Kenya and Tanzania will on Friday engage in bilateral talks following the July decision to ban foreigners from doing small businesses.
EAC Cabinet Secretary Beatrice Askul told the National Assembly’s Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committee that a technical team is currently in Tanzania to negotiate on the lifting of the ban.
Ms Askul said Tanzania had assured Kenya that the ban will not affect its citizens and any issues will be addressed diplomatically.
“As much as the ban is anchored in Tanzanian law, it may not directly apply to Kenya. I think they have told us it does not apply to Kenya. They were addressing their other interests in this. And they've given us assurance that through our embassy, should any Kenyan national fall victim to this, they will address,” Ms Askul said.
“And it's a local situation. Their problem was China and the Chinese who were infiltrating their markets. The Chinese, the Turkish, who are now in all the businesses, and maybe in Kenya it's the same. That is their problem.”
She said the Medium Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) have been infiltrated by foreign security apparatus.
“So those are the things that they (Tanzania) want to address and they have to do so by law. And they have assured us that should any Kenyan face that, then we should be able to raise it with them,” Ms Askul said.
“They did not have any other way of communicating rather than saying foreigners. So, we fall into that cluster. But as I said, in terms of implementation, they shared with us in confidence, and we believe it is also their confidence that they had a bigger problem that they are trying to address.”
“We have a technical team currently negotiating in Tanzania. We will be meeting as Ministers on October 3, 2025 in Tanzania where we expect to sign a bilateral agreement.”
In July, Tanzania issued a gazette notice banning foreigners from doing 15 different businesses.
Kenya said it will not retaliate against Tanzania’s decision to ban foreigners but promised to engage diplomatically to resolve the issue that the government said its citizens risk losing up to Sh19 million if the restrictions remain in force.
In August 2025, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi told Parliament that Kenya cannot afford to antagonise its neighbours in the East African Community (EAC) given that the country is the biggest beneficiary of trade in the regional block.
Mr Mudavadi, who is also the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, termed the business restrictions as offending Tanzania’s commitments on liberalisation of trade in services under the EAC Common Market Protocol.
Mr Mudavadi said the EAC market is extremely important for Kenya, accounting for 64 percent of the African Trade.
“EAC is an important bloc to us and we cannot go ruffling feathers and antagonising our neighbours. If there are issues, we must resolve them diplomatically. We don't want to go to the level of retaliation. The value of the economic bloc is so important to us Mr Mudavadi said.
On July 28, 2025, Tanzania issued a Business Licensing (Prohibition of Business Activities for Non-Citizens) Order, 2025 pursuant to the business Licensing Act (Cap. 101) of Tanzania's Laws.
The order officially prohibits non-citizens from engaging in 15 specified business activities in pursuit of economic empowerment of her citizens as well as protecting the domestic labour market.
The Business Licensing (Prohibition of Business Activities for Non-Citizens) Order, 2025 prohibits non-citizens from engaging in 14 specified business activities in Tanzania, including wholesale and retail sale of goods (excluding supermarkets, specialised product outlets, and wholesale centres for local producers), mobile money transfers, repair of mobile phones and electronic devices, and salon business (unless conducted in hotels or for tourism).
The order also prohibits foreigners from running or owning home, office and environmental cleanliness services businesses, small-scale mining, postal and parcel delivery services, tour guiding within the country, operation of radio/TV stations, operations of museums or curio shops, brokerage or real estate agency services, clearing and forwarding services, on-farm crop purchasing, ownership/operation of gambling machines (outside casinos), ownership and operation of micro and small industries.
The order applied immediately upon publication on 28 July 202), with a transition period only for current licence holders, and includes significant penalties for violations.
Tanzanian citizens Licensing authorities were barred from issuing or renewing licenses for non-citizens in these specified sectors while offenders face fines of a minimum of Tanzanian Shillings of 10 million (approximately Sh500,000) and revocation of visas or resident permits.
The order stipulates that existing non-citizen license holders may operate only for the duration of their current licenses.
