Send money from Egypt to Kenya
Two ways out of Egypt hold up to checking. Neither operator will tell you in advance that Kenya is on the menu, so that is the question to settle at the counter.
EGP
KESWestern Union sends out of Egypt through ALEXBANK, and CIB and Banque du Caire both price a personal wire abroad. What none of them publishes is which countries you can send to. ALEXBANK names no destination at all, and warns that restrictions differ by country. Confirm Kenya is served, and at what cap, before you commit.
Indicative options · not a live quote
Sending money from Egypt to Kenya
Our live comparison doesn't price Egypt-origin transfers, and this is a branch route rather than an app one. Two channels stand up to checking. Western Union runs an outward service through ALEXBANK, a bank licensed by the Central Bank of Egypt, across 163 branches, and you don't necessarily need an account. CIB and Banque du Caire each publish a personal tariff for a foreign-currency wire abroad.
The gap worth knowing about is reach. No source we could find names Kenya as a destination for a transfer starting in Egypt. That doesn't mean it's closed, it means nobody publishes it, so ask before you pay.
| Provider | Payout method | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | The beneficiary collects cash at a Western Union agent in the destination country, or receives it into a bank account there; ALEXBANK publishes no Kenya-specific note | Minutes for cash collection | Visit site |
| Wire in US dollars to the recipient's Kenyan bank, addressed with a SWIFT code and account number | Not published in the tariff; ask the branch | Visit site | |
| Wire in foreign currency to the recipient's Kenyan bank | Value date 2 working days, per its own schedule | Visit site |
Money does leave Egypt, and you can name the channels. Western Union over an ALEXBANK counter, or a wire from CIB or Banque du Caire at prices those banks publish themselves. What none of them says is Kenya. ALEXBANK lists no destination country anywhere, and puts its own warning next to the cap: restrictions differ from one country to another. Treat the channel as settled and the destination as the open question, then get it answered at the branch before you hand over any money.
Why Egypt to Kenya shows no live prices
Our live comparison prices transfers that start in the UK and a handful of other major sending countries, where the providers we connect to operate. Egypt is not one of them, and there is no app race to compare here in any case, because everything on this route happens at a bank counter.
Western Union doesn't serve an online sending flow for Egypt either. Its Egyptian send page returns a 404, and the pricing configuration on its own Egypt site leaves Egypt out of the list of countries with a web quote. What follows is what the operators and banks publish about themselves, and, just as usefully, what they don't.
The two ways money leaves Egypt
One channel is Western Union at an ALEXBANK branch. ALEXBANK is owned by Intesa Sanpaolo and licensed by the Central Bank of Egypt, and it publishes a sending section on its own site, separate from the section on receiving.
Holding a bank account is not necessarily required, in its wording, and the service is open to walk-in customers as well as its own. That matters, because it's the only channel here that doesn't start with opening an account.
The other is an ordinary SWIFT wire from a bank where you hold an account. Both CIB and Banque du Caire publish a personal tariff for sending foreign currency abroad, which is firmer evidence than a marketing page. A bank that prints a price for a product is selling that product.
Worth naming what is not on this list. MoneyGram is often assumed to send out of Egypt, but we couldn't evidence it. Banque Misr's own MoneyGram page describes money coming to Egypt and being cashed at its branches, and Banque du Caire treats MoneyGram as a United States agent feeding money in. Neither publishes a sending offer the way ALEXBANK does for Western Union, so we leave it off rather than assume.
The part nobody will tell you: whether it reaches Kenya
We could not find a single source, from Western Union, ALEXBANK, CIB or Banque du Caire, that names Kenya as a country you can send to from Egypt. ALEXBANK doesn't publish a destination list at all.
What it offers instead is the network figure, more than 640,000 agent locations across 200 countries, and then undercuts any inference from it with a parenthetical of its own: restrictions and special notes differ from one country to another.
Read that carefully, because it sits directly beside the USD 7,500 cap. The cap is a ceiling subject to country rules ALEXBANK doesn't publish, not an amount you're guaranteed to be allowed to send to Kenya. Anyone quoting 7,500 at you as a Kenya allowance is reading more into it than the page says.
None of this means the corridor is shut. It means the operators keep destination rules behind the counter rather than on the website, so the branch is the only place to settle it. Ask whether Kenya is served on the product, and what the cap and payout method are for Kenya specifically.
One trap to sidestep on the way. If you find Western Union's own Egypt page, it shows USD 5,000 under a heading reading 'Sending from Egypt'. That figure is a cash payout ceiling for money collected in Egypt, not a limit on what you can send out, and you can tell from the bullets underneath, which describe collecting the money in Cairo. The page still carries a 2022 copyright while the rest of Western Union's country sites have moved on, so it isn't one to plan around.
