Scrap Metal Prices in Kenya Today

Scrap metal prices per kg in Kenya

Dealers quote in Kenyan shillings per kilogram. Prices here are derived from the exchange settlement, converted to shillings, and adjusted by a market factor of 0.84, our assessment of a market where licensing costs, restricted operating conditions and uncertainty over export access all sit between the seller and the international price. That factor is published on the editorial policy page and is open to challenge. Independent reporting on the illicit end of the trade has put collector-level prices at roughly a quarter to a third of a US dollar per kilogram for common ferrous scrap, which gives a sense of how far the bottom of this chain sits below any published reference.

Kenya scrap price chart (KES)

Daily open, high, low and close for the most traded scrap metals in KES per kg or per tonne. Scroll to zoom and drag to move along the timeline.

Copper scrap prices by grade in Kenya

Copper is not one price. Yards grade it by cleanliness, coating and gauge, and the spread from the top grade to the bottom runs 25 to 35 percent. These are the same grades used on export contracts, converted to KES.

The scrap market in Kenya

Kenya is the only market on this site where the scrap trade was stopped outright. On 20 January 2022 the government imposed a national ban on both the local trade and the export of scrap metal and scrap batteries, after sustained vandalism of public infrastructure: transformers, transmission lines, road furniture and railway components stripped for their metal. The ban was not a licensing tightening. It closed the trade. Yards shut, traders protested, and stock sat unsold for months.

It reopened on 1 May 2022, and only for licensed dealers. That distinction still defines the market. In most countries an unlicensed buyer is operating outside the rules; in Kenya, dealing in scrap without a licence carries a fine of up to KSh 10 million or three years' imprisonment. Licences are issued by the Scrap Metal Council under the Scrap Metal Act 2015, applicants are vetted by multi-agency teams in each county, and renewal requires both a valid certificate of good conduct and a tax compliance certificate. The council may also specify which types of scrap a particular licensee may handle, so a licence is not a general permission.

Currency

Kenyan shilling (KES)

Units

Kilogram

Market factor

0.84 (our assessment, published on the editorial policy page)

Regulator

Scrap Metal Council, under the Scrap Metal Act 2015

Key dates

Trade banned 20 January 2022; reopened for licensed dealers 1 May 2022

The most valuable scrap by weight in Kenya today: Copper at KSh 1,340 per kg, Brass at KSh 820 per kg, Radiator at KSh 770 per kg, Wire at KSh 647 per kg, Cable at KSh 431 per kg.

How much is scrap metal worth in Kenya?

Scrap metal in Kenya is bought per kilogram and quoted in KES. Typical ranges are Copper: KSh 1,180 to KSh 1,500 per kg; Brass: KSh 720 to KSh 920 per kg; Aluminium: KSh 165 to KSh 205 per kg; Zinc: KSh 190 to KSh 240 per kg; Lead: KSh 125 to KSh 160 per kg; Stainless steel: KSh 120 to KSh 155 per kg. Across common non-ferrous grades that puts most material between KSh 120 and KSh 1,500 per kg, with copper at the top of the range and stainless steel near the bottom.

These are ranges rather than quotes. The band reflects day-to-day movement in the metal market and the spread between one yard and another, which our own research has found can reach 40 percent or more for the same metal in the same city. The midpoint is derived from the international exchange settlement converted to KES and adjusted by our published market factor of 0.84. Expect a local buyer to sit toward the lower end, because they carry collection, sorting, processing and their own margin. Always confirm the rate per kilo for your specific grade before anything is weighed.

• Copper: KSh 1,180 to KSh 1,500 per kg
• Brass: KSh 720 to KSh 920 per kg
• Aluminium: KSh 165 to KSh 205 per kg
• Zinc: KSh 190 to KSh 240 per kg
• Lead: KSh 125 to KSh 160 per kg
• Stainless steel: KSh 120 to KSh 155 per kg

The export ban, and why it happened

Kenya imposed an indefinite ban on scrap metal exports in January, and the reason was infrastructure rather than industrial policy. A surge in global copper demand had made public cable and fittings worth stealing, and the losses were falling on power, rail and telecoms networks that serve everyone.

