Kenya eTA and Tanzania visa: entry paperwork for a Kenya and Tanzania safari

01

Kenya: the eTA in practice

Kenya's electronic travel authorisation is applied for online before departure through the official government portal, per traveller including children, under the current rules for your nationality. The sensible rhythm is to apply once flights are ticketed and comfortably ahead of travel: processing is usually quick, but 'usually' is not a word to test at a check-in desk.

The practical notes that save files: names must match passports exactly, the same discipline this journal preaches for permits; transit routings through Nairobi have their own current provisions worth confirming; and approval documents travel best printed and offline-saved both. Sail files include the application guidance and a completion check per traveller, because one missing eTA grounds one seat and unravels one whole party's arrival day.

Two Kenya-specific wrinkles earn their sentence. Cross-border overland routings, the classic Mara-to-Serengeti shapes our multi-country files run, mean your authorisation must match how you actually enter, not just where you land first, so the requirements sheet is built from the final routing rather than the flight booking. And families should note that applications draw on each child's own passport details and photographs; the ten minutes per child is trivial in an armchair and expensive in a departure hall.

02

Tanzania and Zanzibar: visa plus additions

Mainland Tanzania issues visas through its official e-visa portal in advance, or under current arrival provisions that vary by nationality; the advance route is Sail's default recommendation because it moves the queue from an airport counter to your desk at home. Multiple-entry and transit categories exist under current rules for routings that leave and re-enter, a shape our two-country files sometimes take.

Insurance is now part of the entry layer on both sides of Tanzania. From 1 October 2026, the date in the Tanzania High Commission's guidance, most foreign visitors entering mainland Tanzania need an inbound travel insurance policy from the National Insurance Corporation (NIC) at the shilling equivalent of US$44, best bought online before travel; Zanzibar, despite being part of Tanzania, has run its own ZIC scheme since October 2024. The High Commission says the first port of entry decides which one you need, not both; our Tanzania mandatory travel insurance guide sets out the detail. Zanzibar's scheme is small, administrative and famous for surprising travellers at the boarding gate for the short hop; on Sail files it is handled with the visa paperwork weeks earlier, one line among many, invisible by design.

03

Two instruments, and the transit question

For most visitors from outside East Africa, a Kenya and Tanzania journey carries two instruments, Kenya's eTA and Tanzania's visa, plus, from 1 October 2026, Tanzania's inbound travel insurance certificate; East African Community citizens and some other passports are exempt from one or more (for the insurance, the Regulations exempt residents of EAC and SADC partner states), which is confirmed per traveller. The East African Tourist Visa never covers Tanzania; where it fits, and what Tanzania issues instead, is set out in the Tanzania eTA and visa article linked below. Joseph's desk keeps a one-page matrix of which instruments serve which routings; the version for your exact journey arrives with the first design.

Transit deserves its own line because it catches careful people. Changing planes in Nairobi en route to Kilimanjaro, or the reverse, raises the question of whether your routing needs Kenya's authorisation at all under current transit provisions, and the answer depends on terminals, airlines and whether bags recheck. The requirements sheet resolves it from the actual tickets rather than the general rule, which is the only way transit questions are ever safely answered.

04

The constants, and how Sail runs the layer

Beneath the country specifics sit the constants no nationality escapes: passports valid at least six months beyond travel with spare blank pages; children's documents complete, including any consent paperwork your home country's rules require for minors travelling with one parent; and yellow fever certification where your routing touches an endemic country under current international health rules, a question our health-layer coverage handles in full.

Operationally the layer runs on one artefact: the per-traveller requirements sheet issued at booking, naming each document, portal, fee and honest lead time for the actual passports on the file, then checked to completion three weeks out. Rules are confirmed against the official sources below at booking and again near travel, because governments adjust entry systems without consulting safari calendars, and the difference between a rule change absorbed and a rule change suffered is simply who was watching.

A final word on portals, because it protects money as well as time: apply only through the official government addresses linked below. The search results around visa applications are crowded with third-party sites that charge multiples of the official fee for the privilege of retyping your form, and some are worse than expensive. The official portals are the ones Sail's requirements sheet names, letter for letter; when in doubt, use the sheet's link and not the search bar.