Tanzania eVisa: Entry Requirements, Cost and Pitfalls Before a Self-Drive Safari

For a tourist stay, the ordinary single-entry eVisa costs USD 50 per person, children included, and is only issued through the government portal eservices.immigration.go.tz. It covers both mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar: there's no need to apply for a separate authorisation for the archipelago, which is administratively part of the same country. A multiple-entry version, valid for one year, costs USD 100 and suits travellers planning to cross back and forth to Kenya or Rwanda during their trip.

Processing is officially quoted at under ten working days, but applications flagged for extra checks (certain nationalities, incomplete information) can take several weeks. It's worth applying three to four weeks before departure rather than banking on the minimum quoted turnaround. As with most African eVisas, a host of official-looking third-party sites offer the same service for USD 20 to 50 more: only the eservices.immigration.go.tz address (or its alias visa.immigration.go.tz) is authoritative.

This is the most common mix-up among travellers planning a combined East Africa itinerary. The East Africa Tourist Visa (EATV), at USD 100, allows unlimited crossings between Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda over 90 days — but Tanzania is not included. A traveller who combines a Masai Mara safari with a flight to Kilimanjaro or Zanzibar therefore has to settle two separate formalities: the EATV (or the Kenyan eTA alone) for the first leg, and a full Tanzanian eVisa for the second.

Another nuance worth knowing in the other direction: leaving the EATV zone to enter Tanzania voids the East Africa visa's validity for a later return to Kenya, Uganda or Rwanda — a new one would need to be applied for. For an itinerary that alternates between several countries in the region, the order of the legs and the visa budget are worth working out before booking domestic flights.

The passport must remain valid for at least six months beyond the planned entry date and have at least one blank page for the entry stamp — two standard requirements that still cause avoidable boarding refusals. The yellow fever vaccination certificate, on the other hand, isn't systematically required: it's only mandatory for travellers arriving from a country where the disease is endemic, or who have transited more than twelve hours through one. For a direct flight from France, it isn't normally required at the border.

The vaccine is still recommended for personal protection if the itinerary includes at-risk areas of the country — worth discussing with a travel health clinic before departure, since protection only takes effect from the tenth day after the injection.

Tanzania allows a foreign driver to use their home licence for up to one year after entering the country, provided it's accompanied by a recognised International Driving Permit. In practice, almost every 4x4 rental company in Arusha or Moshi requires this document before signing the contract, since a standard French licence isn't written in English. As it's free and takes a few minutes to obtain from your home country's authorities before departure, it's worth carrying one anyway to avoid any argument at the counter after a long-haul flight.

The rest of the paperwork follows regional standards: a credit card in the main driver's name for the deposit, a minimum age generally set at 23-25 for an equipped 4x4 (roof tent, dual fuel tank), and it's essential to confirm the contract explicitly allows entry into national parks — some city-based rental companies exclude it by default.

The advice that comes up across every self-drive destination on this site — never drive after sunset outside the main towns — finds precise confirmation in Tanzania. A study by John Kioko, Christian Kiffner and co-authors, published in 2015 in Tropical Conservation Science, tracked vehicle-wildlife collisions along two stretches of a major highway in northern Tanzania: 67% of drivers surveyed considered these collisions purely accidental, blaming excessive speed or poor night-time visibility, even though the zones where wildlife regularly crosses are largely predictable (study available via Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Kioko+Kiffner+Phillips+Patterson-Abrolat+Collinson+Driver+knowledge+attitudes+animal+vehicle+collisions+Northern+Tanzania).

The basic precautions are simple: slow down as soon as you enter a signposted zone, stay especially alert at dawn and dusk when visibility drops and animal activity rises, and build in a generous time margin to be back at camp before the park gates close, typically at 6pm at most sites.

Tanzanian park entry fees (USD 50 to 82 per person per day depending on the site, payable by card only at the gates) often catch travellers used to other African destinations off guard. A study by Peter Sjølte Ranke and co-authors, published in 2023 in Biological Conservation, documented the scale of the drop in visitor numbers and revenue at Tanzanian national parks during the Covid-19 pandemic, and highlighted how heavily conservation funding depends on international tourism revenue (study available via Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ranke+threat+COVID-19+conservation+Tanzanian+national+parks). These entry fees aren't just a demanding line in the budget: they directly fund the protection of the parks you drive through.

In practical terms, that means carrying a credit card with a high enough limit (gates don't accept cash) and building this cost into the total trip budget from the planning stage, rather than discovering it at the first gate.

The "Tanzania Self-Drive" guide breaks down up-to-date entry fees park by park, along with the concrete route for a self-drive northern circuit between the Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Tarangire, public campsites included. Enough to land at Kilimanjaro airport with the eVisa already approved and a costed budget instead of improvising on the ground.