What Are the Visa Requirements to Enter Tanzania?

Visas are required by all visitors to Tanzania, except Botswana, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Ecuador, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Georgia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. For these nationalities, a free visitor’s pass, valid for one to three months, is obtainable at the border. You’ll be asked how long you want to stay, and three months is no problem.

For other nationalities, visa costs vary. The cost of a visa ranges from USD $100 for a multiple-entry visa to USD $50 for a single-entry visa (90 days). Others fall somewhere in between these two figures. A valid passport is required, and visas are generally issued within a few hours while at the airport. Now, you can also obtain a Tanzania visa through different online platforms. You generally get what you ask for, up to three months.

In the past, around the borders, there were bad reputations for hassling travellers, but this was connected either with currency or with suspected visits to South Africa.

But now that problem is finished. You will have to declare to the officers if you have foreign currency of more than $10,000 at the time of entrance or exit. If you take a car across the border into Kenya from Tanzania, you will have to buy a 90-day road permit for USD $100.

Visas are obtained from the embassy or consulate of the appropriate country, either before you set off or along the way. It’s best to get them along the way, especially if your travel plans are not fixed, but keep your ear to the ground regarding the best places to get them.

Tanzania Visa Guide

Two different consulates of the same country may have completely different requirements; the fee may be different, one consulate might want to see how much money you have whereas another won ‘t, one might demand an onward ticket while another won’t even mention it, one might issue visas while you wait and another might insist on referring the application back to the capital (which can take weeks).

Whatever you do, don’t turn up at a border without a visa unless you’re absolutely sure visas aren’t necessary or that you can get one on arrival. If you get this wrong, you’ll find yourself tramping back to the nearest consulate, and in some countries, this can be a long way. Consular officials sometimes refuse point-blank to stamp a visa on anything other than a completely blank page, so make sure your passport has plenty of them.

Some countries demand that you have a ticket out of the country before they will issue you with a visa or let you into the country. So long as you intend to leave from the same place you arrived, there is no problem, but if you want to enter at one point and leave from another, this can sometimes be a headache.

The essential documents are a passport and an International Vaccination Card. If you already have a passport, make sure it’s valid for a reasonably long period of time and has plenty of blank pages on which stamp-happy immigration officials can do their stuff. If it’s more than half full and you’re going to need a lot of visas, get a new one before you set off.