Single-Entry Visa For East Africa

East Africa launches single-entry visa to boost tourism in East African countries...

Tourist boards from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are the joint inventors of the plan, a cross-cutting measure which aims to standardise all tourism facilities in the region, including the visas, the hotels and other tourism facilities in region. The East Africa Tourist Visa is a single entry visa for foreigners visiting Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda simultaneously. It is multi-entry within the three countries; however, this expires automatically if a traveler goes outside of the three countries.

"We're aware that people are not happy with paying for more than one visa when visiting the region," said Shedrack Mashauri, principal tourism officer for the East African Community. "We want to make it easier for them to see the whole region." The East African common visa would be an initiative geared at marketing East Africa as a single tourism destination because most tour operators have been marketing and planning their visitors’ itineraries under a regional package.

The joint marketing drive has been continuing informally since the launching by the region's state-run tourism agencies of a common marketing strategy designed to showcase the East African region as a single destination with unique attractions.

Without an East Africa Tourist Visa, you may spend a minimum of $130 to visit the three countries – Kenya ($50) + Rwanda ($30) + Uganda ($50). These fees are single entry only, meaning that a return visit to any of these countries means paying the visa fee again. Originally launched in 2014, implementation has been on the slow side but is now being sped up across the region. The East Africa Tourism Visa is now commonly available.

You cannot extend the East Africa Tourist Visa. To get a new EATV, you need to exit the EATV zone and apply for a new one. However, the region's tourism planners have been betting on the ultimate prize of the joint marketing gimmick, which is the introduction of the tourist visas, allowing tourists to travel through a series of endless borders to sample unique attractions.

The EAC Secretariat has listed the single tourist visa among its foremost future plans and had initially hoped that it would have been agreed upon by the five states, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania by November 2006. However, the EAC Council of Ministers, which is the designated decision-making authority on all matters that touch on the sovereignty, revenue, policy and immigration matters, is yet to agree on the joint visa for tourists.

EA region is one of the leading tourism hotspots in Africa alongside with North Africa and southern Africa and receives close to four million tourists from abroad a year. Major source markets for tourists coming to EA include United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa and Scandinavian countries.