What it really costs
The wire channel is the one where you can see the price before you walk in, because both banks publish it. The Western Union counter doesn't work that way, so the rate you're quoted on the day is the only number that counts.
The wire has three charges, not one
CIB's own tariff dated 8 June 2026 prices a foreign-currency transfer order at 0.3%, with a floor of USD 20 and a cap of USD 150, then adds USD 20 in SWIFT charges and USD 35 in correspondent charges. Banque du Caire charges 3 per mille, floor USD 20 and ceiling USD 200, plus USD 15 SWIFT. On a small transfer those flat charges dominate, and the percentage barely matters.
The exchange-rate margin
Neither the banks nor Western Union publish a pound-to-shilling tariff, and the margin folded into the rate is usually the biggest cost on a transfer of any size. It hides well, because it's quoted to you as a rate rather than as a charge. Ask for the rate and the fee as separate numbers, and judge the options on the shillings that actually arrive.
Correspondent charges are a clue
That USD 35 line on CIB's tariff is there because a dollar wire doesn't travel directly. It settles through a bank in New York, and each institution that touches it can take a cut. It is also why the money can arrive lighter than the sending tariff suggests, since a deduction taken mid-route is not on the price list you read in Cairo.
The dollar problem, and why we can't wave it away
ALEXBANK's page says something short and consequential about the Western Union channel: for outward transfers, it accepts only US dollar currency. The wire channel points the same way, since both bank tariffs price the product in dollars and charge in dollars.
What the page doesn't settle is whether you must hand over dollars at the counter, or whether the branch will take your pounds and send dollars. That distinction decides how easy your day is, and we won't guess at it for you. Ask it plainly at the branch.
The reason it matters is the thing we could not verify. Buying dollars at an Egyptian branch is permitted, and since the currency was floated and the official and parallel rates converged, the official position is that foreign exchange is available to everyone at the same rate.
That is a statement about policy, not about your branch. We found no date-stamped evidence from 2025 or 2026, in a bank notice, a central bank circular or contemporaneous reporting, showing what an ordinary walk-in customer actually gets on the day. Treat the dollars as the step to test first, not the paperwork.
Rules on each side
Sending from Egypt
At the Western Union counter you show a national ID, passport or military ID, every time. Above USD 2,000, ALEXBANK asks for a purpose and a supporting document only if you can't show a clear relationship to the person receiving, and separately requires non-Egyptian customers to evidence the source of the funds.
Those are Western Union product rules, not banking law, and they don't tell you what CIB or Banque du Caire want for a wire. We couldn't find either bank's requirements broken down by purpose, so if you're sending for tuition or medical costs, ask the branch what it expects before you make the trip.
On cash in your luggage, the UK government's advice is that you can carry no more than EGP 5,000 in or out, and that foreign currency above USD 10,000 must be declared on arrival. The rules for taking it out are less clearly stated, so ask customs.
Receiving in Kenya
Kenya taxes on a source basis, meaning only income that accrued in or was derived from Kenya is taxed. A family remittance is neither, so it is not taxed as income.
Two caveats. Anything the recipient later earns from the money, such as rent, is taxable, and the Revenue Authority can look again at remittances that are really disguised business or employment income.
For a wire, Kenya addresses accounts with a SWIFT code and account number and does not use IBANs, so don't go looking for one. Banks and payment providers are supervised by the Central Bank of Kenya for anti-money-laundering, and due diligence extends to identifying the beneficial owner, so questions about a large inflow are the rule working as intended.
How a dollar wire actually lands in Kenya
This is worth understanding before you choose a channel, because it explains a cost and a delay that otherwise look like mistakes.
Take I&M Bank Kenya, which publishes its correspondents. For US dollars it names Citibank New York, Standard Chartered New York and JP Morgan Chase New York, and it publishes no correspondent for the Egyptian pound. That is one Kenyan bank rather than all of them, but the shape is typical: a dollar sent from Cairo to Nairobi routes through New York first.
Two things follow. The money keeps American banking hours and American holidays, whatever the calendar says in Cairo or Nairobi. And the correspondent charge on your tariff is buying that leg of the journey.
Whether CIB or Banque du Caire hold lines that reach Kenya, we can't tell you, because neither publishes a correspondent list. CIB does own a Kenyan bank, CIB Kenya Limited, having taken full ownership in January 2023. Owning a bank in a country is not the same as running a payment rail into it, though, and we won't stretch it into one.
Scams to watch on this route
If the money does land in a mobile wallet, the traps are almost all at the Kenyan end, and Safaricom publishes the current ones. These are worth forwarding to whoever you're sending to.
