Kenya Visa for Nigerians (2026): Why You No Longer Need One, and the Steps That Still Matter

Last updated: 18 September 2026. Written by Maria Kamau (Mkay), ICF-Certified Travel Coach.

Hey there! Welcome back to Travel with Mkay, and if it is your first time here, hi, I’m Maria, most people call me Mkay.

For years the most common message I got from Nigerian friends, cousins of friends, and readers in Lagos and Abuja was the same: “Mkay, how do I get a Kenya visa?” And for years the honest answer kept changing. There was the old sticker visa, then the eVisa, then the eTA that everyone had to apply for in 2024, and then, in 2025, Kenya quietly removed the requirement for almost the whole continent. Nigeria was included.

So this guide is titled “Kenya visa for Nigerians” because that is what people search for, but the most important thing I can tell you is this: for a visit of up to 60 days, there is no Kenya visa for Nigerians to apply for, and no eTA either. What follows is the step-by-step of what you still need to do, because the officer at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport still has a checklist, and so does the airline before they let you board in Lagos.

What changed, and when

Kenya replaced visas with an Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA) on 1 January 2024. Everyone, including Nigerians, had to apply online and pay about USD 30 before flying. It was easy in theory and annoying in practice, and it undercut the whole “open Africa” message the government was trying to send.

In January 2025 the cabinet announced that citizens of nearly all African countries would no longer need the eTA. The legal instrument that made it real came later: Legal Notice No. 93 of 2025, issued on 30 May 2025 by the Cabinet Secretary for Interior. It amended the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Regulations, added a Regulation 15G and a new Seventeenth Schedule, and that schedule is where Nigeria sits.

Today the official eTA website lists, word for word, “Nationals of the following African countries for a period not exceeding sixty (60) days” and Nigeria is on that list, alongside Algeria, Egypt, Senegal, Cameroon, Morocco, Tunisia and about twenty others. A separate list gets 90 days (Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and others), and East African Community citizens get 180 days. Only Somalia and Libya still need the eTA.

I checked that page on 17 September 2026 while writing this and again on 18 September 2026. Nigeria is still there. If you are reading this much later, open the “General Information” page on etakenya.go.ke and look for the 60-day list before you rely on anything I say.

Who the 60-day exemption covers

• Nigerian ordinary passport holders traveling for tourism, family visits, conferences, short business meetings and medical visits, for a stay of not more than 60 days.
• Children traveling on their own Nigerian passports, on the same terms.
• Nigerians living elsewhere (the UK, US, Canada, the Gulf). The exemption follows the passport, not the country you fly from. A Nigerian passport holder flying from London gets the same 60 days.

It does not cover employment, study, volunteering for an organization, or moving to Kenya. Those need a permit or pass, and I explain the route further down. It also does not stop the immigration officer at the airport from refusing entry. The law says possession of an eTA “is not the final authority to enter” Kenya, and the same is true of an exemption. Admissibility is decided at the desk.

Step-by-step: what to do before you fly

Think of this as the checklist a good travel coach would run through with you three weeks before departure. None of it is hard. Steps 1 and 2 are firm requirements. Steps 3 to 5 are the documents the Directorate of Immigration Services says an officer “may require” on arrival. Not everyone is asked for them. Everyone should have them ready.

Step 1: Check your passport dates

Kenya asks for a passport valid for at least six months from your date of entry, with at least one blank page. Nigerian passport renewal times vary wildly by office, so if you are inside eight months of expiry, start the renewal now and travel later. Airlines enforce this at check-in.

Step 2: Get your yellow fever certificate, at least 10 days before you fly

This is the requirement travelers most often overlook. Kenya’s Ministry of Health requires an International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (the yellow card) from everyone aged nine months and above arriving from a yellow fever risk country; only infants under nine months are exempt. (Some international reference lists still quote one year for Kenya. The Ministry’s own page says nine months, so plan around nine months.) Nigeria is a risk country. A traveler flying Toronto to Nairobi with no African stop usually will not be asked. A traveler flying Lagos to Nairobi will be asked, at check-in and again at Port Health in Nairobi.

Two things to know:

• The certificate becomes valid 10 days after the injection. Vaccinated on the 1st, valid from the 11th. If you get the jab the day before you fly, the card is not yet valid and you can be refused boarding.
• Nigeria uses an e-Yellow Card issued through Port Health Services (porthealthservices.org.ng). Port Health has charged NGN 2,000 for the card for several years, and travelers reported paying about NGN 4,700 in total at Ikeja in 2025 once the vaccination was included. Fees change, so confirm the current charge on the Port Health portal before you pay. Kenyan officers can scan the QR code, so make sure yours is the genuine one, not a handwritten card from a pharmacy.

