Stockbrokers at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) may have earned as much as Sh14 billion in commissions this year, as the value of shares traded in the nine months to September 2026 rose to Sh395 billion.
That is more than double the Sh145 billion traded in all of 2025, according to data from the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), and marks one of the strongest years for the Kenyan stock market in more than a decade.
The Sh14 billion figure is the maximum brokers could have earned. It is based on the top brokerage rate of 1.78 per cent charged on both the buying and selling sides of each trade. If charged on only one side, the same turnover would yield about Sh7.03 billion.
Actual earnings are likely to be lower because large trades often attract discounted rates. Reported figures nevertheless show strong growth: brokerage commissions rose 73 per cent to Sh2.76 billion in the first half of 2026.
Much of the surge came from one exceptional deal. In June, the Government, through the National Treasury, sold a 15 per cent stake in Safaricom to South Africa’s Vodacom Group in a block trade of 6.01 billion shares at Sh34 each, worth about Sh204.3 billion. The trade accounted for about 51.7 per cent of the nine-month turnover and raised Vodacom’s stake in Safaricom to 55 per cent.
The High Court has since declared the sale unconstitutional, a ruling that the Treasury and Vodacom have appealed. Without the Safaricom deal, turnover would have stood at about Sh190.7 billion, still well above the total for last year. In the first half of 2026 alone, turnover reached about Sh322 billion, up from Sh56.03 billion in the same period in 2025.
The market has also been boosted by new listings. In March, Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) listed on the NSE after an initial public offering of 11.81 billion shares at Sh9 each, the first major listing in 11 years.
Family Bank listed by introduction in June, and supermarket chain Quickmart’s public offer is under way. Investor appetite was further demonstrated this month when Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote bought a 24.76 per cent stake in KPC from public institutions for about Sh42.5 billion.
The rally has attracted a wave of new investors. The NSE added 333,043 investors in the nine months to September, more than three times the 98,063 added in the same period last year, bringing the total number of investors to 2.36 million.
The combined market capitalisation of companies listed on the bourse crossed Sh4 trillion for the first time, reaching Sh4.12 trillion at the end of September.
The exchange itself has also benefited. NSE revenue more than doubled to Sh1.2 billion in the first half of 2026, up from Sh511.5 million a year earlier, with the equity transaction levy contributing Sh770.5 million. Activity in the bond market has been just as strong, with turnover reaching Sh2.54 trillion by the end of September.
