Africa Visa Requirements

Most African honeymoon destinations either need no visa at all or issue one online in a few days. Seychelles, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Morocco and Mozambique require no visa for UK, EU and US passport holders on a normal honeymoon-length stay. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia require an online application before departure. Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Madagascar still issue on arrival, though applying online first is faster every time.

The visa itself is rarely the problem. What actually stops couples is passport validity, blank pages, and a name that does not match the booking. Those three are covered below, and all three are avoidable.

Visa rules by country

For UK, EU and US passport holders on a tourist stay. Fees are indicative and per person — they change often, and several countries have quietly withdrawn visa-on-arrival in the last two years.

Last reviewed August 2026. Fees and requirements change without notice. Confirm on the destination government’s own immigration site before booking flights — the links in the sidebar are the official starting points.

Four rules that apply almost everywhere

1. Six months of passport validity beyond your return date. Not beyond your departure — beyond your return. Airlines check this at the gate and will refuse boarding.
2. At least two, often four, blank pages. South Africa is the strictest: it requires two entirely blank facing pages, and it enforces this. Pages with other stamps on them do not count. Couples are refused boarding for this every month.
3. Apply online wherever an e-visa exists. Visa-on-arrival queues after a ten-hour flight are a poor start to a honeymoon, and several countries — Uganda most notably — have withdrawn the on-arrival option without much announcement.
4. Use only official government sites. Search results for “Kenya visa” or “Tanzania e-visa” are dominated by agent sites charging two to three times the real fee for filling in the same form. The official domains almost always end in .go.ke, .go.tz, .gov.rw and similar.

Regional visas that save money and time

If your honeymoon crosses borders, two schemes are worth knowing about. Both are cheaper than buying separate visas and both allow multiple crossings.

Apply for the East Africa Tourist Visa through the country you will enter first, and enter through that country — arriving elsewhere first can invalidate it. The KAZA UniVisa is bought on arrival at the main entry points, but availability has been intermittent, so have the single-entry fee in cash as a fallback.

The newlywed name trap

This is the single most common paperwork failure on honeymoons, and it has nothing to do with visas as such.

Your passport, your visa and your flight booking must all show exactly the same name. If you are changing your surname after the wedding, you have two clean options and one bad one:

• Travel on your maiden-name passport and book everything — flights, visas, insurance — in that name. Change the passport when you get back. This is the simplest option and what most couples do.
• Change the passport well before you book. Allow at least three months, longer in peak season, and do not book flights until the new passport is physically in your hand.
• Booking in your married name while holding a maiden-name passport. This is the one that fails. A marriage certificate at the airport does not fix it — airlines are checking the name against the passport and the visa, not against your marital status.

The same applies to the visa. An e-visa issued against a passport number is void the moment you replace that passport, even if the number is the only thing that changed.

Practical details couples ask about

• Onward or return ticket. Frequently requested at check-in and occasionally at immigration. Have the return itinerary on your phone.
• Proof of accommodation. Rarely asked for, but Seychelles and Mauritius do sometimes ask. A booking confirmation for the first night is enough.
• Yellow fever certificate. This is an entry requirement enforced at immigration, and it depends on where you have been, not where you are going. It is the most misunderstood rule in African travel — there is a full explanation in the health and safety guide.
• Photographs. Some on-arrival visas still want a passport photo. Carry two each; they cost nothing and their absence causes delays.
• Cash for on-arrival fees. Clean US dollar notes. Card machines at land borders fail routinely.
• Children and previous surnames. Not relevant to most honeymoons, but if either of you travels on a passport in a name that differs from any other document, carry the certificate that links them.