Under the current WHO rules a yellow fever certificate is valid for life, so if you already have a genuine one from a previous trip, you are done.

Step 3: Book a return or onward ticket

Immigration officers everywhere in Africa treat a one-way ticket as a question mark, and Nairobi is no exception. Book a return, or an onward flight to a third country, before you travel. If you genuinely do not know your return date, buy a changeable fare rather than none at all.

Step 4: Have an accommodation address

You do not need a full itinerary, but you need to be able to say where you are sleeping the first night. A hotel booking confirmation, an Airbnb confirmation, or a host’s name, phone number and address if you are staying with family. Have it on your phone and, ideally, a screenshot that works without data.

Step 5: Sort your money story

Officers can ask how you will support yourself. Kenya’s arrival rules list “evidence of enough funds for sustenance for the duration of stay” among the items an officer may require, and no amount is published anywhere, so ignore anyone quoting you a daily figure. A recent bank statement, a card you can show a balance on, or some cash in dollars all work. Nairobi is affordable; the point is to show you will not be working.

Step 6: Print the exemption page

This is my own extra step, and it comes from experience with airline staff who have not read the memo. Print the “General Information” page from etakenya.go.ke that lists Nigeria under the 60-day exemption. If a check-in agent in Lagos or a transit desk in Kigali or Addis insists you need an eTA, you hand them the government’s own page instead of arguing from memory. I have watched this end a 20-minute standoff in about 30 seconds.

Step 7: Buy travel insurance that actually covers you

Not compulsory for Kenya, but a hospital admission in Nairobi is paid up front. A medical-only policy for two weeks is cheap. I wrote a whole guide on how to compare travel insurance; the same principles apply from the Nigerian side.

What happens at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

Here is the arrival flow so nothing surprises you.

1. Port Health desk. Before immigration. Have your yellow card out. There may be a temperature check and a short health form.
2. Immigration counter. Hand over your passport. Common questions: purpose of visit, how long, where are you staying, when is your return flight. Answer plainly. The officer stamps a visitor’s pass into your passport and writes the number of days. Look at that number before you walk away. If it says 30 and you planned 45, ask politely for the 60 the exemption allows, and be ready to show your return ticket.
3. Baggage and customs. The usual green channel unless you are carrying commercial goods.
4. Getting into town. Uber, Bolt and Little Cab all work at JKIA and a ride to Westlands or Kilimani costs roughly KSh 2,200 to 2,500 (about NGN 22,000 to 25,000), plus a KSh 410 toll if the driver takes the Nairobi Expressway, which cuts the trip to about 20 minutes. Buy a Safaricom SIM in the arrivals hall with your passport; it is the key to M-Pesa, which you will use for everything from matatus to market stalls.

One more honest note. Nigerian travelers do sometimes get more questions at African airports than, say, a German tourist. It is unfair and it is real. The antidote is boring paperwork: valid passport, valid yellow card, return ticket, hotel address, calm answers. Nobody can promise you entry, the officer at the desk decides, but that combination answers every question they are entitled to ask.

What it costs: a two-week trip from Lagos in numbers

The visa line in this budget is zero, which is the whole point. Everything else is a realistic mid-range estimate at September 2026 prices, with USD 1 = KSh 129.6 = NGN 1,328.

Item	USD	NGN (approx.)	Notes
Kenya visa / eTA	0	0	Exempt up to 60 days
Yellow fever e-card + vaccine	4	5,000	One-off, valid for life
Return flight Lagos to Nairobi	600 to 900	800,000 to 1,200,000	KQ non-stop or RwandAir/Ethiopian via hub
Travel insurance, 14 days	25 to 50	33,000 to 66,000	Medical cover first
Accommodation, 13 nights	390 to 780	520,000 to 1,040,000	USD 30 to 60 a night, Kilimani or Westlands Airbnb
Food and local transport, 14 days	280 to 420	370,000 to 560,000	USD 20 to 30 a day is comfortable
One safari day, Nairobi National Park	40 + vehicle	53,000 + vehicle	African citizen rate USD 40 (KWS, October 2025 schedule)
Total, two weeks	1,340 to 2,200	1.8 to 2.9 million	Flights are more than half of it

A useful detail for Nigerians: Kenya Wildlife Service now has an “African citizen” fee tier for its parks. At Nairobi National Park that is USD 40 a day instead of the USD 80 a non-resident pays, and at Amboseli USD 50 instead of USD 90. Carry your passport to the gate and pay on the KWSPay portal. My park fees guide has the full table. The Maasai Mara is run by Narok County, not KWS, and prices non-residents at USD 100 a day from January to June and USD 200 from July to December, so time a Mara trip for the first half of the year if you can.