That context matters for anyone selling here. A ban on exports removes the outside bidder, which lowers what a domestic buyer has to pay to secure material. The policy is aimed at theft rather than at you, but the price effect reaches you all the same.

It also raises the value of being able to show where material came from. In a market where the state is actively concerned about stolen metal, a seller with documentation is a different proposition from one without it.

Selling scrap metal in Kenya: rules, ID and payment

The framework is the Scrap Metal Act 2015 and the Scrap Metal Rules 2022 made after the ban. Several of the conditions have no equivalent in other markets on this site. A licensed dealer must carry a certified copy of both their own licence and the recipient's licence in any vehicle transporting scrap metal, so the paperwork travels with the load rather than staying at the yard. Transport is confined to prescribed hours, reported as 6.30am to 6pm. Scrap taken from critical national infrastructure is not tradeable at all: it is directed to designated state facilities for smelting into billets. Penalties for repeat export offences under the 2022 Rules run to fines in the region of thirteen million shillings and five years' imprisonment. One point is genuinely unsettled in the public record: some accounts state that the April 2022 decision ended the export prohibition along with the domestic one, while others report that local trade reopened with the export ban left in place. Anyone exporting rather than selling domestically should confirm the current position with the Scrap Metal Council directly rather than rely on secondary reporting, including this page.

Before you sell

• Ask to see the dealer's Scrap Metal Council licence. Unlicensed dealing carries a fine of up to KSh 10 million or three years in prison, and that exposure is not only the buyer's.
• Expect the licence copy to be in the vehicle if your metal is collected. Carrying certified copies of both licences in transit is a rule, not a courtesy.
• Do not sell anything that came from public infrastructure. Transformers, transmission line, rail and road components are the reason the trade was shut down, and that material is directed to state smelting rather than the open market.
• Plan collection and delivery inside the prescribed transport hours; loads moving outside them attract attention for good reason.
• If you are exporting rather than selling locally, confirm the current export position with the Scrap Metal Council before committing to a shipment.

Scrap prices by city in Kenya

City pages carry local yard prices and directories for the main scrap markets. Pages that are not live yet are shown without a link.

• Nairobi
• Mombasa

Scrap yards in Kenya

Find a yard by region or city, or use your location to see the nearest. Every listing shows where its details came from and when they were checked.

Kenya scrap price FAQ

Sources and methodology

Prices on this page start from the global reference board (US dollars per pound or per ton), are multiplied by a Kenya market factor of 0.84 that reflects local demand, freight and trade rules, and are converted to KES at 1 USD = 129.87 and to metric units (kilograms and tonnes). The board refreshes daily, with the time of the latest update shown at the top of the page.

Reference sources

• Scrap Metal Act 2015 and Scrap Metal Rules 2022, Kenya Law
• Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and Enterprise Development statements, April 2022, reported by Capital FM and The Standard
• Institute for Security Studies and ENACT Africa, on scrap metal smuggling and infrastructure vandalism in East Africa
• Recycling Today, on the Scrap Metal Council and the pace of licensing under the 2015 Act

Prices are indicative and for information only; they are not offers to buy or sell. Actual yard prices depend on grade, quantity, location and the buyer. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will check it against our sources.

Scrap prices in other countries

Europe

• United Kingdom
• Germany
• France
• Italy
• Spain
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• Ireland
• Sweden
• Poland
• Russia
• Ukraine
• Czechia
• Portugal

North America

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico

East Asia

• China
• Japan
• South Korea
• Taiwan
• Hong Kong

Southeast Asia

• Singapore
• Philippines
• Vietnam
• Malaysia
• Indonesia
• Thailand

South Asia

• India
• Bangladesh
• Pakistan
• Sri Lanka
• Nepal

Middle East

• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia
• Turkey
• Qatar
• Kuwait
• Oman
• Bahrain

South America

• Brazil
• Chile
• Peru
• Argentina
• Colombia

Africa

• South Africa
• Nigeria
• Egypt
• Ghana
• Morocco
• Zambia
• Tanzania

Oceania

• Australia
• New Zealand

Central Asia

• Kazakhstan
• Uzbekistan

All countries · Global scrap price board

The 2026 tax change, and why dealers and critics tell opposite stories

On 1 July 2026 the Finance Act, 2026 came into force, and it changed how Kenyan scrap metal transactions are taxed in two moves at once.

