Kenya eTA for Indian Citizens: The $30 Visa Kenya Does Not Call a Visa

On 1 January 2024 Kenya abolished visas for everybody. The headline travelled a great deal further than the detail, which is that what replaced the visa is an Electronic Travel Authorisation you must apply for, pay for, and be approved for before you board. Kenyan commentators called it a visa under another name, and for an Indian passport holder that is the honest description: $30, up to three days of processing, and no boarding pass without it.

Kenya is also, on the day this guide was checked, the least settled destination in this series. A mandatory travel insurance rule was gazetted in July 2026 and frozen by the High Court weeks later, with a hearing due in September. A new per-passenger ticket fee has been promulgated while the airline industry publicly objects to it. And the requirement most likely to actually derail an Indian traveller is not Kenyan at all — it is what India asks for when you come home.

“Visa-free” is a policy label, not your experience

Kenya has spent two years widening the list of people who genuinely need nothing. Since Legal Notice No. 93 of 30 May 2025, the eTA is waived for citizens of every African country except Somalia and Libya, for East African Community nationals staying up to 180 days, and for a long list of others — Malaysia, Maldives, Singapore, Brunei, Cyprus, San Marino, Fiji and much of the Caribbean among them.

India is on none of those lists. The one Indian exemption in the schedule is narrow and worth knowing if it applies to you: holders of Indian diplomatic, official or service passports are exempt for stays up to 90 days. An ordinary Indian passport applies and pays like everybody else. There is one small consolation in the comparison — an Indian traveller pays $30 to visit Kenya, while a Kenyan travelling to India pays considerably more for an Indian e-visa.

The insurance rule that is on hold rather than gone

This is the live issue, and the timing is unfortunate for anyone booking now. On 30 July 2026 the Cabinet Secretary for Health published Gazette Notice No. 11492, setting minimum benefits for mandatory inbound travel health insurance for foreign visitors staying under twelve months: a cumulative limit of not less than US$50,000, made up of $20,000 for medical expenses, $25,000 for emergency medical transportation, $300 for prescribed medicines, $1,000 for mental illness and $5,000 for repatriation of remains, from an insurer licensed under Kenya’s Insurance Act.

Two Marsabit residents challenged it. On the strength of their petition the High Court certified the matter urgent and issued interim orders suspending the operationalisation and enforcement of the notice, pending an inter partes hearing set for 16 September 2026. Their arguments were structural rather than about the money: that the framework was thin, that it raised data-protection concerns, and that the Ministry of Health had overreached by directing the immigration service to verify insurance through the eTA system when immigration belongs to another ministry.

The Ministry of Health’s stated mechanism, if the rule survives, is that travellers with qualifying cover from home upload proof through the eTA system, and those without can buy a policy at designated entry points. Neither half of that is operating while the suspension stands.

What the eTA actually costs

Kenya publishes a full fee schedule, which is more than most authorities do, and it is worth seeing in one place because the $30 figure everyone quotes is only the first line. These are the fees levied by the State Department for Immigration, excluding payment charges.

• Standard eTA — $30. Single entry, the one an Indian tourist or business visitor needs.
• Transit eTA — $20. For a stop of up to three days where you leave the airport.
• Expedited service — $100 on top. Approved immediately instead of within three days.
• One-year multiple entry — $300. No restriction on purpose of visit.
• East African Tourist eTA — $100. Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda on one authorisation, valid 90 days from issue and not renewable. Kenya’s mission in Japan flags it as temporarily unavailable, so confirm before you build a three-country trip around it.
• Five-year multiple entry — $185. United States citizens only. Not available on an Indian passport.
• Free — $0. East African Community citizens, diplomats on official duty, and nationals covered by bilateral agreements.

Sitting alongside that schedule is something newer and less discussed. The same circular introduces an Advance Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record service fee of $4.95 per passenger per international journey segment, applying to arrivals, departures and transits, collected at the point of sale as a separate line on your ticket rather than through the eTA. The integration deadline for airlines was 1 December 2025. As late as 30 July 2026, IATA and the African airline associations were still publicly urging governments not to fund border-security programmes this way, and we could not find a Kenyan government page confirming that collection has actually begun. Treat it as something to look for on your fare breakdown, not as a certainty either way — and if it appears, it is a real government charge, unlike the invented fees further down this page.

