Kenya Orders Mandatory USB Type-C For All Phones, Locking Out Cheap Kabambe

Kenya has ordered that every mobile phone, tablet and feature phone sold or used in the country must carry a USB Type-C charging port, a regulatory shift that will accelerate the exit of cheap, low-end handsets from the market and lock out older Apple devices that still run on the proprietary Lightning connector.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) published the requirement on Tuesday in its Technical Specifications for Mobile Cellular Devices, 2026, signed off by Director General David Mugonyi. The directive applies to equipment vendors, manufacturers, local assemblers, and buyers, and will govern the type-approval process through which all devices must pass before they can be legally sold or distributed in the country.

“The charging solution for mobile cellular devices shall be USB Type-C,” the specifications say. “The charging solution shall be such that the charging cable is detachable from the power adapter.” The authority did not specify a grace period or the penalties that vendors would face for non-compliance, and had not responded to requests for comment as of Tuesday evening.

“The charging solution for mobile cellular devices shall be USB Type-C. The charging cable is detachable from the power adapter.” — CA Technical Specifications 2026

The move mirrors the European Union’s Common Charger Directive, which since December 28, 2024, has required all mobile phones, tablets, cameras, headphones, handheld gaming consoles, portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice and earbuds sold across the 27-member bloc to support USB-C. Laptops in the EU are required to comply from April 28, 2026, just weeks away.

USB Type-C, commonly known as USB-C, is a reversible connector that can be plugged in either orientation and supports charging power of up to 240 watts and data transfer speeds of up to 40 gigabits per second. It has rapidly become the de facto global standard for consumer electronics, superseding older connectors including Micro-USB, Mini-USB, and USB-A, which remain the primary charging interface on the vast majority of low-cost feature phones circulating in Kenya.

The kabambe problem

The specification’s sharpest edge falls on the mass market for feature phones, locally known as kabambe, which dominate the Kenyan market at the entry-level and are the primary communication device for tens of millions of Kenyans, particularly in rural areas. These handsets, overwhelmingly imported from Chinese manufacturers, almost universally carry Micro-USB ports and retail at between Sh500 and Sh3,000.

Kenya’s nascent local assembly industry is already aligned with the new standard. Phones produced by East Africa Device Assembly Kenya, M-Kopa, and HMD all carry USB-C connectors. But the burden of compliance falls heavily on importers of the budget Micro-USB models that flood informal markets from Gikomba to Garissa.

Kabambe phones.

Apple devices manufactured before the iPhone 15, released in 2023, are also locked out. The company only shifted from its Lightning connector to USB-C in September 2023 to comply with the EU’s directive, meaning all earlier-generation iPhones and iPads pre-dating the third-generation iPad with USB-C will no longer be eligible for import into Kenya under the new rules.

The CA last month moved to tighten the market further. On February 10, it published a list of 21 mobile phone brands that had been detected through market surveillance as circulating without the required type-approval certification. The authority warned those brands posed safety and health risks and directed vendors to immediately stop selling them, previewing the more comprehensive crackdown that Tuesday’s specifications represent.

Battery, accessibility and socket standards

The Type-C charging requirement is not the only substantive change buried in the CA’s new specifications. The watchdog has introduced a battery performance floor: all mobile phones and tablets must support a minimum of eight hours of talk time and 24 hours on standby. The rule is intended to weed out devices with substandard battery cells that fail prematurely and generate unnecessary e-waste.

On power plugs, the CA has aligned the country with its existing infrastructure standard. Where a device is sold with a plug, it must conform to Kenya’s three-pin Type G socket standard. Devices arriving with non-compliant plugs must include an adapter.

The specifications also introduce mandatory accessibility standards that will be new territory for many manufacturers selling into the Kenyan market. All smartphones and tablets must now ship with screen readers, text-to-speech functionality, real-time captioning, and compatibility with assistive technologies designed to support users with visual, hearing, speech, and mobility impairments.

The CA framed the package of reforms in terms of consumer protection and environmental ambition, saying the specifications were intended “to ensure that mobile devices are interoperable with existing and future telecommunication networks, and compliant with applicable environmental standards related to device manufacturing, use, and disposal.”

A global wave

Kenya’s directive makes it one of the latest jurisdictions to formally adopt the USB-C standard, in a regulatory wave that began in Europe and is now spreading across both the developed and developing worlds.

The EU’s Common Charger Directive, approved by the EU Council in October 2022, gave manufacturers a 24-month transition before it became binding in December 2024. The European Commission estimated that the proliferation of proprietary chargers had been generating roughly 11,000 tonnes of e-waste annually across the bloc, and that standardisation would save consumers an estimated 250 million euros a year in unnecessary charger purchases.

Saudi Arabia implemented a phased USB-C mandate from January 1, 2025, covering mobile phones, tablets, cameras and a range of handheld devices, with laptops coming into scope in April 2026. India mandated USB-C for all smartphones and tablets from mid-2025, with laptops to follow by the end of 2026, though New Delhi exempted basic feature phones and wearables from the initial tranche of requirements.

Kenya’s specification makes no such exemption for feature phones, meaning the country’s rules are in some respects more sweeping than India’s. Whether enforcement will match that ambition remains to be seen. The CA has the power under the Kenya Information and Communications Act to prohibit the sale of non-type-approved devices and to fine vendors who flout the rules, but market surveillance of the country’s sprawling informal retail sector has historically been patchy.

Consumers can currently verify whether a handset has received type approval by dialling *#06# to retrieve its 15-digit IMEI number and sending it via SMS to 1555, or by checking the register of approved devices on the CA’s website at ca.go.ke.