Move one. Section 31 of the Act amended the VAT Act, inserting scrap metal into the exempt supply schedule. The 16 percent VAT that previously applied was removed.

Move two. Section 14 amended the Income Tax Act to introduce a 1.5 percent withholding tax on the gross amount payable on the sale of scrap metal, for both resident and non-resident sellers, levied at the point of sale.

On its own, that reads like simplification: no VAT paperwork, a small flat deduction up front. The Scrap Metal Dealers Association said as much before the Bill passed, with its chairperson stating the changes were advantageous to the industry and recommending exactly this kind of formalisation.

The complaint that followed within weeks

Fifty-two days after the Act took effect, the Scrap Metal Council issued a press statement describing the opposite outcome. Their argument has three parts, and they are worth separating because each is a different kind of claim.

The VAT-exempt status removes input recovery. A VAT-exempt supply cannot recover VAT paid on inputs, which a VAT-recoverable one could. The Council's account is that mills now load that lost input credit back onto downstream products: steel billets, reinforcement bars, wire. The reported result is a 50 percent price increase, to the point that Kenyan steel is now described as more expensive than Tanzanian or Ugandan steel, Kenya's immediate regional competitors.

The withholding tax is reported as largely uncollectable. The Council's figure is that around 60 percent of scrap collectors have no PIN, the tax registration number, so the iTax system cannot generate a withholding certificate for them. A tax that cannot be certified is a tax that is hard to enforce against the informal end of the trade, which is most of it.

The net fiscal effect, on this account, is a loss rather than a gain. The Revenue Authority lost the 16 percent output VAT it collected before, and gained a 1.5 percent withholding tax it reportedly struggles to collect in practice. The Council's call was for the National Assembly, National Treasury and Revenue Authority to reverse the VAT exemption and return scrap metal to the standard 16 percent rate, or at minimum zero-rate it so input VAT recovery remains available.

Why the two accounts do not simply contradict each other

Both things can be true at once, and probably are.

The withholding tax genuinely does bring informal scrap transactions into a tax net they were not in before, which is a real formalisation step and explains why dealers' representatives supported it. Analysts covering the Bill described the scrap trade as having operated largely outside formal tax compliance, and framed the new withholding category as targeting exactly that.

At the same time, moving scrap metal from VAT-recoverable to VAT-exempt is a specific and well understood mechanism for raising downstream costs, because it is not the rate that matters but the recoverability. KPMG's own analysis of the Bill flagged this directly: an exemption can look like relief to the final consumer while increasing the overall cost of goods, because producers further up the chain cannot claim back VAT on their inputs.

So the dealers selling scrap at the yard gate plausibly are better off, with one tax instead of two and a simpler process. The mills buying that scrap to roll into billet plausibly are worse off, carrying an input VAT cost they used to recover. Kenyan steel pricing sits downstream of the second group.

What this means if you are selling or buying

If you are a seller: expect 1.5 percent withheld from the gross sale price at the point of transaction, for both resident and non-resident sellers. Ask whether the buyer has a PIN-linked system that can issue you a withholding certificate, since the Council's own account suggests many cannot, and that gap could affect how your sale is recorded.

If you are buying to process: the VAT-exempt status means you cannot recover input VAT on scrap purchased from July 2026 onward in the way you could before. Price your material accordingly rather than assuming the exemption is neutral for your margin.

Either way: this is a live dispute, not a settled fact. The Scrap Metal Council was publicly calling for the VAT exemption to be reversed within two months of it taking effect. Check the current VAT and withholding position before relying on the figures above, because this is exactly the kind of recent change that gets revisited.