Flights from Nigeria to Kenya

• Kenya Airways, non-stop. Lagos to Nairobi in about 5 hours 20 minutes, and Abuja is also served. This is the one to book if your dates are fixed and you hate connections. Fares move with the season; December and Easter are the expensive weeks.
• RwandAir via Kigali. Often the cheapest. On 17 September 2026 the airline’s own site showed Lagos to Nairobi return from about NGN 1.2 million for October travel. The Kigali connection is short and the airport is small and calm.
• Ethiopian via Addis Ababa. Frequent, reliable, sometimes the best price from Abuja. Long layovers in Addis can trigger the yellow fever question at the transit desk, which is another reason to have your card in your hand luggage, never in the hold.

For the mechanics of finding the cheap dates, read my intra-African flights guide. The short version: search Tuesday to Thursday departures, book six to ten weeks out, and always compare the airline’s own site with the aggregator price before paying.

Staying longer than 60 days

The exemption gives you 60 days per entry, and the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority’s circular to airlines is blunt about the rest: anyone who exceeds the days published in the Seventeenth Schedule must apply for an eTA. So the right route depends on when you know.

1. You know before you fly. If the plan is already longer than 60 days (a long family stay, a course, a project), apply for an eTA on etakenya.go.ke before departure and declare the longer stay, instead of arriving on the exemption and hoping. It costs from USD 30 and is normally processed within three working days.
2. You are already in Kenya. Apply for a visitor’s pass extension on the Kenya eFNS portal (fns.immigration.go.ke, form 22) before your current pass expires. The Directorate of Immigration Services says the service attracts no charge and that a visitor’s pass can be extended to a maximum of six months in total. It is granted at the officer’s discretion, so apply early and keep the acknowledgement.
3. Leave and come back. A weekend in Kampala or Kigali resets nothing legally, and immigration officers notice patterns. If you are effectively living in Kenya, the honest route is a permit, not a border run.

For anything beyond visiting, the categories are the same as for every other nationality: a Class D work permit (applied for by the employer), a student pass (applied for through the institution), a dependent pass, or a permanent residence application. All of them go through eFNS and all of them take months, so they are never something to sort out after landing on the 60-day exemption.

Going beyond Kenya on the same trip

A lot of Nigerian travelers pair Kenya with a neighbor, and the rules change at every border, so here is the honest map as of September 2026:

• Rwanda: visa-free for citizens of all African countries for short visits. Kigali is the easiest add-on.
• Uganda: Nigerians need an eVisa, applied for online before travel, single entry USD 50.
• Tanzania and Zanzibar: Nigerians need a visa. Nigeria is one of the Commonwealth countries Tanzania excludes from its visa waiver, but it is not on Tanzania’s referral visa list (that list names Niger, not Nigeria), so the ordinary online visa applies: the Tanzanian High Commission in Abuja lists it at USD 50 single entry or USD 100 multiple entry. Apply on visa.immigration.go.tz in advance rather than counting on the arrival counter, and note that Zanzibar adds a mandatory government inbound insurance policy of USD 44. My Zanzibar guide covers that trap in detail.
• East Africa Tourist Visa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda): USD 100, 90 days, multiple entry across the three countries. It is only worth it for Nigerians if you are doing Uganda and Rwanda in one loop, since Kenya and Rwanda are already free for you.

For the fuller picture of which countries let you in without paperwork, my visa-free countries for Nigerian passport holders list is kept current.

Mistakes I see every month

• Paying an agent for a “Kenya visa”. There is no such product for a 60-day visit. If someone asks for money, they are either processing an eTA you do not need or inventing a document. The only place a Kenyan government fee is legitimately paid is a go.ke website.
• Applying for the eTA anyway “to be safe”. For a visit of up to 60 days you do not need one, and the exemption is printed on the government’s own website. Save the money. The only reason to apply is a stay you already know will run past 60 days.
• A yellow card that is too new. Ten days. Count them.
• One-way tickets. The cheapest way to spend an hour in secondary questioning.
• Letting the officer write 30 days without checking. The stamp governs, not the law. Read it before you leave the counter.
• Working on a visitor’s pass. Remote work for a Nigerian employer during a two-week visit is one thing; taking a job in Nairobi is another and it ends badly.

Money, phones and the first 48 hours

KSh 1 is about NGN 10 at the moment, which makes mental arithmetic easy: a KSh 150 matatu ride is NGN 1,500, a KSh 1,200 lunch is NGN 12,000. Cards are widely accepted in malls and hotels, but Nairobi runs on M-Pesa. Register a Safaricom line at the airport with your passport, load it with cash or from a Kenyan friend, and you will pay for boda bodas, market fruit and park tickets from your phone like everyone else. My travel apps guide lists the ones worth installing before you land.

