invented authors, awards or testimonials.
If you spot an error, the standard is simple: point to the public source and the page is corrected. A guide about money should be boringly accurate, and that is the aim here.
| Figure | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Licensee names and status | CMA licensees register — cma.or.ke | 2026-09-29 |
| Session windows | Fixed UTC windows; London and New York shift in their DST | On change |
| USD/KES | open.er-api.com | 2026-09-28 |
| Funding limits and fees | Set by the provider and the broker — not published here | Changes without notice |
A figure with no source and no date is a guess with good manners. Anything we could not trace is left out rather than printed from memory.
How a broker's licence status is verified before anything about it appears here
The check starts at cma.or.ke, not at the broker's website. A firm may display a licence badge, quote a number, or name a regulator in another country, but none of that confirms it holds a Kenyan licence. The CMA register is the only public list this guide treats as proof, and it is checked by searching the firm's exact legal name rather than the brand name on the app.
Readers often assume a broker regulated elsewhere is automatically covered in Kenya. That is the distinction that matters most. A firm can be licensed in another jurisdiction and still not appear on the CMA register, which changes what recourse exists if something goes wrong. Where the register shows nothing, this guide does not describe the broker as licensed in Kenya.
The order of operations is deliberate: confirm the register entry first, then read the broker's own funding page, then compare the two. If the names do not match, or the register entry cannot be found, the broker is left out of the guide entirely rather than described with a caveat. That keeps the standard consistent across every page.
| Page | The question it answers | What the answer rests on |
|---|---|---|
| Market hours | When is the market open on my clock? | Fixed session windows, converted to EAT |
| Position calculator | How large a position does my stop allow? | Arithmetic in the page, from your own inputs |
| How to start | What is the order of the steps? | Licence first, then funding, then size |
| What forex is | What am I actually trading? | Definitions, with no figures attached |
| Apps and platforms | Which platform will I be using? | What each terminal is and who writes it |
Nothing here ranks brokers or recommends one. Pages answer a question or they are not published.
What a Kenyan reader should do when a broker's funding page and the app disagree
Funding details change without notice, and the broker's public page can lag behind what the app actually charges at the till. When the two disagree, treat the app or the M-Pesa confirmation screen as the current position, because that is what will be deducted. The page is a starting point, not the final word.
A common failure mode is depositing before checking the method. M-Pesa, Airtel Money, bank transfer and card each carry their own processing behaviour, and a method shown on the website may not be available to a Kenyan account at all. Confirm the method inside the app before sending anything.
Keep the confirmation message. If a deposit does not appear in the trading account, the M-Pesa or bank reference is the first thing the broker will ask for. Without it, resolving the gap takes longer. This guide never states a deposit amount, because the figure that applies is the one shown to you at the moment of payment.
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Indicative USD/KES | 129.62 | open.er-api.com, pulled 2026-09-28 |
| How often it moves | Every trading day | — |
| The rate your account uses | Your broker's own conversion | The broker's rate card |
| Symbol on this site | KSh | — |
An indicative rate is for sizing a position in your head, not for settling one. The gap between it and your broker's conversion is part of what a trade costs you.
Why the guide uses East Africa Time and what that means for your trading day
Kenya runs on EAT, UTC+3, all year. There is no daylight saving shift, so the clock does not move twice a year the way it does in London or New York. Session times on these pages are written in EAT so they line up with the phone in your hand rather than requiring a conversion.
The practical consequence is that the trading day looks different from how it is often described elsewhere. Market opens quoted in other time zones will not match your clock, and a session that sounds convenient in a foreign article may fall in the middle of your night in Nairobi. Reading times in EAT removes that guesswork.
The distinction readers get wrong is assuming session times are fixed year round simply because Kenya's clock is. The clock is fixed; the sessions are not. Other markets do shift with their own daylight saving, so the EAT equivalent moves even though your timezone does not. Check the session page rather than relying on memory.
| Document | What it proves |
|---|---|
| National ID or passport | Who you are |
| Selfie with the ID document | That the document is in your hands |
Brokers usually also ask for proof of address - utility bill or bank statement; requirements differ per firm. The account-opening page of the broker lists what that firm accepts.
What happens after a correction is made and how readers can flag one
When a fact on this page changes, the correction is applied to the page itself rather than noted in a separate place. A regulator entry can be added or removed, and a broker's funding page can be rewritten, so the live page is always the current version. There is no archive of older wording to compare against.
Readers who spot something that looks wrong can raise it, and the check runs back through the same sources: the CMA register, the broker's own funding page, and the payment apps. A claim that cannot be traced to one of those is not published, however plausible it sounds. That rule applies to corrections as much as to new sections.
The limit is worth stating plainly. This guide does not confirm that any broker is safe, suitable or best for you, and it does not predict outcomes. It reports what the register and the published funding terms say, in EAT, for readers funding an account from a phone in Kenya. Everything beyond that is your decision.
| Platform | What it is | Who makes it |
|---|---|---|
| MetaTrader 4 | The older standard; expert advisors and a large script ecosystem | MetaQuotes |
| MetaTrader 5 | The newer build; more order types and timeframes | MetaQuotes |
| cTrader | Depth of market and a different order model | Spotware |
| The broker's own app | Usually simpler, and tied to that one firm | The broker |
A platform is software, not a safeguard: the same terminal is offered by licensed and unlicensed firms alike. The licence question is answered on the register, not in the app store.
Questions
Use the CMA licensees register at cma.or.ke. Search the firm's name there and read the entry yourself rather than trusting a badge on a website. This guide never states that a particular broker is licensed, because that check belongs with the regulator's live list.
Because they vary by broker, account type and payment method, and they change often. The reliable sources are the broker's funding page and your M-Pesa, Airtel Money or bank app, which show what you will actually pay before you confirm. If a number is not visible in those places, treat it as unconfirmed.
The EAT times shown here can shift by an hour when London or New York moves to or from daylight saving. Sydney and Tokyo also have their own seasonal changes. When a schedule changes, the page is updated so the times still match your clock in Kenya.