🇧🇴Bolivia

The big change most guides have not caught up with

On 1 December 2025 Bolivia abolished the tourist visa for US citizens. The USD 160 fee, the application and the paperwork are gone. The United States, Israel, South Korea, South Africa, Latvia, Estonia and Romania were all moved into Group 1, the visa-exempt category. If you read somewhere that Americans pay 1,120 BOB at the border, that information is out of date.

How your entry route is decided

Bolivia sorts nationalities into three groups, and the list is unusual enough that it is worth checking your own against the DIGEMIG site rather than assuming.

1. Group 1 - visa-free. The EU and Schengen states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Russia, China, India and, since December 2025, the United States. Entry is granted for up to 90 days in any 12-month period; officers commonly stamp 30 days on arrival, and it is extended free at a Migracion office up to the 90-day annual limit.
2. Group 2 - visa required. Obtainable in advance at a consulate or, for most of this group, on arrival at any air or land port for 1,120 BOB. Grants 30 days per entry, up to 90 days a year, on a 5-year multiple-entry basis.
3. Group 3 - prior consular authorisation required before travel. There is no border option.

What everyone has to do

• Register with SIGEMIG before you fly. Bolivia requires an online migration registration through the DIGEMIG portal, including where you will be staying. It is free, it applies regardless of nationality, and it is the step people miss.
• Passport valid at least 6 months from entry, with two blank pages.
• Proof of onward travel - an outbound ticket - and proof of lodging, either a confirmed booking or a notarised host invitation.
• Yellow fever certificate if you are arriving from, or travelling on to, an endemic tropical zone. Given Bolivia's own lowlands are endemic, this is worth having anyway.
• Form 250 (Declaracion Jurada de Equipaje) for customs. Cash between USD 10,000 and USD 50,000 must be declared on entry under Supreme Decree 5404 of 23 May 2025, filed on the customs portal or in the ANVIAJERO app. Below USD 10,000 nothing is required.

At the desk, and afterwards

• Check that you actually got the stamp, and read the date on it. Leaving a land border without one is a real problem later: an unstamped entry means fines and difficulty leaving.
• Overstaying costs a daily administrative penalty of 100 UFV, roughly 250 BOB and indexed daily, charged when you depart.
• If an official asks you to convert currency at the border, decline and ask for a supervisor. You are entitled to carry up to USD 10,000 without declaring it, and there is no lawful requirement to change it.

• Coca leaves may not be taken out. They are sold in every market and chewed openly; carrying them onward is a drug offence in Peru's neighbours, the United States and the EU alike.
• Cash equivalent to USD 10,000 or more must be declared on entry and exit.
• The allowance is a carton of cigarettes and a couple of litres of spirits per adult.
• Archaeological objects and colonial religious art may not be exported without a permit from the culture ministry, which covers the older items in the La Paz antique shops.
• Wildlife products are prohibited, including anything made from vicuna that lacks certification.
• The land borders are slow and cash-only for fees, and several close at night without notice.

Altitude is the headline health issue and it starts the moment you land. El Alto airport is at 4,060 m and La Paz itself at about 3,650 m. Soroche - headache, nausea, fatigue, breathlessness - affects fit young people as readily as anyone.

• Do nothing for the first 24 hours. Rest, drink plenty of water, eat lightly, skip alcohol entirely.
• Coca tea (mate de coca) is what everyone drinks and it genuinely helps. Sorojchi pills, an over-the-counter caffeine and aspirin blend, are sold in every pharmacy. Acetazolamide (Diamox) is the medical option and works best started before you ascend.
• Consider sleeping lower. Zona Sur in La Paz is about 450 m below the centre.
• Descend if symptoms turn severe - confusion, breathlessness at rest, or a headache that will not respond. That is no longer ordinary soroche.

Vaccinations and tropical disease

• Yellow fever certificate is required for the endemic lowlands - Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and the Yungas - and for onward travel from them.
• Recommended: hepatitis A and B, typhoid, tetanus.
• Dengue in the tropical lowlands during the wet season, December to April. Malaria only in remote lowland Amazon border areas.
• La Paz and Sucre have no dengue or malaria risk at all - the altitude rules out the mosquito.

Water and food

Tap water is not drinkable anywhere in Bolivia. Bottled, boiled or micro-filtered. Avoid ice in informal places, raw salads and unpeeled fruit from street stalls. Hot, fully cooked street food is fine.

