An Aerial View travel guide
Do you need to apply before you fly?
A growing number of African countries now ask you to apply for entry permission online before you travel, even without a visa. Miss it and you can be turned away at boarding.
We track what each scheme actually asks for, so you can sort it out before you book, not after.
Needs one
Seychelles
Compulsory for everyone
Needs nothing
Rwanda
Visa on arrival, no pre-travel step
🇧🇫 Burkina Faso
Mandatory online visa, fee waived for African nationals since Sept 2025
Mandatory online visa, fee waived for African nationals since Sept 2025
ECOWAS and AES nationals enter visa-free under free-movement protocols (confirmed still in force via the December 2024 Bamako declaration). All other African nationals must apply and be approved online via visaburkina.bf before travel; since a September 2025 Council of Ministers decision the fee for approved African applicants has been waived, but officials stressed 'free is not the same as exempt', the online application and approval step remains compulsory.
It's required for non-ECOWAS/AES African nationals, and other nationalities not on the visa-exempt list.
The fee is USD 0.
You can't get it on arrival. It has to be sorted before you fly.
Applications are reviewed before being approved; the government describes the waiver as fee-free, not visa-free.
Good to know
A close cousin of Ghana's May 2026 reform: a nominally 'free' mandatory pre-travel approval, which the AVOI methodology would still score as a pre-travel requirement rather than true visa-free access.
Sources
Still confirming: Confirm processing time for the free African-national visa channel; Whether AES states (Mali, Niger) extend a reciprocal fee waiver; Whether the fee waiver has since been formalised in a published decree
Checked 2026-08-15.
All 54 countries we cover
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cabo Verde
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Congo
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Djibouti
- DR Congo
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- The Gambia
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Travelling somewhere not listed yet?
We're adding new countries as we confirm the details. Join the Aerial View community and we'll let you know as new destinations, trips and travel guides go live.
Explore Aerial ViewRules change without much notice, and we recheck each one on its own schedule. Last updated 2026-09-19. This page is a starting point for planning, not legal or immigration advice, always confirm with the destination country before you travel.
Curious about the numbers behind the destinations? See Tourism at a Glance. Not sure what you can pack? See what you can't carry across Africa.