Starlink has become the default way to get online across much of rural Africa — but its map is uneven. As of June 2026, SpaceX’s satellite service was live in 26 African countries, and the count has since risen to 30, with Côte d’Ivoire, Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Uganda all launching since. It remains absent from the continent’s biggest internet economy, South Africa. This guide sets out where it works, what it costs, how fast it is, and why some of the biggest markets are still waiting.
Nigeria was the first African market, live since January 2023. Since then the list has grown steadily — but only where national regulators have granted a licence. Starlink covers the continent from orbit, so the patchwork is not about where its satellites reach. It comes down to licences on the ground, and to gateway stations: traffic is routed through ground gateways in Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi, and a market served by a nearby gateway gets lower latency and more capacity.
Where Starlink is live
The 26 live markets as of June 2026 were Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A further 19 were listed as coming during 2026, including Angola, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire — and four of them, Côte d’Ivoire, Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Uganda, have since gone live. Uganda’s launch followed in August 2026, when Paratus became the first provider to offer the service there after the regulator and Starlink signed a licence agreement in May.
About 300,000 people were using Starlink in Africa by June 2026, according to industry tracker Space in Africa — and the customer base is concentrated: Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Zambia account for about 64 per cent of the continent’s subscribers. That is roughly 192,000 of the 300,000 users in just three markets, leaving the other 23 live countries to share the remaining third.
What it costs: the dish is the barrier
Monthly prices are strikingly consistent: roughly $30 to $55 for the standard Residential plan in most live markets, up to $70 in Somalia. The real cost is the hardware. The Standard kit lands at roughly $380 to $390 and the portable Mini at about $200 — a one-off cost that equals several months of average income in lower-income markets.
| Market | Residential / month | Lite / month | Standard kit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | ₦57,000 (about $37) | — | ₦590,000 |
| Kenya | KSh 6,500 (about $50) | KSh 4,000 | KSh 49,900 |
| Ghana | GH₵770 | GH₵500 | GH₵4,100 |
| Rwanda | RWF 60,000 | RWF 40,000 | RWF 549,000 |
| Zimbabwe / South Sudan | $50 | $30 | $389 |
| Liberia | $55 | $45 | $390 |
| Somalia | $70 | — | $390 |
Do the maths on Kenya and the barrier becomes concrete: the Standard kit at KSh 49,900 costs the same as about seven and a half months of the KSh 6,500 monthly plan. The cheapest monthly option in the table, Zimbabwe’s $30 Lite plan, is less than half the price of Somalia’s $70 Residential plan. Prices are set per country in local currency and change often — check Starlink’s own site for your address before buying.
How fast is it?
Speeds are strong across the live markets. Starlink’s own reported median download figures put most African countries well above typical fixed-line broadband: Somalia 271 Mbps, Rwanda 267 Mbps, Mozambique 226 Mbps, Zambia 181 Mbps, Kenya 172 Mbps, Ghana 172 Mbps, Zimbabwe 159 Mbps and Nigeria 125 Mbps, with latency of 25 to 42 ms. Independent measurement by Ookla found Starlink beating local internet providers in almost every African market tested in early 2026, with 16 of 23 measured countries clearing 50 Mbps.
That matters most where the ground is hardest to wire. Chad, at around 13 people per square kilometre, and the Central African Republic, at about 8, are places where laying fibre to every town is uneconomic. There, Starlink is not competing with terrestrial internet — it is the first reliable high-speed option to arrive. In dense, well-connected markets such as Rwanda, or the cities of Nigeria and Kenya, where fibre already exists, it is a premium or backup choice instead.
South Africa: the big exception
South Africa is the continent’s largest internet economy and one of the most vocal Starlink markets, yet the service is unavailable there. The block is regulatory, not technical. To hold a telecoms licence, a company must be at least 30 per cent owned by historically disadvantaged South Africans under the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment rules, and SpaceX has resisted ceding equity.
A path is opening. In December 2025 the government introduced an Equity Equivalent Investment Programme framework, which lets multinationals meet the empowerment requirement through local investment rather than handing over shares, and SpaceX has said it intends to comply, pledging R2.5 billion of investment. Even so, the regulatory process could take 12 to 18 months, pointing to a possible launch in late 2026 or 2027 — and Starlink’s own availability page still lists South Africa’s service date as unknown. The irony is sharp: Starlink’s biggest African gateway sits in Johannesburg, yet South Africans cannot legally buy the service.
What comes next: no dish required
The next phase of the expansion does away with the dish altogether. In August 2026, Airtel Africa launched Starlink Mobile in DR Congo, the first African market where the service works commercially without satellite equipment: customers with compatible LTE Android phones can send SMS and use light-data apps such as WhatsApp in areas with no terrestrial mobile coverage. Airtel and Starlink also tested satellite-to-mobile data and messaging in Kenya in March 2026, though commercial deployment there still needs approval from the Communications Authority of Kenya.
If that model spreads, the hardware barrier that keeps Starlink out of reach for many African households starts to fall. The dish costs seven months of subscription in Kenya; a phone that already connects directly to the satellite costs nothing extra. For the 19 markets still listed as coming in 2026, and the seven with no committed date at all — Algeria, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, South Africa and Sudan — the question is no longer whether the satellites reach them. It is whether regulators, and the price of the kit, let people in. The 2026 picture across the continent’s satellite market shows the same pattern everywhere: availability depends on local approval, and several large markets are not yet live.
Starlink’s African story so far is a story of uneven access: fast and cheap where it is licensed, absent where it is not, and too expensive at the point of purchase for many of the people it would help most. That is the gap to watch — and it connects directly to the wider African tech story, from Rwanda’s eKash push to make digital payments universal to how mobile money compares across Africa’s biggest markets. Connectivity is the foundation those services stand on, and the cyberthreats facing African mobile money grow with every new connection.
FAQs
How many African countries have Starlink?
26 countries were live as of June 2026, and the count has since risen to 30, with Côte d’Ivoire, Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Uganda launching after that.
How much does Starlink cost in Africa?
Monthly Residential plans run about $30 to $55, depending on the country. The Standard kit costs roughly $380 to $390 and the Mini about $200 — the hardware is the biggest upfront cost.
Why is Starlink not available in South Africa?
South Africa’s telecoms licensing requires at least 30 per cent ownership by historically disadvantaged South Africans. SpaceX has resisted ceding equity, though a 2025 investment-based framework may open a path.
How fast is Starlink in Africa?
Median download speeds top 100 Mbps in every live market, from 125 Mbps in Nigeria to 271 Mbps in Somalia, with latency of 25 to 42 ms.
Can you use Starlink without a dish?
In DR Congo, yes — Airtel Africa launched Starlink Mobile there in August 2026, letting compatible phones send SMS and use light-data apps via satellite with no dish. The service is not yet widely available elsewhere.
