Busia County
Border town became EAC's busiest crossing—digital customs saves traders KSh 750 per transaction. By 2026: trade facilitation enriches or just passes through.
Busia exists because the border exists—specifically, the Kenya-Uganda crossing that handles the largest volume of informal trade in the East African Community. This small county on Lake Victoria's northeastern shore has always been a transition zone: between Bantu and Nilotic peoples, between British Kenya and British Uganda, between today's national economies that trade despite and because of the line drawn between them.
The One-Stop Border Post at Busia, launched as an EAC initiative, aims to streamline what was bureaucratic nightmare: traders crossing the same customs twice, waiting hours for clearances, paying bribes to accelerate processing. November 2025 brought the E-Customs mobile application rollout, digitizing clearance and saving small-scale traders KSh 750 per transaction. The August 2025 Kenya-Uganda ministerial agreement ordered round-the-clock clearance and removal of discriminatory charges.
Infrastructure investment compounds: the Sh1.4 billion Jumuiya Cross-Border Market under construction on 40 donated acres will formalize informal trade that currently happens in makeshift facilities. The Lwakhakha border upgrade to One-Stop status will distribute traffic that currently congests Busia and Malaba. The EAC accounts for 25% of Kenya's export earnings; this gateway processes much of that flow.
The county exhibits classic border economy dynamics: prosperity dependent on facilitation, vulnerable to policy changes on either side. By 2026, whether digital customs and infrastructure investment translate into broader county development—not just transit fees—will determine if Busia captures lasting benefit from its geographic position.