(NAIROBI, KENYA) – Telecommunications operators in Kenya will be required to wait six months before deactivating and reassigning dormant mobile numbers, up from the current three-month practice, under new regulations proposed by the Communications Authority of Kenya. The change aims to give subscribers longer control over their lines but introduces higher compliance costs for firms such as Safaricom and Airtel, which manage finite numbering resources.
Under the draft rules, a number becomes eligible for deactivation only after it records no revenue generating activity for three consecutive months. Such activity includes making or receiving calls, sending or receiving text messages, using mobile data, purchasing airtime, or using value added services.
Following this initial period, the operator must notify the subscriber through registered contact details, including short message service and other available channels. The notification period then runs for a further three months unless the subscriber reactivates the line.
Thirty days before the end of this additional period, the service provider must publish a list of numbers scheduled for deactivation and recycling. The list must appear on the operator’s website, in a newspaper with nationwide circulation, and through other media. This publication must occur quarterly. The notice will include a USSD code allowing customers to check whether their number is active, suspended, under recycling, or already deactivated.
The rules also require operators to keep records of all attempts made to contact affected subscribers. Once a number is deactivated, the company must delink and archive the previous owner’s personal data. That data must not be accessible to or inherited by the new subscriber assigned the recycled number.
Inactive SIM cards do not generate revenue, yet they occupy network resources such as routing databases and signalling systems. Operators have traditionally recycled them after three months to manage the limited pool of mobile numbers allocated by the regulator and to ensure availability for new customers. Extending this period to six months across millions of dormant lines is expected to raise operating expenses, though Safaricom and Airtel have not publicly disclosed the cost of maintaining a single inactive line.
Safaricom currently charges between KES 200 and KES 1,000 (about $1.50 / £1.20 / €1.40 and $7.50 / £6 / €7) for a service allowing customers to keep inactive lines for fixed periods of between six months and two years without topping up.
The proposals also respond to security and privacy concerns linked to recycled numbers. Phone numbers have become central to financial services, online accounts, and security authentication. In March, the High Court barred automatic recycling of inactive numbers without the original subscriber’s consent after an inmate challenged the reassignment of a SIM card following involuntary inactivity.
The court said the practice risks privacy breaches because new users could access residual data connected to mobile banking, messaging platforms, and online accounts. It directed the State to develop regulations for managing inactive numbers.
The draft rules offer special protection for prisoners and remand detainees. The Commissioner-General of Prisons would submit phone and identification numbers of people serving sentences exceeding six months, after all appeals are exhausted, for exemption from the six-month inactivity window. Where a suspect is denied bail and likely to remain in remand beyond six months, the Commissioner-General would also facilitate whitelisting of their telephone numbers.
Telcos would be required to submit lists of deactivated and recycled numbers to a centralised system every quarter. This would allow third parties such as banks and service providers to update their records before contacting those numbers.
Newly issued and recycled numbers would by default not receive marketing messages from the issuing operator or third parties. Before recycling a number, an operator would also have to delink it from previously opted-in business-to-consumer messages.
The proposed regulations are open for public participation until 11th September.