Kenya Visa from Pakistan

A Kenyan eTA, explained properly

In January 2024 Kenya scrapped visas. The headlines said "Kenya goes visa-free" and that framing has stuck, which is unfortunate, because what replaced the visa is a compulsory permission you must hold before you board the plane — and the penalty for not having it falls on the airline, which is why they will not let you on.

For a Pakistani passport it costs the same USD 30 as for most nationalities. The complications are elsewhere.

Do you need an eTA

Yes. Kenya's wording is comprehensive: "All visitors including infants and children who intend to travel to the Republic of Kenya must have an approved Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA) before the start of their journey."

Kenya does publish exemptions, and they were expanded by law in May 2025 — East African Community states at 180 days, around 45 countries at 90 days, 28 African countries at 60 days, plus transit and crew categories and diplomatic passport holders of a few named countries. Pakistan is in none of them, in any category.

The exception that does apply: a Pakistani holding Kenyan permanent residence, a valid work permit or pass, or a valid re-entry pass is exempt.

The official portal is etakenya.go.ke. Note that the old address, evisa.go.ke, is a genuine official mirror and serves an identical page — so if an old bookmark lands you there, it is not a copycat.

What it costs

A Pakistani tourist pays the standard USD 30. There is no nationality-based pricing — the only nationality-gated product is a five-year multiple entry for Americans.

Kenya is blunt about refunds: "Your eTA application fee is non-refundable… This is also true if your eTA is denied or if for any reason, including a force majeure, there are deviations to your planned journey." And on errors: "If an applicant applied with mistakes, he or she might need to submit a new application. The associated fee will be charged for each new application submitted."

Source and date. Fees from the official Kenya eTA portal, read 11 October 2026. These are Kenyan government charges, paid to Kenya and not to Breeze, and Kenya can change them without notice. Note that the fee is published administratively on the portal rather than in a gazetted schedule. Our own charge is quoted separately.

Documents

Kenya's required list is short and the same for every applicant:

• A valid passport, minimum six months' validity with at least one blank page
• A selfie or passport-type photo
• Contact details — email and phone
• Travel itinerary, arrival and departure
• Accommodation booking confirmation
• A payment method

Additional documents are asked for by purpose of travel, not by what you do for a living — an invitation letter and company registration for business travel, an invitation and the host's ID for a family visit, a hospital referral for medical travel. There is no separate list for salaried, self-employed, retired or student applicants, and the gazetted application form asks only for your occupation as free text.

One distinction worth getting right: a return or onward ticket is a border and airline requirement, not part of the eTA application. The application asks only for your itinerary. On arrival, Kenya requires "return or onward tickets or evidence of such onward travel arrangements", and carriers are obliged to check it. Travel insurance is required nowhere — it appears on no Kenyan form or page.

Why the airline will not let you board without it

This is not airline policy. It is Kenyan law, and it is the single most important thing on this page.

Under Kenya's immigration regulations, a carrier "shall not onboard a passenger who does not hold a valid" eTA; the captain must ensure every passenger holds one; a carrier that brings in a passenger without a valid eTA "must return that passenger to the last port of call or country of origin"; and the carrier is liable to a surcharge for doing so.

So the airline is not being difficult. It is facing a fine and the cost of flying you home. The portal says it plainly: "You are only allowed to travel after your application has been approved by the Government of Kenya" and "failure to comply may lead to you being denied boarding or penalty fee on arrival."

Carry the approval. Kenya asks you to print the PDF, download it, or save it in the official mobile app: "This is your electronic travel authorisation that needs to be shown at all departure and arrival points."

How long you can stay

The eTA is not permission to stay, and Kenya says so: "The possession of an eTA is not the final authority to enter the Republic of Kenya. Admissibility will be determined at the point of entry."

What you receive on arrival is a visitor's pass, and under the regulations that may permit a stay "not exceeding six months from the date of his entry into Kenya." The officer decides.

