I Built a Free Public REST API for Kenya Data Counties, Banks, M-Pesa Paybills and More

#api #data #opensource #showdev

Every developer building a Kenyan app runs into the same problem. You need a list of all 47 counties. Or all Kenyan banks with their codes. Or M-Pesa paybill numbers for KPLC, NHIF, KRA. And every time you end up manually copying data from Wikipedia or a PDF.

I fixed that. I built a free public REST API that serves all of this data in one place.

No authentication. No sign up. Just call the endpoint and get your data.

Live API: https://kenya-api-90wq.onrender.com
GitHub: https://github.com/Carter254g/kenya-api

What the API Serves

Four datasets available right now:

All 47 Kenya counties with region and capital city
All Kenyan banks with codes and SWIFT numbers
M-Pesa paybill numbers by category
Kenya public holidays

How to Use It

Get all 47 counties

const res = await fetch('https://kenya-api-90wq.onrender.com/api/counties');
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

Response:

{
  "count": 47,
  "data": [
    { "code": 1, "name": "Mombasa", "capital": "Mombasa", "region": "Coast" },
    { "code": 47, "name": "Nairobi", "capital": "Nairobi", "region": "Nairobi" }
  ]
}

Filter counties by region

GET /api/counties?region=Coast
GET /api/counties?region=Rift Valley
GET /api/counties?region=Nyanza

Search for a bank

const res = await fetch('https://kenya-api-90wq.onrender.com/api/banks?search=equity');
const data = await res.json();

Response:

{
  "count": 1,
  "data": [
    {
      "code": "49",
      "name": "Equity Bank Kenya",
      "shortname": "Equity",
      "swift": "EQBLKENX"
    }
  ]
}

Get M-Pesa paybills by category

GET /api/mpesa/paybills?category=Government
GET /api/mpesa/paybills?category=Banking
GET /api/mpesa/paybills?category=Utilities
Government paybills include KRA iTax, NHIF, NSSF, and eCitizen.

Get all public holidays

Government paybills include KRA iTax, NHIF, NSSF, and eCitizen.

Get all public holidays

How I Built It

The API is built with Node.js and Express. The data lives in JSON files inside the project. Each route reads from its JSON file and supports query parameters for filtering.

router.get('/', (req, res) => {
  const { region } = req.query;
  if (region) {
    const filtered = counties.filter(c =>
      c.region.toLowerCase() === region.toLowerCase()
    );
    return res.json({ count: filtered.length, data: filtered });
  }
  res.json({ count: counties.length, data: counties });
});