Madagascar visa: eVisa, 2026 fees and entry requirements before a road trip

There is no tourist exemption for Madagascar: every traveller, whatever their nationality, needs a visa. The good news is that the Great Island issues it without difficult conditions for tourism: a passport still valid six months on arrival (with blank pages), an onward or return ticket and payment of the fee are enough in the vast majority of cases.

Two official channels coexist. The eVisa, applied for online on Madagascar's official platform (evisamada), is generally processed within 48 to 72 hours and gets you off the plane with the precious QR code in hand. The visa on arrival is still issued at international airports, notably Antananarivo-Ivato — it works, but at the cost of sometimes endless queues after a long-haul flight, and carrying exact change in euros remains wise. Our advice, without hesitation: the eVisa, applied for one to two weeks before departure.

Since 16 February 2026, the short-stay visa (up to 15 days) costs €30 — it used to cost just €10, a tripling that went relatively unnoticed. Other durations are unchanged: €35 for a 16-to-30-day stay, €40 up to 60 days and €50 up to 90 days, the maximum for a tourist visa. Payment is online for the eVisa, in cash or sometimes by card on arrival.

Given the country's size and the state of its roads, the 30-day visa at €35 is by far the most sensible for a road trip: the RN7 alone between Tana and Tuléar deserves ten days with its stops, and it would be a shame to rush. This accessibility logic matters for the destination: a study by Robert Lawson and Saurav Roychoudhury published in 2016 in the Journal of Economics and Finance measured that a demanding visa regime is associated with a drop of around 70% in arrivals from the countries concerned — light electronic procedures like Madagascar's are precisely what keeps the door open (study on Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lawson+Roychoudhury+travel+visa+requirements+impede+tourist+travel).

On the official platform, the application takes a quarter of an hour: identity form, passport scan, dates and first night's address, online payment. The authorisation arrives by e-mail — print it, the checkpoint at Ivato remains very fond of paper. Check every character of the passport number you enter: a typo means another trip to the cashier on arrival.

As with every electronic authorisation, private intermediary sites imitate the official platform and resell the procedure for €60 to €100, sometimes with longer processing than the normal channel. Simple reflex: if the displayed fee for 30 days exceeds €35, walk away. When in doubt, the Madagascar embassy website in your country lists the current official channel.

The stamp applied on arrival governs your length of stay: check it before leaving the counter — an error takes two minutes to fix at the airport and several days in Tana. Keep visa and passport accessible throughout the trip: gendarmerie checks are frequent on the national roads and go all the more smoothly when the file is clean.

Behind the wheel, an important reminder: in Madagascar, rentals overwhelmingly come with a driver, and that is often the best choice — but self-driving remains possible under conditions, IDP in hand. And don't forget the health chapter: malaria across much of the country and vaccines to plan ahead, two topics we cover in our dedicated health article. With the right visa, the right season and a suitable vehicle, the RN7 and the western tracks keep their promises.