Kenya is making it harder for telcos to recycle inactive phone numbers

Kenya’s telecom operators will have to change how they deactivate and recycle inactive phone numbers from September 19, when new rules from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) take effect. 

The rules will give subscribers more time to recover dormant numbers and require operators to remove data and services associated with previous owners before assigning those numbers to new owners.

The framework, published by the CA and seen by TechCabal, addresses a problem created by the growing role of phone numbers in everyday financial and digital life. While operators treat an unused number as a scarce telecom resource that needs to be returned to circulation, banks, lenders, government services, and online platforms can continue to treat the same number as a way to identify its previous owner. The new rules shift more responsibility for resolving that conflict onto telecom operators.

Kenya’s six-month recycling window sits between South Africa’s 90-day timeline and Nigeria’s one-year horizon. South Africa, however, exempts postpaid lines from its deactivation rules. Kenya takes a more targeted approach to protecting vulnerable subscribers, allowing formal whitelisting for inmates and remandees through prison authorities, as well as a renewable one-year exemption for caregivers of medically indisposed people. 

Kenya is also taking a stricter approach to unsolicited marketing. Unlike the largely opt-out systems used in South Africa and Nigeria, Kenya’s rules require consumers to actively opt in to business-to-consumer messages on new and recycled numbers through a business-specific USSD code.

The CA’s rationale goes beyond telecom management. It argues that mobile numbers now serve as gateways to financial services, digital authentication, and digital identity, so recycling them can pose…