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Paystack documents its API for businesses in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Côte d'Ivoire, with a test mode for everyone. M-Pesa Daraja is Safaricom's Kenyan API with a sandbox. MTN MoMo says it is in over 14 countries but names none publicly. Airtel Money has a portal we could not read. Checked 3 November 2026.
Picture a developer in Nairobi at 11 PM, three browser tabs open. One is a blog post that says MTN MoMo works in "most of Africa". Another is a forum thread from 2022. The third is the official portal, and it will not load without a login. Which one do you trust?
This page is the answer we wanted at that desk. It lists four payment rails: M-Pesa Daraja, Paystack, MTN MoMo and Airtel Money. For each one it says what we confirmed from the provider's own developer documentation, which country the fact applies to, and the day we looked: 3 November 2026.
The rule we set ourselves is strict. A country gets a row only if an official page names it. A claim that appears in a blog post, a plugin description or a forum answer does not count. Where the official page is blocked, script-rendered or behind a login, we say so and leave the country out.
That makes some rows thinner than you would like. A thin row you can trust is worth more than a full row you have to re-check.
Each rail below has a table and a source paragraph. If you only want the short version, read the summary table first, then jump to the rail you need. Three spoke pages go deeper on specific questions: which Paystack mobile money provider code applies in which country, what changes between sandbox and production on each rail, and how to check any payment API against your own country.
One row per rail and country we confirmed, plus the rails where we could not name a country. "Public API" means the provider publishes developer documentation. "Sandbox" means the provider's own docs describe a test environment you can use before going live.
| Rail | Country | Public API | Sandbox | Who can onboard | Official docs | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paystack | Kenya | Yes | Test mode on every new account | Starter (individual) and registered businesses | paystack.com/docs | 3 Nov 2026 |
| Paystack | Ghana | Yes | Test mode | Starter and registered businesses | paystack.com/docs | 3 Nov 2026 |
| Paystack | Nigeria | Yes | Test mode | Starter and registered businesses | paystack.com/docs | 3 Nov 2026 |
| Paystack | South Africa | Yes | Test mode | Starter and registered businesses | paystack.com/docs | 3 Nov 2026 |
| Paystack | Côte d'Ivoire | Yes | Test mode | Starter and registered businesses | paystack.com/docs | 3 Nov 2026 |
| M-Pesa Daraja | Kenya | Yes, Safaricom developer portal | Yes, sandbox app | Company or individual account on the portal; production needs Safaricom approval | developer.safaricom.co.ke | 3 Nov 2026 |
| MTN MoMo Open API | Not named publicly | Yes, developer portal | Portal has an API Sandbox section | Go-live documents are country specific, shown after sign-in | momodeveloper.mtn.com | 3 Nov 2026 |
| Airtel Money Open API | Not confirmed | Portal exists | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | developers.airtel.africa | 3 Nov 2026 |
Sources: Paystack API reference, Paystack payment channels, Safaricom Developers Portal, MTN MoMo developer community, Airtel Africa developer portal, checked on 3 November 2026.
If you want the build skills behind these rows, our Payment Integration for Developers course takes you from a sandbox key to a live payment in four weeks of focused work.
Two things are worth noticing in the table. Paystack is the only rail where an official page lists the countries one by one. And the MTN and Airtel rows say "not named" or "not confirmed" because that is what the official pages let us conclude today.
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Paystack gives the clearest country data of the four. Its API reference has a "Supported currency" table. It lists NGN, USD, GHS, ZAR, KES and XOF, with availability in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Côte d'Ivoire (Paystack API reference, Supported currency, checked on 3 November 2026). XOF is the currency of Côte d'Ivoire.
That table is the reason those five countries are in our verified list. Two more countries need an honest note. Paystack's own site shows Rwanda and Egypt in its country selector (Paystack countries page, checked on 3 November 2026), and Paystack's activation guide lists Egypt among its compliance guides (Paystack guide to activating a business, checked on 3 November 2026). Neither appears in the API currency table, so we publish no row for them.
The channels page splits payment methods by market. This is the part that decides whether your customers can pay the way they actually pay.
| Channel | Where Paystack says it works |
|---|---|
| Cards (Visa, Mastercard) | All markets |
| Mobile money | Ghana, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire |
| Pesalink bank transfer | Kenya (registered businesses, enabled on request) |
| Pay with Transfer | Nigeria, Ghana |
| Pay with Bank, USSD, Verve | Nigeria |
| Amex | Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya |
| EFT, QR code, Capitec Pay | South Africa |
Sources: Paystack payment channels docs, checked on 3 November 2026.
How Pesalink charges work, including the 25 minute account, is in our spoke on Paystack Pesalink in Kenya.