Hospitals and pharmacies

• Private clinics are the right choice: Clinica Alemana (+591 2 2432155) and Clinica CIMA in La Paz, Clinica Foianini (+591 3 3362211) in Santa Cruz. They require cash or a card guarantee before admission.
• Public hospitals such as Hospital Viedma in Cochabamba and Hospital Santa Barbara in Sucre are under-resourced with long waits.
• Travel insurance covering high-altitude medical evacuation is strongly advised. Standard policies sometimes exclude activity above a certain altitude - check yours, because most of Bolivia is above it.
• Pharmacies: Farmacias Chavez, Farmacorp and Hipermaxi Farmacia stock the basics. Prescription narcotics need a Bolivian prescription; bring your own in original packaging with a translated doctor's letter.

Ask not to pay the 13% IVA. Foreign tourists showing a passport with a valid entry stamp are legally exempt from value added tax on lodging under Ley 2064 and the associated rules. The hotel issues a zero-rated Factura Turistica - Sin Derecho a Credito Fiscal. Many will not offer this unprompted.

• Your passport is scanned into SIGEMIG at check-in. Under Decreto Supremo 4574 lodging providers must verify and register foreign guests in the national migration database.
• Platforms: Booking.com, Airbnb, Hostelworld and Agoda.

Where to stay for a first visit

• La Paz: Sopocachi is safe, has the restaurants, and connects to the yellow and white Mi Teleferico lines. Zona Sur (Calacoto, San Miguel) sits about 450 m lower at roughly 3,200 m, which makes a real difference to how you sleep on the first night, and it is very secure. The Centro Historico near Calle Sagarnaga is where the tour agencies and the sights are, and it is the loudest and highest of the three.
• Santa Cruz de la Sierra: Equipetrol for modern hotels and restaurants, the Centro Historico around Plaza 24 de Septiembre for walkable sightseeing.
• Sucre: the Centro Historico around Plaza 25 de Mayo, which is compact, well policed and pleasant.

Choosing a lower neighbourhood for the first night is a legitimate altitude strategy, not fussiness.

Buy Entel. The coverage difference outside the cities is not marginal.

• Entel is the state operator and has by far the best national reach - 4G across the Altiplano and, importantly, across the Salar de Uyuni, plus 5G in the main cities. Registration is in person with a passport at a store.
• Tigo has fast 4G and 5G in La Paz, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and Sucre, with moderate rural coverage. It allows registration in store or online within 5 days.
• Viva is the budget option, standard 4G in the big cities only.

Practical notes

• A physical SIM costs 10 to 30 BOB; a tourist data package covering two to three weeks is 50 to 100 BOB. By any standard this is cheap.
• Do not count on buying at the airport. Kiosk hours in the arrival halls at El Alto (LPB) and Viru Viru (VVI) are irregular and often closed for late arrivals. The reliable option is an official operator store (tienda oficial) in central La Paz, Santa Cruz or Sucre.
• Passport registration is required for a local SIM at an operator store.
• All three operators support eSIM on compatible handsets, which avoids the store visit for Tigo.

Have connectivity before you land if you can. An international eSIM such as Saily, activated on arrival, saves you dealing with a closed kiosk at 03:00 at 4,060 m, which is not the moment to be problem-solving.

Sockets in Bolivia are Type A and C at 230 V, 50 Hz - American flat pins and European round ones, at European voltage.

• This is the dangerous combination. A US appliance fits the socket and then receives 230 V. Check the label for 100-240 V before anything goes in the wall.
• La Paz is a partial exception: parts of the city are still supplied at 115 V, so the same country can give you either.
• Most sockets are unearthed, whichever shape they are - the earthed Type B outlets that the fact block above lists turn up in newer buildings and are the exception, not the rule.
• A Europlug fits the round-pin outlets, which are common in newer buildings.
• Altitude does nothing to electricity but does to batteries - cold nights in the altiplano flatten a phone faster than the socket can refill it.

• Power is a genuine hazard here, and the exception runs the way round you would not guess. Bolivia is 220 to 230V at 50 Hz almost everywhere - Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Sucre - and it is parts of La Paz that are still supplied at 110 to 115V, a legacy of the older grid up there. Sockets take flat two-pin Type A and round Type C plugs either way.
• So the shape tells you nothing about the voltage. A 110V North American appliance plugs straight in and is destroyed on the 220V supply, and works fine in a La Paz building on the old one. Check the label says 100-240V and stop worrying about which building you are in.
• Time: UTC-4 all year, no daylight saving.
• Tap water: not drinkable. A filter bottle earns its place on this trip.
• Language: Spanish plus 36 recognised indigenous languages. English proficiency is low outside tourist hotels and agencies - more so than in Peru. Basic Spanish makes independent travel much easier.

