Kenya has exempted seven countries from paying Electronic Travel Authorisation effective February 15, 2024.
This was communicated in an in-house memo issued by the Ministry of Interior and signed by Dan Opon for the Director General in the State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services.
The countries exempted from paying any ETA-related fees include; Comoros, The Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, San Marino and South Africa.
“Nationals of the following seven (7) countries are exempted from paying Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) fees after submitting their eTA applications through the digital platform www.etakenya.go.ke. with effect from 15th February 2024,” the memo read in part.
The countries had objected to the ETA fee of USD30 (Ksh4,335) noting that they had earlier signed treaties with Kenya to abolish visa fees.
Taking into consideration that ETA replaced Visa, it was argued that Kenya was negating earlier agreements.
Countries in question protested on the basis that treaties signed between Kenya and them were supposed to be reciprocal and the introduction of the ETA violated such agreements.
“These countries had concluded visa abolition agreements or signed bilateral visa waiver agreements with the Republic of Kenya,” Opon stated in the document.
Before the introduction of ETA on January 1, 2024, 51 countries were exempted from having their nationals pay visa fees when travelling to Kenya.
Currently, only East Africa Community members and the aforementioned members are exempted from the ETA fees.
The Ministry of Interior did not indicate if other countries would be exempted from ETA fees in the coming days.
It should be noted that the seven countries had been granted visa waivers after President William Ruto assumed power in September 2022.