Read the Kenya line closely. A Kenyan business on Paystack can take cards, mobile money (M-Pesa and Airtel Money) and Pesalink. It cannot take USSD or Pay with Bank, which are Nigerian channels. A tutorial written for a Lagos shop will not match what your Nairobi shop sees.
Paystack's mobile money section says the feature "is only available to businesses in Ghana, Kenya, and Côte d'Ivoire" (Paystack payment channels docs, checked on 3 November 2026). The networks are:
The code you send for each network is on our spoke page about Paystack mobile money provider codes by country. The existing hub also has a wider Paystack by country overview; treat the table on this page as the dated, source-checked version.
Paystack has two business types. A Starter business is an individual or unregistered trader. A Registered business has a registration certificate and a corporate bank account. Requirements vary by country and industry (Paystack guide to activating a business, checked on 3 November 2026).
| Country | Starter business needs | Registered business needs |
|---|---|---|
| Kenya | National ID or valid passport; a personal bank account or mobile money line; all names must match | Sole proprietor: Business Registration Service certificate and number, KRA PIN, bank account in the registered name. Limited company: certificate of incorporation, CR-12, KRA PIN, business bank account |
| Ghana | ID (passport, National ID, driver's licence or voter's card), a tax identification number, personal bank or mobile money number | Limited company: Certificate of Incorporation, Form 3, TIN. Sole proprietor: Certificate of Registration |
| Côte d'Ivoire | National ID or passport, personal mobile money or bank details with RIB or cancelled cheque, proof of address under six months old | Corporate account, DFE, RCCM less than three months old, one director's details, owners of 25% or more |
| Nigeria | A government ID (such as BVN, NIN slip, driver's licence, voter's card or passport), contact and owner details, proof of address | Varies; Paystack's Nigeria compliance page lists the documents, and the bank account must match the registered name |
| South Africa | Valid ID, personal bank account number and bank confirmation letter, owner details | Varies; Paystack's South Africa compliance page lists the documents, and the bank account must match the registered name |
Sources: Paystack compliance requirements for Kenya, for Ghana, for Côte d'Ivoire, for South Africa, for Nigeria, checked on 3 November 2026. For the full Registered lists in Nigeria and South Africa, read those official pages; we do not copy a list we could not read in full.
The Kenya list is the one most readers need. It says a Kenyan limited company must supply a CR-12 from the Registrar of Companies showing directors and shareholdings, and that non-profits replace the CR-12 with a signed and stamped board resolution letter (Paystack Kenya compliance, checked on 3 November 2026).
Every new Paystack account starts in test mode, which the activation guide calls "a safe sandbox environment where you can use Paystack without using real money" (Paystack guide to activating a business, checked on 3 November 2026). To go live you complete the compliance page for your business type and country, then press "Activate Business". If documents verify, the business goes live automatically. If there are problems, the Business Reviews team emails within 24 hours (Paystack guide to activating a business, checked on 3 November 2026).
Test credentials are published too. The test payments page lists an M-Pesa Kenya test number, +254 710 000 000, with no PIN or OTP, and an Orange Côte d'Ivoire number that needs the OTP 1234 (Paystack test payments, checked on 3 November 2026).
In live mode Paystack sends webhook events every 3 minutes for the first 4 tries, then hourly for the next 72 hours. In test mode it sends hourly for 10 hours with a 30-second timeout. Events carry an x-paystack-signature header, an HMAC SHA512 hash of the payload signed with your secret key (Paystack webhooks docs, checked on 3 November 2026). Mobile money depends on webhooks: the customer approves on their phone, and your server learns the result only when the event arrives.
Daraja is Safaricom's developer portal for M-Pesa. The portal's own page says you can "register and create an account as either a company or individual" and "create a sandbox app and test it by simulating the app on any external API Client" (Safaricom Developers Portal, checked on 3 November 2026).
| Item | What we confirmed |
|---|---|
| Country | Kenya (Safaricom's portal; we ship on it for Kenyan clients) |
| Public API | Yes, on developer.safaricom.co.ke |
| Sandbox | Yes, create a sandbox app after registering |
| Who can register | A company or an individual |
| Production access | Go-live is a separate step with Safaricom; the steps are shown inside the portal |
| Country list | The portal names none, so Kenya is the only row we publish |
Sources: Safaricom Developers Portal, checked on 3 November 2026.
Be honest about the limit here. The portal is a script-rendered app, so a plain page fetch returns the home page text but not the individual API pages. We cannot quote you the full list of result codes, the exact go-live documents or the callback IP details from the official source today. That is why this page does not state them. For the steps we have run ourselves, read our Daraja production checklist and Daraja sandbox setup, and log into the portal to confirm anything before you build on it.
