Tanzania Visa and Entry Requirements

Tanzania is straightforward to enter and has two requirements that catch people out. One is a policy you can only buy from a single company. The other is a health form that every arrival now completes.

Apply for the e-visa before you travel

You need a tourist or business visa. You apply for an e-visa before you travel, through the Immigration Services Department portal.

A single entry tourist or business visa is also available on arrival at the main ports of entry, subject to meeting immigration requirements, and you may be asked to show proof of your return journey. You cannot get a multiple entry visa on arrival, so an itinerary that leaves Tanzania and comes back needs the e-visa.

Your passport must have an expiry date at least six months after the date you arrive and at least one blank page. Be ready to show a return or onward ticket at border control.

Zanzibar has its own compulsory insurance, and only one company sells it

This is the requirement most likely to interrupt a trip, and it applies to all visitors to Zanzibar other than residents.

You must hold mandatory Inbound Travel Insurance from the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation for the duration of your stay, up to 92 days. You can only buy it from that corporation. Other international travel insurance policies are not accepted, however comprehensive they are, and you may be refused entry without it.

Read that as a separate line item in the budget and a separate task in the planning, not as something an existing annual policy covers. It does not.

Screening on arrival

Health screening applies to every arrival. Since 17 October 2026, in response to the Ebola outbreak caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the cases imported into Kenya, all travelers must complete the online Traveler's Health Surveillance Form, before departure or on arrival, and keep the QR code or reference number it gives you. Body temperature and other health checks take place at every airport, land crossing and port. Travelers judged to be at high risk are followed up by daily automated messages for 21 days, even after they leave. Tanzania itself had reported no Ebola case as of that date.

None of this stops an ordinary arrival. It means the line is longer, and the questions are more specific if you have been in the region.

What you may not carry in or out

Tanzania enforces its wildlife rules at the border in a way that surprises visitors who think of them as applying to traders.

Do not bring animal skin accessories into Tanzania: you risk questioning or detention when you try to leave with them. Border officials have arrested foreigners for trying to take wildlife items out, including horns and seashells. Taking them without a certified export permit from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism is illegal, and being caught means detention or a fine.

A shell picked up on a beach is the everyday version of this and it is worth saying plainly: leave it on the beach.