On how long the eTA itself remains valid before you travel, Kenya's issuing authority publishes nothing. Two Kenyan embassies state 90 days from issue, but that figure appears on no Kenyan government portal and no regulation, so we are attributing it rather than stating it: the missions say 90 days, the Directorate of Immigration Services does not say. Apply close to your trip and the question does not arise.

Extending is possible up to a maximum of six months from entry, applied for online. Be warned that Kenya's own extension page contradicts itself on cost — it says both "the service attracts no charges" and "application and processing fee — USD 50" on the same page. We are not picking one.

Yellow fever — it depends on your route, not your passport

This is the detail most often got wrong in both directions.

Kenya's published rule is conditional on where you are coming from: a yellow fever vaccination certificate is required of travellers arriving from a country with a risk of yellow fever transmission, and the vaccination should be given at least ten days before travel.

What Kenya does not publish anywhere we could find is the list of risk countries. Its health authority's page for it exists but the list itself is empty. So we will not tell you that a Pakistani traveller is exempt, and we will not tell you one is required — Kenya has not said.

The practical point is this: the requirement follows your route. A direct Islamabad or Lahore to Nairobi flight is a different case from one routing through a yellow fever country, and a traveller can fall into the requirement through a transit they did not think about. Tell us your routing and confirm with Kenya Port Health or the High Commission before you fly.

The East Africa Tourist Visa

There is a joint visa covering Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda for USD 100, and travellers planning a multi-country safari ask about it constantly.

As things stand you cannot get it through Kenya. Kenya's own eTA portal lists the East African Tourist eTA with the words "coming soon" and no fee. Meanwhile Kenyan law describes it as a single-entry instrument, a Kenyan embassy advertises it as 90-day multiple entry, and Uganda's immigration service publishes the USD 100 fee and says the issuing country must be your first entry point. Those positions do not reconcile.

So: if Kenya is your first stop, apply for the standard USD 30 eTA and treat the joint visa as unavailable from the Kenyan side until the portal changes. If you are planning Kenya plus Uganda or Rwanda, talk to us before booking — the order you enter the countries in changes what you can buy.

Rules people miss

• Everyone needs their own eTA, including infants. There is no family application.
• Biometrics are taken on arrival, not at application. Every traveller must appear in person before an immigration officer and present themselves for capture of facial photographs and fingerprints, on entry and again on departure.
• Transit depends on leaving the terminal. Passengers arriving and leaving by the same aircraft, or transferring, who do not leave the airport precincts need nothing. Step outside and you need a transit eTA at USD 20.
• Working on a visitor's pass is an offence, and the pass is deemed to have expired from the date the work was accepted.
• A visitor's pass cannot be issued in advance to someone intending to come to Kenya — it is issued at the border.
• Overstaying: Kenya publishes no eTA-specific overstay fine. The general penalty in the regulations is a fine not exceeding KES 200,000, or imprisonment up to a year, or both, and the Directorate warns of fines, detention, deportation and "being barred from re-entering Kenya in the future."
• A refusal blocks the trip entirely: "If your application has been denied, you will not be able to travel to Kenya for the moment."

Only the official site

Kenya's own portal states that eTA applications "must be completed only through this official website or the 'Kenya Travel Authorisation' official mobile application."

The sharper warning comes from a Kenyan embassy, and it is worth knowing before you hand money to a third-party site: "Applications submitted through third party websites will be automatically denied." The same notice says the Embassy and the Government of Kenya will not be liable for payments made through other websites.

The only addresses to use are etakenya.go.ke, its official mirror evisa.go.ke, and the official app.

How we help

Kenya is a straightforward USD 30 application sitting on top of a trip with real logistics. Our work is: filing it at least two weeks out so the three working days never become a problem, getting the accommodation confirmation in place because that is the one document the application actually requires, checking your routing for the yellow fever question, and making sure the approval is printed and in your hand before you reach the airport — because the airline has a legal reason to refuse you without it.

If your plan includes Uganda or Rwanda, raise it at the start. Breeze Travels & Tours has worked on visa files from Davis Road, Garhi Shahu, since 2003, and flights are issued by the same desk on our own IATA accreditation — see air ticketing.