Kenya is rushing back to the IMF.
Just months after leaving IMF money out of its national budget, the country says it now expects to seal a new deal with the fund by July.
The reason is the Iran war, which has rocked Kenya's growth outlook and could lock it out of global bond markets.
Treasury Secretary John Mbadi told reporters Kenya wants to wrap up talks with the IMF before the new fiscal year starts.
The plan is to build up reserves to take the hit from rising fuel prices, falling money sent home by Kenyans abroad, and export disruptions tied to the conflict in the Middle East.
That's a sharp change from earlier this year, when Kenya's Treasury filed a budget that left out any IMF inflows because the official line was that Kenya no longer needed fund support.
The Iran war pulled the country back to the table fast.
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The IMF has already cut its 2026 forecast for Kenya's economy to 4.5%, down from 4.9% before the war started.
Inflation - the rate at which prices rise - was expected to land at 5.2%, but the fund now sees it closing the year at 5.9%. Kenya's central bank thinks it could hit 6.2% by July, with energy prices pulling everything else up.
The World Bank flagged a separate hit on Kenya's remittances - the money sent home by Kenyans working overseas - of as much as $40 million a month.
Higher fuel costs are also running through transport, food and manufacturing, and Fitch trimmed its growth call for Kenya to 5% from 5.2%.
Going back to the IMF isn't a soft option.
The fund tied past funding to tough conditions on tax hikes, fuel prices and government spending cuts, and those terms triggered some of the deadliest street protests in Kenya in years.
The current talks are likely to bring back many of the same demands, and IMF staff have said Kenya needs to show a credible plan to cut its budget deficit before any new money flows.
That puts the government in a hard spot - it needs the cash to manage the war shock, but the conditions could light up the same political backlash.
The July target is tight.
If Kenya gets the deal done, it locks in a buffer before higher oil prices fully feed through the economy, but if the talks stall, the next test is whether Kenya can sell bonds in global markets at all.
Frontier-market investors are watching for both outcomes.
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