The reversal that sends them to an agent
Rule: a caller claiming to be customer care asks the recipient to go to the nearest M-Pesa agent to 'reverse' a payment, then uses their number to defraud the agent. Safaricom says its customer care will never ask anyone to visit an agent for a reversal. Treat that request as the scam itself.
Codes you're told to dial
Rule: nobody legitimate asks you to key in a code like *33*0000*. Safaricom's own warning is blunt: don't press codes anyone tells you to, or you could block your line or send money to a conman. It's a call-forwarding code, not a fix.
The 'double registration' threat
Rule: there is no such thing as double registration. It's a pretext used to pressure people into handing over control of a line. Report the number to 333 rather than engaging.
Guard the tracking number
Rule: a Western Union transfer is collected with a tracking number, so anyone who has it and a plausible name can try to collect. Give it to your recipient directly and to nobody else, and never send money to someone you haven't met in person, which is ALEXBANK's own first warning.
How to actually go about this
Settle two questions before you commit to a channel. Ask whether Kenya is served, and at what cap and payout method, because nobody publishes that and it decides everything. Then ask whether the branch will take pounds or wants dollars in your hand, because that is the step most likely to stop you.
If both answers come back workable, Western Union at an ALEXBANK counter is the lower-friction option for a modest sum, since you don't necessarily need an account. For anything larger, a CIB or Banque du Caire wire has a published price you can check before you go, though the flat charges make it poor value on small amounts. Judge either on the shillings that arrive, not the counter fee.
Egypt to Kenya transfers: frequently asked questions
We can't promise it, and we'd rather say so. Sending out of Egypt is evidenced, in that Western Union runs an outward service through ALEXBANK, and CIB and Banque du Caire both publish tariffs for a personal wire abroad.
What no source names is Kenya. ALEXBANK publishes no destination list and warns that restrictions differ from one country to another. That's an absence of published information rather than evidence the route is closed, so get Kenya confirmed at the branch.
That figure is on Western Union's Egypt page, but it's a cash payout ceiling for money collected in Egypt, not a limit on sending out. The bullets under it describe collecting money in Cairo, which only makes sense for money arriving.
The send-side figure is different and comes from ALEXBANK: up to USD 7,500 per transaction, qualified by ALEXBANK itself as subject to country restrictions it doesn't publish. That Western Union page also still carries a 2022 copyright, so it isn't one to plan around.
Not for Western Union at ALEXBANK. Its wording is that holding a bank account is not necessarily required, and the service is open to walk-in customers as well as its own. You'll need a national ID, passport or military ID every time.
The wire channel is different. A CIB or Banque du Caire transfer is a product for their account holders, so that route starts with having an account.
That's the step we'd test first, and the one we can't verify for you. ALEXBANK accepts only US dollars for outward transfers, and both bank tariffs price the wire in dollars.
Buying dollars is permitted, and the official position since the currency was floated is that foreign exchange is available to everyone at the same rate. But we found no date-stamped evidence from 2025 or 2026 showing what an ordinary customer gets at a branch on the day, so ask before you plan around it.
CIB's own tariff dated 8 June 2026 prices a foreign-currency transfer order at 0.3%, minimum USD 20 and maximum USD 150, plus USD 20 SWIFT charges and USD 35 correspondent charges.
Banque du Caire's schedule, self-dated 21 May 2026, charges 3 per mille, minimum USD 20 and maximum USD 200, plus USD 15 SWIFT charges, with a value date of 2 working days. The flat charges are what hurt on a small transfer, and neither figure includes the margin inside the exchange rate.
We couldn't evidence that MoneyGram sends out of Egypt, so we've left it off. Its Egyptian bank partners describe the opposite direction. Banque Misr's own page is about money arriving to Egypt from 200 countries and being cashed at its branches, and Banque du Caire lists MoneyGram as a United States agent feeding money in.
Neither publishes a sending offer the way ALEXBANK does for Western Union. Other Egyptian banks partner with MoneyGram and we haven't tested them all, so this is a gap in what we know rather than a verdict.
No. Kenya taxes on a source basis, so only income that accrued in or was derived from Kenya is taxed, and a family remittance is neither. Two things to keep straight: anything earned from the money afterwards, such as rent, is taxable, and the Revenue Authority can reclassify remittances that are really business or employment income. This is general information, not tax advice.
Our sources & how we keep this current
Last reviewed: 16 July 2026. Most operator pages here carry no revision date, so figures drawn from them are what the operator published as at 16 July 2026 rather than dated facts. The two bank tariffs are the exception and date themselves. Caps, charges and the destinations each channel serves all drift, so confirm them before you send.
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