One entry — unless you stay inside East Africa

The standard eTA is single entry, which sounds like a problem for the classic itinerary that crosses into Tanzania for the Serengeti and comes back. It is not. Kenya’s missions state that the eTA remains valid for re-entry if you leave temporarily for one or more East African Community partner states: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania or Uganda. Step outside that bloc — Ethiopia, Zanzibar’s status aside, anywhere else — and re-entering Kenya needs a fresh eTA and a fresh $30.

On arrival you are granted a visitor’s pass, and the eTA’s 90-day validity is a window for entering rather than a licence to stay 90 days. If you need longer, the pass can be extended at an immigration office in Kenya by up to 90 days, and then potentially by another 90, with a hard ceiling of 180 days in total.

Connecting through Nairobi: the cheapest rule in this guide

Nairobi is a hub, and plenty of Indian travellers pass through it on the way somewhere else. If you arrive and leave by air without leaving the airport precincts — same aircraft or a transfer to another one — you need no eTA at all. That exemption is explicit in Kenya’s schedule, and it also covers ship passengers who stay aboard, crew on a manifest, and private aircraft stopping to refuel.

The moment you want to step out — a day room, a meal in the city, a transfer from Jomo Kenyatta to Wilson for a bush flight — you are no longer in transit for these purposes and the $20 transit eTA applies, for a stay of up to three days. It costs less than most airport lounges and has to be applied for in advance.

Only the official portal, and Kenya means it more literally than most

Every authority in this series warns about lookalike websites. Kenya goes further than warning. Its missions state that applications submitted through third-party websites will be automatically denied, and that using them may lead to fraud and loss. The only channels the government recognises are the portal at etakenya.go.ke and the official Kenya Travel Authorisation mobile app.

The certificate India wants from you, not the one Kenya wants

Here is the one that catches Indian travellers, and it has nothing to do with getting into Kenya. Kenya asks for a yellow fever vaccination certificate only from travellers arriving from a country with a risk of transmission, and India is not one — so flying Delhi or Mumbai to Nairobi, nobody will ask you for it on the way in.

Coming home is the reverse. Kenya is on India’s list of yellow fever endemic countries, and the High Commission of India in Nairobi states that all travellers arriving in India from Kenya must hold a valid yellow fever vaccination certificate. India enforces this under the International Health Regulations: a traveller aged nine months or over who arrives without a valid certificate is quarantined at a designated facility until the certificate becomes valid or for up to six days from departure, whichever comes first.

There is a narrow escape only for genuine airside transit. Under the regulations, a traveller who passed through an at-risk airport without leaving the premises may be exempted if the health officer agrees. That is a discretionary carve-out for a connection, not a plan for a safari.

What the portal asks for

The application itself is undemanding, and most refusals come from mismatches rather than missing paperwork. Kenya asks for a passport with at least six months of validity and at least one blank page, a selfie or passport-style photograph, contact details, your arrival and departure itinerary, and an accommodation booking confirmation. Payment is by card.

Beyond the tourist baseline, the purpose of the trip adds documents: business travellers need an invitation letter from the company and a copy of its registration; family visits need an invitation letter plus the host’s identity document, passport, alien card or entry permit; medical trips need a hospital referral; conferences need the invitation. Kenya suggests applying at least two weeks before travel, and its own portal is clear that three working days is typical rather than guaranteed.

The short version

• Kenya has no visa and an eTA you cannot skip: $30, three days, official portal only.
• File it yourself at etakenya.go.ke. Kenya automatically denies third-party submissions, and the $30 is not refundable.
• Airside connection through Nairobi: nothing needed. Stepping outside on a layover: $20 transit eTA, in advance.
• A side trip to Tanzania or Uganda does not void your eTA. Anywhere outside East Africa does.
• Buy real travel health insurance. The $50,000 minimum is suspended until at least 16 September 2026, but the statutory requirement behind it is not.
• Get the yellow fever jab at least ten days before you fly. India, not Kenya, is the country that will ask for the certificate.

Kenya is cheap and quick to enter, and the paperwork is genuinely a single form and a card payment. What makes it worth reading twice is that two of the three things most likely to cost you money — an insurance rule mid-litigation and a vaccination certificate demanded by your own country — are not on the page you fill in.