How do I check if M-PESA is actually down?

Try a small free action first, dial *334# and check your balance. If that fails too, M-PESA is likely down. Confirm with downdetector.co.ke, the @SafaricomPLC Twitter/X feed, or the Safaricom 100 customer-care line.

My transaction got stuck mid-flow during downtime, did the money leave?

Check your M-PESA balance after a few minutes. If the balance dropped but you did not receive a confirmation SMS, the transaction is in suspense. Safaricom typically auto-reverses suspense transactions within 24-48 hours of the outage being resolved. If not reversed, dial 100 with the approximate transaction time.

How long do M-PESA outages usually last?

Major M-PESA outages typically last 1-4 hours. Partial outages affecting only some products (paybill but not Send Money, or vice versa) tend to be shorter, often under an hour. Maintenance windows are scheduled in advance and announced via SMS.

M-PESA is down: what to do during an outage (2026 guide)

M-PESA handles roughly 70% of Kenya's mobile money volume and processes more transactions per second than most national card networks. When it goes down, usually once or twice a quarter for an hour or two, half of Kenya's informal economy pauses. This guide is the calm version: how to confirm it's actually M-PESA and not just your phone, what to do during the outage, and how to handle a transaction stuck mid-flow.

Step 1, confirm it is M-PESA, not you

Before assuming the network is down, rule out simpler causes:

Try a free check. Dial *334# and select Check Balance. If you can't even reach the menu, it's either Safaricom signal or M-PESA itself.
Check Safaricom signal. Make a regular voice call. If the call also fails, your phone or local cell tower is the problem, not M-PESA.
Try the M-PESA app. If USSD fails but the app loads (and shows your balance), USSD specifically is degraded, try the app for the transaction.
Try via OneApp or a different SIM. Borrow a friend's phone with a different Safaricom SIM. If theirs works and yours doesn't, it's your account or SIM.

Step 2, confirm the outage is real

Downdetector Kenya: downdetector.co.ke/status/m-pesa. Real-time spike of user-reported issues. Reliable for the last 30-60 minutes.
Safaricom Twitter/X: @SafaricomPLC. Major outages get an official acknowledgement within 30-60 minutes.
Safaricom Facebook: mirror of the Twitter feed, usually with customer-service replies in the thread.
Safaricom customer care: dial 100 from a Safaricom line (or 0722 002 100 from another network). Wait times spike during outages but the IVR usually has a recorded outage notice within 30 minutes of a major incident.
Local Kenyan tech press: TechCabal, Capital Business, BitcoinKE, all publish quickly when M-PESA stalls. A Twitter search for "M-PESA down" usually surfaces a journalist tweet within minutes.

Step 3, alternative payment routes

While M-PESA is down, several alternatives keep working:

Cash

For point-of-sale: still works at every Kenyan business that accepts it. Withdraw from an ATM (most bank ATMs do not depend on M-PESA) and pay in cash.

Bank card / Visa / Mastercard

Independent of M-PESA. POS terminals at supermarkets, fuel stations, and most chain retailers run on bank rails. Smaller businesses may not accept cards.

Pesalink (bank-to-bank)

Pesalink is a separate rail from M-PESA. If both ends have bank accounts, Pesalink can move funds between banks even during an M-PESA outage. See our Pesalink vs M-PESA comparison.

Airtel Money or T-Kash

If both sender and recipient have an Airtel Money or T-Kash wallet, the cross-network rails are independent of Safaricom and may continue working. Most Kenyan businesses accept Airtel Money on the same till as M-PESA via interoperability, when M-PESA is down, Airtel often continues.

Bank app direct send

If you have your recipient's bank account number, send via your bank app. Most major Kenyan banks support Send to Mobile (M-PESA) and Send to Other Bank (Pesalink). The Pesalink leg is independent of M-PESA so the latter route works during M-PESA downtime.

Bank cash deposit

For the recipient: a friend or relative with a bank account can deposit cash at any branch and the credit appears the same day. Slower than M-PESA but works through any outage.

Step 4, handle a transaction stuck mid-flow

If your phone said the transaction went through but you didn't receive an SMS, or your balance dropped without a confirmation, the transaction is in suspense. The path forward:

Wait 30-60 minutes. Most suspense transactions complete or auto-reverse once the outage clears.
Check your M-PESA statement. Dial *334# > My Account > M-PESA Statement. You'll see whether the transaction was completed, reversed, or still pending.
If not resolved within 24 hours, contact Safaricom. Dial 100 (or 0722 002 100), explain the stuck transaction, give the approximate time. Safaricom can manually look up the transaction in their suspense ledger and either complete or reverse it within a few hours.
If you received a transaction code SMS but recipient says no funds. That's usually a recipient-side issue, not an outage issue. Send the SMS code to the recipient and ask them to dial *334# to refresh their balance.

If you're a merchant

For Buy Goods and Paybill businesses, an M-PESA outage cuts off most retail customers. Practical playbook:

Post a sign: "M-PESA temporarily down. Cash and card accepted." Keeps customer flow steady.
Have a card POS as backup. The KES 5,000-15,000 monthly POS rental is worth it for any business doing more than KES 200,000 / month. Outages happen.
Accept cash, defer credit. For repeat customers, take a name and contact and let them M-PESA later.
Communicate via your business social media. "We're open despite the M-PESA outage, paying by card or cash works." Acknowledges the issue and signals you're still trading.

Planned vs unplanned outages

Safaricom announces planned maintenance windows by SMS to all M-PESA users 24-72 hours ahead. Maintenance is usually overnight (00:00-04:00 EAT) and typically affects only one product (e.g., M-PESA Global, KCB M-PESA loans, the M-PESA app) rather than the whole platform. Plan around announced windows; emergency outages don't come with notice.

How often do outages happen?

Major full-platform outages are rare in 2026, typically 1-3 per year, lasting 1-4 hours. Partial outages (one product, one region) are more common, perhaps once a month, usually under an hour. Compare to global card networks (Visa/Mastercard), which have similar availability profiles.

The improving trend is real, uptime in 2024-2026 has materially improved over 2017-2020, when major outages were quarterly events. Investment in redundancy and the move to a cloud-native core has made the platform more resilient.

What not to do during an outage

Don't retry the same transaction repeatedly. If your balance dropped, the first attempt may have processed. Multiple retries during recovery can double-charge.
Don't share your PIN or transaction code with anyone claiming to be Safaricom. Outages are a peak time for impersonation scams. Safaricom never asks for your PIN.
Don't pay an unverified "backup paybill." No such thing exists. Wait it out.