Zambia Visa and Entry Requirements

Zambia is one of the more relaxed entries in the region for some nationalities and an ordinary visa application for others, and the difference is decided by the passport in your hand rather than by where you live. The rules below are the ones the British Foreign Office publishes for British passport holders, because that is a current authority this page could read. If you travel on a different passport, the shape of the requirements will be familiar but the answer may not be.

Your passport

Your passport has to be valid for at least six months after the day you arrive, and it needs at least two blank pages for the entry stamp. Six months is the longer end of what countries ask, so a passport that is comfortable for a trip to Europe can be short for this one. Count from the arrival date, not from the day you booked.

Make sure the stamp actually goes in. Zambia recognizes dual nationality, and if you hold two passports, leave on the one you entered on. Doing otherwise turns a formality at the airport into a conversation.

Whether you need a visa

British passport holders do not need a visa for Zambia. What they do need to be able to show is a return or onward ticket and enough money for the stay, which is checked rarely and asked for occasionally. Tourists may spend up to ninety days in the country in any twelve month period; business visitors are limited to thirty.

Other nationalities, including many that travel to Zambia often, do need a visa arranged in advance or issued on arrival. This page does not carry the list, because the list changes and a stale one is worse than none. Check your own passport against the Zambian mission that serves your country before you book anything you cannot move.

The KAZA UNIVISA, if you are crossing borders

Zambia and Zimbabwe share a visa. The KAZA UNIVISA, named for the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, allows unlimited travel between the two countries for thirty days, and it also covers day trips into Botswana. For anyone visiting Mosi-oa-Tunya it is the difference between one crossing and several.

It can be applied for online in advance, or issued on arrival at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka, at Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport in Livingstone, and by land at Livingstone on the Zimbabwe side and at Kazungula on the Botswana side. It carries a fee, which this page does not print: a price in prose is wrong the day it is revised and a reader has no way of telling how old it is.

Leaving, and the charge nobody expects

Departure charges apply to air passengers: one for international travel and a smaller security charge on domestic flights. They are normally inside the ticket price and you will never see them. When they are not, they are payable in cash, in kwacha, at the airport.

That is the practical reason not to change every last note on the way out. Keep enough kwacha to cover a charge you probably will not be asked for.