Beginning January 2024, Kenya will open its borders to all foreign nationals by abolishing visa requirements.

This means that Africans seeking to travel to Kenya will no longer require visas but will now have an electronic travel authorisation in advance before visiting.

President of Kenya, William Ruto who made the second announcement on December 12, 2023 said the East African country will now become visa free as it will no longer become necessary for any person to carry the burden of applying for a visa before visiting.

“This is to echo a message to humanity to welcome everyone home…this is why the government of Kenya has abolished the requirements of visas for all visitors,” he noted.

“To implement this policy, we have developed a digital platform to ensure that all travellers to Kenya are identified in advance on an electronic platform.
Consequently, all travellers will obtain electronic travel authorization as they come to Kenya,” President Ruto added.

Back in October 2023, President Ruto first made the visa-free announcement by indicating that visa requirements were impeding on trade, tourism and other developments.

“When people cannot travel, business people cannot travel, entrepreneurs cannot travel, we all become net losers,” President Ruto earlier said.

Meanwhile, the move by Kenya is quite similar to a recent visa waiver regime between Ghana and South Africa. The two countries recently announced that Ghanaians seeking to travel to South Africa can now do so without a visa and vice versa from November 1, 2023.

MA/SA

Watch the latest edition of BizTech below:

Click here to follow the GhanaWeb Business WhatsApp channel

Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.