Kenya e-Visa Application Process: My Experience

If you’re a national of one of these countries, and are planning a trip to Kenya, you’ll likely need to apply for a Kenya e-Visa (electronic visa) before you leave on your trip.

Visas on arrival to Kenya are more or less a thing of the past as of late 2015.  Many current (“current”, I say) guidebooks and websites will tell you that Visa-On-Arrival is still possible at points of entry into Kenya, but this is largely incorrect.  While there may be continued recent reports of visas issued upon arrival at Kenyan airports and land borders, I wouldn’t count on this as a certainty with Kenyan immigration any longer.

Read on for information on my experience applying for a Kenya e-Visa, including notes on cost, processing time, required documentation for visa applications, if you need to show proof of onward travel, and more.

There are currently two ways to apply for Kenyan visas:

You can apply for visas the old fashioned way by filling out appropriate paperwork and sending it to a Kenyan embassy (per their instructions), or you can apply for a visa online, via the Kenya eVisa program.  The traditional visa application process and the e-Visa program run concurrently at the time of writing.

Types of Kenya e-Visas:

Three types of Kenya e-Visas are offered as of October 2015:

1. Single Entry
2. Transit Visa
3. Courtesy / Diplomatic

Applying for a visa through traditional means allows access to one additional type of visa: the “East Africa Tourist Visa”.

The convenient “East Africa Tourist Visa”covers travel to three countries (Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya) via one visa, but is not yet offered via Kenya’s e-Visa services as of October 2015.  You can still apply for said visa by mailing your passport off to an embassy along with the appropriate documents prior to your travel to Kenya.  The East African Tourist Visa is, in my opinion, quite a cost- and time-effective solution for travelers moving between the three countries for holiday, and hopefully this type of visa will be offered electronically by Kenyan immigration in the future.

East Africa Tourist Visas allow MULTIPLE ENTRIES into each of the three countries.  East Africa Tourist Visas are valid 90 days and are not extendable.  Holders of the East African Tourist Visa must first arrive in the country in which they applied for the visa (for example:  if you were issued an East African Tourist Visa by Uganda, you must enter Uganda to start your 90 day visa).  Application fees for East Africa Tourist visas are around $100 US plus processing.  

A few links regarding East African Tourist Visas:

Kenya Embassy page discussing visa requirements
Rwanda official webpage detailing East Africa Tourist Visas, plus visa application links
DiscoverAfrica.com blog entry discussing East African Tourist Visas

The benefit of applying for an e-Visa as opposed to a visa through an embassy:

The ability to apply for a visa without physically mailing my passport is an extremely convenient thing.  This means I could apply from ANYWHERE in the world without having to ever deal with physically shipping or receiving documents.  For travelers with shifting itineraries and/or limited chances to ship out a passport for visa applications, this is HUGE.

RELATED POST:  Did you know you can legally carry Two Current U.S. Passports At Once?

The flag of Kenya.

MY KENYA E-VISA APPLICATION EXPERIENCE:

I applied for and received a “Single Entry” Kenya e-Visa (for Tourism) in October of 2015.  My experience and thoughts on the matter are detailed below.  Please note that the below will not necessarily directly inform on how to apply for anything other than single-entry tourist visas, and that visa requirements, fees and processing times may change after the time this post is written (October 2015).

The application process:

The process for application was really quite simple.  After setting up an account on Kenya’s e-Visa site and filling out basic personal information, passport info and trip information, I had to round up a few things that took me a little time to assemble:

• A digital photo of the picture page of the passport with which I will travel
• A recent digital passport photo (per specs listed by Kenya Immigration) with white background, maximum size 500 pixels by 500 pixels (square)
• A point of contact in Kenya (in my case, a hotel at which I plan to stay)
• PDF of travel itinerary and/or booked roundtrip airfare

Note:  the requirements for a PDF of an itinerary / airfare were not 100% clear, and I wasn’t sure whether or not to include a self-drafted detailed itinerary or my booked airfare.  I also wasn’t sure if I needed to show how I was getting in and out of Kenya itself, or if I could book a flight home out of a different country, like Ethiopia, Tanzania, etc.

In the end, I played it VERY safe by sending in a PDF of a confirmed/paid flight itinerary that showed me both flying in AND out from Nairobi’s airport in under 90 days time – even though my real plan was to fly home from Ethiopia.

Pro Tip:  Applying for visas and booking airfare at the same time can be nerve-wracking, because what if your visa application gets rejected, leaving you with an unusable, nonrefundable flight?  For situations like these, I often book REFUNDABLE fares and apply for visas with the resulting fare booking – and then refund the costs later.  Refundable fares are often more expensive than restricted fares, so you need to make sure you have the credit card headroom to do this, of course.  Alternatively, you can book a restricted fare with an airline like United, which offers a 24-hour cancellation window on fares.  Here’s a grid of a few other airlines that may offer similar 24-hour cancellation policies on fares.  But as usual, read the fine print before booking anything!