Where to stay depends on your style. Westlands for restaurants and nightlife, Kilimani and Kileleshwa for quiet apartments and cafes, Karen if you want the giraffes and the elephants on your doorstep. Safety is a matter of habits more than areas; my Nairobi safety guide is the honest version, written by someone who lives here.

And once you are settled, the country opens up: the SGR train to Mombasa for KSh 1,500, Diani’s beaches, a budget Mara safari, Naivasha for a weekend. Every one of those has its own guide on this site, with real 2026 prices.

Before you go: the one-page checklist

• Passport valid 6+ months, one blank page.
• Yellow fever e-card, vaccinated 10+ days before travel, in hand luggage.
• Return or onward ticket, booked.
• First-night accommodation address, saved offline.
• Proof of funds available (statement, card, or cash).
• Printed copy of the eTA exemption page from etakenya.go.ke.
• Travel insurance with medical cover.
• Read your entry stamp before leaving the immigration counter.

That is the whole “Kenya visa for Nigerians” process in 2026: no visa, a short list of documents, and a country that is genuinely happy to see you. Karibu Kenya.

Frequently asked questions

Do Nigerians need a visa to enter Kenya in 2026?

No. Nigerian ordinary passport holders are exempt from Kenya’s Electronic Travel Authorisation for stays of up to 60 days, under Legal Notice No. 93 of 2025. There is no visa, no eTA and no fee for a tourist or family visit of that length.

Do Nigerians need to fill in any form before flying to Kenya?

No pre-travel form is required for eTA-exempt nationals as of September 2026. Airlines may still ask to see your yellow fever certificate, return ticket and passport validity at check-in, because they are fined for carrying passengers who are refused entry.

Is the yellow fever certificate compulsory for Nigerians entering Kenya?

Yes. Kenya’s Ministry of Health requires an International Certificate of Vaccination from travelers aged nine months and above arriving from yellow fever risk countries, and Nigeria is one of them. Only infants under nine months are exempt. The certificate only becomes valid 10 days after vaccination. Get the official e-Yellow Card through Nigeria’s Port Health Services.

How long can a Nigerian stay in Kenya without a visa?

Up to 60 days per visit. The immigration officer writes the permitted period on your entry stamp, so check it before you leave the counter. If you already know you want longer than 60 days, apply for an eTA before you fly rather than relying on the exemption. If you are already in Kenya, apply for a visitor’s pass extension on the eFNS portal before day 60; the service is free and the total stay as a visitor cannot exceed six months.

What happens if I overstay in Kenya?

Overstaying is an offense under the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act. In practice it means fines at departure, possible detention and a note on your record that makes future travel harder. Apply for an extension early rather than hoping nobody notices.

Can I work or study in Kenya on the 60-day exemption?

No. The exemption covers short visits only. Employment needs a work permit and study needs a student pass, both applied for through the eFNS portal, usually by the employer or institution before you travel.

How much does it cost to fly from Lagos to Nairobi?

At the time of writing, Kenya Airways flies non-stop in about 5 hours 20 minutes, and RwandAir was showing Lagos to Nairobi return fares from around NGN 1.2 million for October 2026 via Kigali. Budget USD 600 to 900 return in most months, more in December and around Easter.

Is Kenya cheaper than South Africa or Dubai for a Nigerian traveler?

On paperwork alone, yes. Kenya charges Nigerians nothing to enter for up to 60 days, while South Africa and the UAE both require Nigerian passport holders to obtain a visa in advance, with fees and processing time. Day-to-day, Nairobi accommodation and food also cost less than Cape Town or Dubai.

Official sources and further reading

• Kenya eTA official site, General Information (exemption list) checked 18 September 2026
• Kenya Law, Legal Notice No. 93 of 2025, the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration (Amendment) Rules, 2025 30 May 2025
• Kenya eTA official site, FAQs
• Directorate of Immigration Services, Arrival procedures and the responsibility of travelers on arrival
• Directorate of Immigration Services, Extension of Visitor's Pass
• Directorate of Immigration Services, eTA services
• Kenya Ministry of Health, Incoming Travellers (yellow fever requirement and exemptions)
• Manwa OH Advocates, Kenya Expands eTA Exemptions (Legal Notice No. 93 of 2025) August 2025
• BBC News, Kenya eases travel requirements for nearly all African visitors January 2025
• Kenya eFNS portal, Visitor's Pass Extension
• Nigeria Port Health Services, e-Yellow Card
• Tanzania Immigration, eVisa guidelines (referral visa list)
• Tanzania High Commission in Abuja, visa information and fees
• Kenya Airways, Lagos to Nairobi
• RwandAir, flights from Lagos to Kenya