Central Bank of Kenya Exchange Rate API: Official KES Rates as JSON

The Central Bank of Kenya publishes the official exchange rates that accounting, tax, and customs practice in Kenya reference — published official rates, not moving market prices. This guide shows how to pull them as JSON: via a REST endpoint or the zero-dependency central-bank-of-kenya-exchange-rate npm package.

East Africa's benchmark rate

The CBK publishes indicative shilling rates each business morning — the mean rate Kenyan banks, corporates and the Kenya Revenue Authority reference. Nairobi is East Africa’s financial hub, and the table covers the regional pairs that matter there: Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda alongside the dollar, euro and the Gulf currencies of the remittance corridors.

Why official rates, not market rates

A live mid-market feed answers "what is USD/KES trading at right now?" — the right tool for checkouts and dashboards. But accountants, auditors, and tax authorities ask a different question: "which rate were you required to use for this date?" That answer comes from the Central Bank of Kenya’s published rates, and it never changes after publication.

Get the latest rates (REST)

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/central-bank/cbke/latest" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

The response is the bank's most recent published table — every rate and the publication date. The latest rates are available on every plan, including the free tier (300 requests/month, no credit card).

The npm SDK

npm install central-bank-of-kenya-exchange-rate

import { getRate, getLatestRates } from 'central-bank-of-kenya-exchange-rate';

// One pair at the official rate
const pair = await getRate('USD', 'KES', { apiKey: 'art_live_...' });
console.log(pair.rate, pair.rate_date);

// The bank's full published table
const table = await getLatestRates({ apiKey: 'art_live_...' });
console.log(table.rate_date, table.rates.length);

Zero dependencies, TypeScript types included, and it runs anywhere fetch exists — Node 18+, Bun, Deno, and edge runtimes.

Historical rates for an invoice date

import { getRatesForDate, getHistory } from 'central-bank-of-kenya-exchange-rate';

const day = await getRatesForDate('2026-08-18', { apiKey: 'art_live_...' });

const series = await getHistory(
  { source: 'USD', target: 'KES', from: '2026-01-01' },
  { apiKey: 'art_live_...' }
);

Historical dates and time series need a paid plan; the latest rates stay free.

Published vs derived pairs

If the Central Bank of Kenya does not print a pair directly, the API resolves it from the bank's published rates — an inverse, or a cross via KES — and flags it derived: true with the method used. Official and computed values are never silently mixed, which is exactly the distinction an auditor will ask about.

The archive

The series is loaded from January 2024 in the bank’s current published table, and grows daily.

FAQ

Does the Central Bank of Kenya have an official exchange rate API?

The bank publishes its official rates on its own site, and AllRatesToday serves the same published rates as clean JSON via REST or the central-bank-of-kenya-exchange-rate npm package. The latest table is free.

How do I get the official Kenya exchange rate for a past date?

The rates-for-date endpoint returns the official table for any archived date; non-publication days resolve to the most recent published date and are flagged, so audit trails stay honest. Historical dates require a paid plan; latest rates are free.

Are the East African Community pairs quoted like the others?

The CBK publishes USh, TSh, RWF and BIF per one Kenya shilling; the API normalises everything to shillings per unit of the foreign currency, so all rates read the same way.