Hours and holidays

• Businesses 08:30 to 12:30 and 14:30 to 18:30, with a real midday siesta closure in lowland cities and small towns. La Paz offices increasingly run straight through.
• Banks 09:00 to 16:00 weekdays, 09:00 to 13:00 Saturdays. Most shops close Sunday except malls and supermarkets.
• Public holidays: 1 January, 22 January (Plurinational State Day), Carnival Monday and Tuesday, Good Friday, 1 May, Corpus Christi, 21 June (Aymara-Amazonian New Year), 6 August (Independence Day), 2 November and 25 December.

Manners that matter

• Ask before photographing people, especially Aymara women in traditional polleras. Being photographed without consent is resented, and rightly.
• Do not call coca leaves a narcotic. They are legal, traditional and a matter of national pride.
• Two subjects to leave alone: the political rivalry between lowland Santa Cruz and highland La Paz, and Bolivia's loss of its coastline to Chile. Both are live.
• Churches: cover shoulders and knees, and take your hat off going in.
• Toilets: public ones cost 1 to 2 BOB, and paper goes in the bin, not the bowl.

Money and paying for things

Bolivia uses the boliviano (BOB, Bs.).

• This is a cash country. Street food, taxis, buses, markets, budget hotels and most of everything outside the two big cities are cash only. Cards work in mid-range and upmarket hotels, better restaurants and major supermarkets in La Paz and Santa Cruz - and foreign cards are frequently rejected by Bolivian online payment portals, which is why intercity buses need an aggregator.
• Banco Union is the ATM to look for: state-owned, the widest urban and rural network, and fee-free or close to it on a foreign card.
• Banco Nacional de Bolivia (BNB) charges 30 to 50 BOB per withdrawal. Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz charges a standard fee.
• Limits are low everywhere: 1,000 to 2,000 BOB per transaction. Combined with fees, plan fewer larger withdrawals and carry more cash than you would elsewhere.
• Avoid unbranded street machines - skimming and tampering are the reason.
• Decline dynamic currency conversion and pick BOB; the markup runs 5% to 10%.
• Change money downtown, not at the airport. The counters at El Alto (LPB) and Viru Viru (VVI) are 5% to 15% worse than the casas de cambio on Avenida Camacho in La Paz or around Plaza 24 de Septiembre in Santa Cruz.

Tipping

Not customary in informal places. 5% to 10% in a sit-down restaurant is appreciated. Taxi drivers do not expect a tip; rounding up to the nearest note is normal.

What things cost

Mi Teleferico is not a tourist ride, it is the metro. Ten colour-coded cable car lines connect La Paz and El Alto across terrain that defeats buses. 3 BOB per line segment, paid with a paper QR ticket or a rechargeable Tarjeta Inteligente. It is fast, clean, and the fastest way across the city.

• Ride-hailing: Yango dominates in La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, taking cash or card, and it accepts a foreign mobile number for SMS verification - which many local apps do not. Uber works in La Paz and Santa Cruz and bills foreign cards directly. InDrive runs on negotiated cash fares.
• City buses: PumaKatari and ChikiTiti in La Paz use the Tarjeta Ciudadana or exact cash. Micros and trufis are 1.50 to 2.50 BOB cash.

Between cities

• Long-distance coaches (flotas) leave from Terminal de Buses La Paz and the Terminal Bimodal in Santa Cruz. El Dorado, Trans Copacabana, Bolivar and Todo Turismo are the main names; Todo Turismo specialises in the La Paz to Uyuni overnight run and is the one most visitors take.
• Book through TicketsBolivia.com, Busbud or Bookaway. Local operator websites routinely reject foreign credit cards, so it is the aggregators or cash at the terminal window.
• Trains: FCA runs the highland line linking Oruro, Uyuni, Atocha and Tupiza to Villazon on the Argentine border. FCO runs the Ferrobus from Santa Cruz to Puerto Quijarro on the Brazilian border.
• Lake Titicaca: launches from Copacabana to Isla del Sol are 25 to 35 BOB, cash at the port.

Roads

Bloqueos - union roadblocks - are a normal part of Bolivian life and can close a highway for a day or more with little warning. Ask locally before a long overland leg, and leave slack before an international flight. Mountain roads also flood and slide (derrumbes) in the wet season from December to March.

