Visa admin is nobody’s favourite part of a trip, so here is the practical minimum. One caveat up front: rules and fees change, so treat this as orientation and check the official Tanzanian immigration e-visa portal before you apply.
Apply online, before you fly
Tanzania runs an e-visa system, and applying in advance is the way to do it. Border and airport processing of visas on arrival has been phased out, so do not plan around queueing for one. The application is done on the official government portal, with a passport photo and your travel details, and approval usually takes some days, so do it a few weeks ahead, not the night before.
What it costs
An ordinary single-entry tourist visa is 50 US dollars for most nationalities. US passport holders are the exception: they can only be issued a multiple-entry visa, at 100 dollars, valid for a year with stays up to 90 days at a time.
The two rules that catch people
- Passport validity. Your passport should be valid for at least six months beyond arrival, with a blank page for the stamp.
- Yellow fever. Tanzania does not require the vaccination certificate from travellers arriving directly from Europe or North America, but it does if you arrive from, or transit more than twelve hours through, a yellow-fever country. Flying via Nairobi or Addis with a short layover is normally fine; a long transit can trigger the requirement. Check your specific routing.
Zanzibar
The same visa covers Zanzibar, but the island has added its own entry requirements in recent years, including a local travel-insurance scheme purchased on arrival or in advance. Check the current island rules when you book, and we will flag them again in your final documents.
What we do and do not do
We are guides, not immigration lawyers: we will point you at the right official website and sanity-check your plan, but the application is yours to make. If anything in your situation is unusual, ask early rather than at the airport.
