# Can you accept M-Pesa from outside Kenya? Yes, with caveats

> A company in London, Austin or Singapore can be paid by M-Pesa customers in Kenya. Who can pay, where the money lands, and what it costs, precisely.

Published 2026-10-11 by the Ultraner team. Topic: reach. Tags: m-pesa, kenya, cross-border, settlement.
Canonical: https://ultraner.com/blog/accept-m-pesa-from-outside-kenya

Yes. A company based anywhere can be paid by customers using M-Pesa in Kenya. But the question hides three different questions, and the answer to each is slightly different.

1. **Can my Kenyan customer pay me with M-Pesa?** Yes.
2. **Can a customer outside Kenya pay me with M-Pesa?** Only if they hold a Kenyan M-Pesa wallet. M-Pesa is a domestic system.
3. **Can I receive the money in my bank account abroad?** Yes, by settlement to a bank account, which works in every country.

Here is each one, precisely.

## 1. Your customer is in Kenya, you are not

This is the common case. A Kenyan buyer, a business in London. The buyer pays from their [M-Pesa (Safaricom)](/mobile-networks/m-pesa-safaricom) wallet, in Kenyan shillings, by approving a prompt on their phone. They never see a foreign checkout, never enter a card, never think about exchange rates.

What happens on your side:

- Your checkout (or your server, through the API) asks Ultraner to charge the customer's Kenyan number.
- Ultraner reads the country from the +254 prefix and routes to the Kenyan rail.
- The customer approves with their M-Pesa PIN.
- Your Ultraner balance is credited in KES, and you get a webhook.

You are not a Kenyan company and you do not need a Kenyan bank account for this flow. Ultraner holds the connection to the rail; you hold an Ultraner account. Like any payments provider, we verify the business before it goes live.

M-Pesa is the dominant mobile payments system in Kenya, and the Central Bank of Kenya publishes its monthly mobile payments data publicly [1]. If your customers are Kenyan consumers or small businesses, this is how many of them would choose to pay.

## 2. The payer is outside Kenya

Here the answer narrows. M-Pesa in Kenya is a Kenyan system: a Kenyan SIM, a Kenyan wallet, Kenyan shillings. A Kenyan living in Toronto may still have an active Kenyan M-Pesa wallet and can pay from it, because the wallet is still Kenyan. A Canadian without one cannot.

There is also a naming trap. "M-Pesa" is used by different operators in different countries:

- In **Kenya**, M-Pesa is run by Safaricom, in KES.
- In **Tanzania**, **DR Congo** and **Mozambique**, [M-Pesa (Vodacom)](/mobile-networks/m-pesa-vodacom) operates in TZS, CDF and MZN respectively.

These are separate wallets on separate systems. Ultraner supports all four markets, so a customer in Dar es Salaam paying with Vodacom M-Pesa is just as reachable as one in Nairobi. But a Tanzanian wallet is not a Kenyan wallet, and the currency follows the country.

M-Pesa also exists in Ethiopia. That market is not live on Ultraner yet.

## 3. Getting the money to your bank abroad

Collected funds sit in your Ultraner balance in the currency they were paid in. From there you have two options.

**Settle to your bank account.** You add your company bank account once in the dashboard. A person reviews it before anything can be sent there (a wire cannot be recalled, so a wrong digit needs to be caught first). After that, you request a settlement and the balance goes by wire. This works in every country.

**Spend it inside Africa.** If you have suppliers, contractors or a team in East Africa, you can pay them from the same balance. Wallet payouts to mobile money are live in Tanzania today, and opening market by market. Wallet-to-wallet transfers inside Ultraner are free.

The [settlement capability](/capabilities/settlement) page has the detail.

## What it costs

Three layers, each visible before you commit:

| Layer | Who charges | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Collection | Ultraner | 0% |
| Network charge | The rail | Varies by market. Kenya prices in tiers, not a flat percentage. |
| Settlement to your bank | Ultraner | 3%, plus 1% for an international transfer outside the US |

The API will quote the exact network fee for a specific payment before you take it. The full schedule is on [pricing](/pricing).

When you settle, the KES balance converts to your currency at Ultraner's published rate. Rates are live on [/fx](/fx), and every converted transaction gets its own page showing the rate applied, the fee and the net amount.

## A concrete example

A language-learning app in London sells a KES 1,500 monthly plan in Kenya.

- A learner in Mombasa taps "Pay with M-Pesa", enters her number, approves the prompt. Done in under a minute, no card.
- The app's balance is credited KES 1,500, minus the tiered network charge for that amount.
- At month end, the app settles its KES balance to its UK bank account in GBP. The settlement carries 4% (3% plus 1% for a non-US transfer).

Because it is a subscription on mobile money, next month the learner gets a fresh prompt to approve. There is no stored card to charge silently, so the app's reminder copy should say "approve this month's payment on your phone".

## Why not just use cards?

You should still offer cards. Ultraner processes them through Stripe, so a Kenyan customer with a Visa card can use it.

But many won't. GSMA's data shows mobile money accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa far outnumber what card penetration alone would suggest [3], and the World Bank's Findex survey has documented for years that mobile money is how a large share of adults in the region hold an account at all [2]. If your checkout only takes cards, you are selling to the part of the market that looks most like home.

## The checklist

Before you launch M-Pesa from abroad:

- [ ] Price in KES with a round number, not a converted dollar amount.
- [ ] Offer M-Pesa first for Kenyan numbers, card second.
- [ ] Ask for the phone number in international format so the country is unambiguous.
- [ ] Decide your settlement rhythm (weekly or monthly) so FX conversion is predictable.
- [ ] Test the whole flow in sandbox with a `uk_test_` key; the [docs](/docs) show every method.

The [Kenya page](/payments/kenya) lists which Kenyan networks are live today: M-Pesa, Airtel Money and T-Kash.

## Sources

[1] Mobile payments statistics, Central Bank of Kenya. https://www.centralbank.go.ke/national-payments-system/mobile-payments/
[2] The Global Findex Database, World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/globalfindex
[3] State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money, GSMA. https://www.gsma.com/sotir/