• Yango - https://yango.com/ - The main ride app in La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. It accepts a foreign phone number for verification, unlike most local apps.
• Uber - https://www.uber.com/bo/ - Works in La Paz and Santa Cruz and bills foreign cards.
• WhatsApp - https://www.whatsapp.com/ - How hotels, tour agencies and drivers communicate. Not optional.
• TicketsBolivia - https://www.ticketsbolivia.com/ - Intercity coach tickets that a foreign card can actually pay for.
• Mi Teleferico - https://www.miteleferico.bo/ - Cable car lines, hours and fares.
• Google Maps - Reasonable in the cities; download the offline map before leaving them.
• Google Translate - Download the Spanish pack. English proficiency is low outside tourist hotels and agencies.

Some tolls, extreme altitude, and roadblocks as a normal part of political life.

• Blockades close intercity roads for days during protests, without warning and with no way around them. Any Bolivian itinerary needs slack.
• Altitude is extreme. La Paz sits at 3,600 m and the altiplano roads run above 4,000; engines and people both lose power.
• The old Yungas road - the "Death Road" - is now a cycling route, and the replacement highway is paved and safe.
• The alcohol limit is 0.05 % for private drivers.
• Night driving is avoided: unlit vehicles, animals and unbarriered drops on the mountain routes.

Violent crime against tourists is uncommon; opportunist theft and roadblocks are routine. Both the US and UK place Bolivia at the "exercise increased caution" level, largely for crime and civil unrest.

The scam that matters most here

The fake plainclothes policeman. Someone in ordinary clothes shows a badge, says they are undercover police, and asks to inspect your passport or check your currency for counterfeits. A "colleague" or a waiting taxi appears. This ends with you robbed.

• Real Bolivian police do not stop tourists in the street to inspect money, and do not put you in an unmarked car.
• Refuse, stay in public, and offer to walk to the nearest police station (Estacion Policial Integral, EPI). A genuine officer will accept; a fake one will leave.

The others

• The spill scam: sauce or liquid on your clothes, a helpful stranger, your bag gone.
• Pildoreitas - drink spiking with sedatives or scopolamine in disreputable bars and clubs.
• Paseo millonario - express kidnapping in unlicensed taxis, driven between ATMs. Use Yango or Uber.

Places and conditions

• La Paz: Zona Cementerio, the unlit pedestrian staircases between El Alto and La Paz, and La Ceja transport hub in El Alto at night.
• Santa Cruz: the outer ring roads (7th and 8th anillos) at night, and the Los Pozos market area after dark.
• Bloqueos: union roadblocks close highways regularly and with little notice. They are usually not dangerous, but do not try to drive through or around one.
• Mountain roads: aggressive driving, unlit highways, sheer drops, and flash floods and landslides in the wet season from December to March.

Law and social climate

• Drug sentences under Ley 913 run 8 to 25 years.
• Coca is legal and culturally protected here. Chewing leaves (acullico) and coca tea are normal and offered everywhere. Never call coca leaves a narcotic in conversation - it is a genuinely sensitive point. Taking leaves out of the country is illegal.
• Solo and female travellers: machismo street harassment occurs; avoid unlit streets at night and do not hike isolated trails without a registered guide.
• LGBTQ+: same-sex activity is legal and anti-discrimination law exists, but attitudes outside Sopocachi in La Paz and Equipetrol in Santa Cruz are traditional.

Emergency numbers

• 911 - unified emergency services
• 110 or 120 - Policia Nacional patrol response
• 118 or 165 - ambulance and medical emergency
• 119 - Bomberos, fire
• 122 or 116 - FELCC, crime investigation

Dispatchers on 110 and 911 rarely speak English. If you can, have hotel reception or a tourist police officer translate. This is the strongest practical argument for staying somewhere with a 24-hour desk on your first nights.

Tourist police (Policia de Turismo)

• La Paz - Puerta 22, Estadio Hernando Siles - +591 2 2225016
• Santa Cruz de la Sierra - Plaza 24 de Septiembre - +591 3 3225016
• Sucre - Plazuela Zudanez - +591 4 6480467
• Potosi - Calle Ayacucho and Bustillos - +591 2 6227404

If your passport is lost or stolen

1. Report it to the tourist police or the FELCC and get the written report.
2. Contact your embassy in La Paz for an emergency travel document.
3. Sort out your migration record with DIGEMIG before you fly, since your entry stamp went with the passport. Leave time for this - it is not something to discover at the airport.

Remember the fake-police scam in the safety section: a real officer will happily walk you to a station, and a genuine emergency response comes from a marked vehicle.