Safaricom's M-Pesa also runs in other countries under other operators. We have not checked those operators' developer portals, so they get no row. If you work in Tanzania, our existing Tanzania mobile money errors guide is a tutorial, not a verified matrix entry.
One more route to M-Pesa in Kenya exists: collecting it through Paystack. Paystack's docs list M-PESA STK push, M-PESA Offline and M-PESA Till as Kenyan mobile money options (Paystack payment channels, checked on 3 November 2026). That route skips the Safaricom approval, at the cost of Paystack as a middle layer. Our existing page on Daraja versus aggregators weighs the trade.
MTN's official developer community says MoMo Open APIs are "now available in over 14 African countries" and does not name them (MTN MoMo developer community, checked on 3 November 2026). Its community manager also says "the required documentation for GoLive are country specific", and points to the Go-Live page that appears after you sign in (MTN community thread, checked on 3 November 2026).
| Item | What we confirmed |
|---|---|
| Countries | "Over 14 African countries" per MTN; no public list found |
| Public API | Yes, momodeveloper.mtn.com, sign up or sign in |
| Sandbox | The portal has an "API Sandbox" menu and is titled "Test environment" |
| Who can onboard | Country specific; documents are listed on the Go-Live page after login |
| Our verified countries | None yet |
Sources: MTN MoMo Developer portal, MTN community: what are MoMo Open APIs, checked on 3 November 2026.
You will see lists of MoMo countries in plugins and blog posts, and our own country tutorials cover Uganda and Rwanda. A tutorial shows how we built something. It is not a country confirmation from MTN, so those countries stay out of the verified table until an MTN page names them.
Practical advice that survives this gap: sign up on the portal, open the Go-Live page, and screenshot the document list for your country the same day. The list is the only authority, and it can change. Our MoMo API errors guide and Uganda MoMo integration guide show the build side.
If your customers pay with MTN MoMo in Ghana or Côte d'Ivoire, there is a route we can verify. Paystack's docs list MTN as a mobile money network in both countries (Paystack payment channels, checked on 3 November 2026).
Airtel Africa runs a developer portal at developers.airtel.africa. When we fetched it on 3 November 2026, the page returned only the title "Developer Portal" (Airtel Africa developer portal, checked on 3 November 2026). The portal is an Angular app that needs a browser to render, and nothing in its raw page names a country, a sandbox or an onboarding path.
| Item | What we confirmed |
|---|---|
| Countries | Not confirmed from official pages |
| Public API | A developer portal exists |
| Sandbox | Not confirmed |
| Who can onboard | Not confirmed |
| Our verified countries | None yet |
Sources: Airtel Africa developer portal, checked on 3 November 2026.
This is a gap in our checking, not a claim that the API is absent. A reader with a browser and a login can see more than we can. If you work in one of Airtel's markets, open the portal, read the country notes in the documentation, and note the date.
There is one Airtel Money fact we can source. Paystack lists Airtel Money (as "ATMoney & Airtel Money", code atl) for businesses in Ghana and Kenya (Paystack payment channels, checked on 3 November 2026). Our existing guide on Airtel Money integration in Kenya covers the build.
Readers ask about the East African markets most, so here is the position in plain words. Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia have no row in our matrix today. That does not mean no API exists there. It means no official page we could read names those countries for a rail.
When a country is confirmed, it gets a row in the tables above and a line in content/facts.json, both with the new check date. Until then, use the country tutorials on this site as build guides and the provider's own portal as the authority.
A common mistake is to copy a "supported countries" list from a plugin. Plugin authors write what worked for their customers. A provider's own page says what it will support, which is a different promise.
Start from where your customer pays, not from which API you like. Four short cases, each built only from the sourced rows.
Whatever you pick, plan for the webhook. Mobile money finishes on the customer's phone, not in your browser tab. Paystack allows the customer 180 seconds to authorise, then tells you to call Verify Transaction if no success event arrives (Paystack payment channels, checked on 3 November 2026). Our sandbox to production comparison shows where each rail's test behaviour stops matching live behaviour.
Providers change country lists and onboarding documents without notice. This page carries one date, 3 November 2026, because that is the day we opened every official link above. If a link is dead or a fact has moved, treat the old fact as unconfirmed.
You can use the matrix three ways. Use it to shortlist a rail before you commit a sprint. Use the source links to confirm on the day you build. Use the "not confirmed" rows as a to-do list for your own checking.
If you want to learn the integration yourself, the Payment Integration for Developers course walks through a sandbox key, callbacks, reconciliation and go-live in four weeks.
If you would rather have it built, our studio ships M-Pesa, MoMo, Airtel Money and card payments into live products. Read about payments integration at Mctaba Labs and book a scoping call.
STK push, C2B, B2C, callbacks and reconciliation, built in a live four-week course with code review.
See the payments course