Total e-Visa application costs:

Single Entry Visa Application:  $50.00 US
“Convenience Fee”  $1.00 US
Total:  $51.00 US

Application fees can be paid by credit card, are non-refundable (even if you are rejected).

Kenya e-Visa processing time:

I had read that Kenya e-Visas were generally processed within two business days.  This was accurate to my experience – my visa was approved and issued within just under 48 hours, during business days.

Note:  Though the site says it will e-mail you updates to your applications, it did NOT e-mail me any sort of notice when my visa was approved – I continued checking the website every few hours until the approval came through.

Pertinent notes shown on my approved Kenya e-Visa:

• Visa Type (“single entry” in my case – not “single journey”.  I plan to ask at my arrival airport if the immigration clerk can approve MULTIPLE ENTRIES on my visa just to see if they’ll do it)
• Date of visa issue
• Point of entry into Kenya (based on the itinerary I submitted)
• Date of planned arrival in Kenya (based on the itinerary I submitted)
• My full name, date of birth, passport number, passport date of issue, passport expiry date
• Reason for travel (I listed one of my touristic destinations)
• My home cellphone number and e-mail address
• Kenyan phone number (based on the destination and contact info you list on your application)

Notes:  “Date of planned arrival” is likely a flexible thing, as Kenya eVisas allow you to enter up to three months after issuance of your eVisa.  However, I really have no idea how Kenyan authorities would respond if one deviated from their submitted point of entry – for example, what if your plans changed and you decided to do a land border crossing into Kenya instead of flying in to an international airport?  No idea (and I have no real plans of finding out on this trip).  If you experience this, PLEASE comment below – I’d love you to share your story with other travelers so we can decode the new visa system for everyone!

These exact notes are also included from the Kenya Department of Immigration Services on my e-Visa:

1. The possession of a visa is not the final authority to enter the Republic of Kenya.
2. Engaging in any form of business or employment without a requisite permit or pass is an offense.
3. A visa to Kenya once issued is valid for 3 months before you travel.
4. Once you present yourself to immigration control at the port of entry, you may be issued with a stay period not exceeding 90 days, which may be renewed for a further 90 days at the immigration headquarters.
5. The maximum number of days a visitor may stay in Kenya is 6 months.

I assume #5 means “6 months within one year”.  But is that a CALENDAR YEAR, or a given 12-month period that starts from one’s first arrival into Kenya?  Comment below if you know for sure.

Before I left for Kenya:

At the request of Kenyan immigration, I printed out a hardcopy of my Kenya e-Visa for carriage to my point of entry into Kenya (I had no plans of learning the hard way about what happens if one does NOT have a hardcopy of their e-Visa!).

My check-in agent for my flight (on United) actually asked to see my e-Visa document before I checked in for my initial flight – which is a GOOD thing, because who wants to fly for 30-40 hours just to arrive and get turned away by immigration?  Better to be forewarned.

My experience upon arrival in Kenya (Nairobi Airport, October 2015):

I arrived in Nairobi (via a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, in my case) and proceeded to immigration accordingly.  The first thing I noticed here was that something like 1/3 of international travelers did NOT arrive with Kenya e-Visas but still had no problem getting tourist visas on arrival, which was in direct conflict with what the Kenyan embassy website said at the time (but quite fortunate for those travelers).

I presented my Kenya e-Visa printout and necessary customs forms to a Kenyan immigration agent and got stamped in without too much trouble.  Note that my Kenyan immigration agent did NOT ask me for proof of confirmed onward travel of any sort, which is fortunate, because I didn’t actually have onward travel out of the country booked yet (I didn’t know exactly what day I would be leaving Kenya, as it were.  I DID have a printed copy of my flight home from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, just in case though.).  I’m not sure if this is typical with all immigration agents or if I was just lucky.

I didn’t end up asking for multiple entries on my e-Visa, because I figured I didn’t need to leave and come back by that point – so I’m not entirely sure if there’s a way to request a multiple-entry visa from immigration, upon arrival.

The only real hang up at Kenyan immigration?  There were some somewhat hidden (but of course required) customs forms that were not handed out on the airplane, and that no airport signage alerted travelers to – so many people got to the front of their respective immigration line just to get turned away for completion of these hidden forms, which were placed on a desk in the back of the room.  This happened to me too, and added 20-30 minutes to my time in the queue as I didn’t have anyone to hold my place when it became necessary to step to the back of the room for the additional forms.  It’s always something, right?

Thanks for reading!  What is your experience with foreign visas for travel in Kenya, or with Kenyan immigration?  Post below and share your story.