Tanzania e-Visa for Indian Citizens: Two Government Sites, Two Different Prices

Start with the good news, because Indian travellers usually arrive at this question already worried. India is not on Tanzania’s referral visa list. That list — the one that requires clearance from the Commissioner General of Immigration, advises applying two months ahead and warns you not to book flights until approval lands — contains Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and around twenty others. India is not among them. Tanzania’s own e-visa guidelines name India in the list of nationalities eligible for both the online visa and the visa on arrival.

So this is an ordinary application on an ordinary timeline. The complications are elsewhere: in a price that two Tanzanian government websites state differently, and in a second mandatory payment that has nothing to do with the visa at all.

Fifty dollars or a hundred?

Both numbers come from the Tanzanian government, on Tanzanian government websites, and they do not say the same thing.

• The Immigration Services Department publishes a fee schedule in which the Ordinary Visa is US$50 for up to 90 days. It lists specific nationalities that pay something else — Pakistan at US$200, the United States and Ireland at US$100 — and India is not one of them. Read straight, an Indian applicant pays the standard $50.
• The Tanzania High Commission in New Delhi publishes its own fee table which reads, in as many words, "Indian Citizens: $100 (Multiple entry) for one year, 90 Days at a time" set against "Non-Citizens: $50 (Single entry) for 90 Days". Read straight, an Indian applicant pays $100 and is not offered the single-entry option at all.

The likeliest explanation is that the New Delhi table describes what that mission itself issues over the counter, rather than what the central portal charges online — the same page lists counter requirements like two passport photographs and a signed paper form, which the online process does not use. But neither page says so, and we are not going to present a guess as a fact.

Being in the Commonwealth does not get you in

Tanzania waives visas for East African Community members, for SADC members other than the Comoros, and for Commonwealth countries — except the United Kingdom, Canada, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand. India is named in the carve-out. This trips people up because the exemption is genuinely advertised as covering the Commonwealth, and the exceptions are a clause further down. An Indian passport needs a visa, and there is no reading of the rule that says otherwise.

The department is also blunt about where to apply: through the official immigration website only, and not through any other link. Applications that are wrongly categorised or lack sufficient attachments may simply be rejected, and the department reserves the right to give or withhold its reasons. That is a system with little tolerance for a third-party site filling the form in on your behalf and guessing at a category.

Zanzibar charges you again, and your own insurance will not do

Since 1 October 2024, every foreign visitor to Zanzibar must hold inbound travel insurance issued by the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation. It costs US$44 per person, covers a stay of up to 92 consecutive days, takes effect on arrival with no waiting period, and is bought through the official portal at visitzanzibar.go.tz.

The part that catches people is the exclusivity. A comprehensive international travel policy — the kind an Indian traveller may already hold, or get free with a credit card — is explicitly not accepted as proof of cover. The policy must be issued by the Zanzibar corporation itself. Airlines have carried the warning that non-compliance can mean being refused entry, and travellers arriving without the QR-coded receipt are routed to a separate counter to pay before they are allowed to join the immigration queue.

Yellow fever: it is your layover, not your destination

This is the item most often got wrong in both directions, so it is worth being precise.

• Going in. Tanzania requires a yellow fever certificate from travellers arriving from a country with risk of transmission, and from travellers who have transited more than 12 hours through an airport in such a country. Flying from India directly does not trigger it. Flying from India via Nairobi or Addis Ababa with a long layover can — both Kenya and Ethiopia are on the risk list.
• Coming home. India requires a certificate from travellers arriving from its list of yellow fever endemic countries, and quarantines those without one for up to six days. Tanzania is not on that list. Kenya and Ethiopia are. So the same East African hub that created the problem on the way out can create it again on the way back.

The practical consequence: if your Tanzania routing touches Nairobi or Addis at all, treat the vaccination as part of the trip. The certificate becomes valid ten days after the jab and is then valid for life, so it is a one-off — but ten days is a deadline, and it is not one you can fix at the airport.

The short version

• India is not a referral-visa country. No prior clearance, no two-month lead time.
• Apply at visa.immigration.go.tz only. The department says so explicitly.
• Expect $50 for the ordinary visa; the New Delhi mission quotes Indians $100 multiple entry.
• Allow ten days. That is the department’s stated processing window, not a worst case.
• Passport: six months validity and one unused visa page, or the application can be rejected.
• Zanzibar adds $44 of insurance that only the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation can issue.
• If you transit Nairobi or Addis, get the yellow fever jab at least ten days before you fly.

A mainland safari for an Indian passport is a fifty-dollar visa and a ten-day wait. Add Zanzibar and it is a fifty-dollar visa, a forty-four-dollar insurance policy bought from one specific state insurer, and a QR code you need in your hand before immigration will look at you. Neither is difficult. Both are easy to under-budget.