🇧🇼Botswana

The visa is the easy part

• Most visitors, British and Canadian citizens among them, enter for up to 90 days without a visa. Work, study and volunteering all need the right permit instead, arranged before you travel.
• If your nationality does need a visa, apply online at evisa.gov.bw. The government's own service page allows 7 to 14 working days, so this is not a same-week arrangement.
• Online applicants must upload every supporting document as one single PDF. That is the government's wording, and it is the step that sends applications back.
• An approved e-visa can be printed at the port of entry. If the approval letter has not been printed at a mission, travel with it and the visa is issued at the airport or border.
• Overstaying delays your departure. Extensions go through the Department of Immigration, not the airline.

The passport, and the part people fail

• At least 6 months' validity after the day you arrive.
• At least 3 blank pages. This is the requirement that turns a well-travelled passport into a refused boarding, and it is separate from the validity rule.
• Make sure you get your passport stamped. The FCDO says an unstamped passport raises suspicion of illegal entry, and the stamp is what records the date and port your exit check is measured against.
• A passport reported lost or stolen means refused entry, even if you have since found it.

Dual nationals

• Enter Botswana on the same passport you used to leave the previous country. That is Botswana's rule, not an airline preference, and mixing the two is the usual cause of trouble at the desk.

Travelling with anyone under 18

• Carry the original or a certified copy of the child's full birth certificate, on entry and on exit. Not the short form.
• Any parent not travelling must sign an affidavit consenting to the trip. Arrange it before you fly; there is nowhere to arrange it at the border.

Vaccination and health screening

• A yellow fever certificate is required if you are arriving from a country listed as a transmission risk. There is no yellow fever in Botswana itself, so this is purely about where you have been.
• Health screening applies to arrivals from Ebola-affected regions. Check before you travel and again before you transit.

Money at the border

• Declare cash of P10,000 or more, in pula or any foreign currency, coming in and going out. Failing to declare it is prosecutable, because currency counts as goods under the Customs and Excise Duty Act.

Malaria, by half of the country and by month

• The northern half, including the Okavango Delta, is high risk from October to May, and NaTHNaC recommends chemoprophylaxis there: atovaquone with proguanil, doxycycline or mefloquine.
• The same northern half is low risk from June to September, where the advice is awareness and bite avoidance rather than tablets.
• The southern half is very low risk all year. A Gaborone business trip and a Delta safari are not the same medical decision.
• The picture is moving. The FCDO recorded in April 2025 that malaria had spread into areas where it is not usually present, so take current advice rather than a map you saw once.
• Treat any fever of 38C or more as possible malaria, from a week after exposure until a year after you get home.

The other things to know about

• Schistosomiasis is present in fresh water. Another reason not to swim in the rivers, alongside the crocodiles.
• Anthrax breaks out among wild animals from time to time. Do not touch dead animals or carcases, and get urgent advice if you think you have.
• Ticks carry several dangerous diseases, so take precautions if you are camping or walking in the bush.

Getting treated, and paying for it

• Call 997 for an ambulance.
• Medicine and medical supply shortages remain widespread across public health facilities. Private healthcare is largely unaffected, which is what your insurance is for.
• A private hospital will not treat you unless you can pay, and the cost can be high. A public hospital will only take you as an emergency patient if you have full insurance, and outpatient treatment is paid up front.
• Serious cases may mean medical evacuation to the UK or South Africa. The policy has to cover evacuation and repatriation with funds you can actually reach, and you should call the insurer as soon as you are referred.
• Care is good in the major towns and limited in rural areas, along with communications. In the Delta you are an air ambulance away from a hospital.

Before you go

• Check vaccine recommendations at least 8 weeks ahead.
• A yellow fever certificate is an entry requirement if you are arriving from a transmission-risk country, so this overlaps with the border rules rather than being only medical advice.

Bring the passport to the counter

• BOCRA has required the operators to register every SIM card in Botswana. The registration is done by the network, not by the regulator, so it happens at the shop where you buy the card.
• For a foreign national the passport is the only accepted document. Orange Botswana says so on its own support page: a national ID for locals, a passport for foreigners, and nothing else.
• Until you have proved your identity the SIM does nothing. No calls in or out, no data. This is not the usual "activate within 24 hours" nudge.
• An unregistered line is suspended after 14 days and cancelled after 30. A card handed to you already working belongs to whoever registered it.

Which network, and where

• Three networks: Mascom, Orange and beMobile (BTC). All the major towns are covered, along with stretches of the national highway. Away from the tar in the Delta and the Kalahari, expect nothing.
• Cards are sold in supermarkets and at service stations, but buy from an operator's own shop if you want the registration done there and then rather than being told to come back with a passport.

eSIM

• Orange Botswana sells an eSIM, requested online or in a shop and delivered as a QR or activation code. It is the fastest route if your handset supports it, though the identity check is the same.

One rule that costs money

• Using a phone in your hand while driving carries a P300 fine. Hands-free only, which matters because navigating between towns is exactly when you will want the handset.

Power, and an honest disagreement

• Botswana Tourism says the supply is 220/240 V and that both square UK plugs and round South African plugs are in use.
• World Standards lists Botswana as type M only, at 230 V and 50 Hz. Type M is the large round three-pin South African plug.
• They disagree, so carry a universal adapter that covers both. A UK three-pin will fit some sockets and not others, and lodges built to South African standard fittings are the norm outside the cities.

Language and manners

• English is an official language, taught in schools and spoken in every urban centre, in rural villages by anyone who has been to school, and by camp, lodge and hotel staff. You will not need an interpreter.
• Tipping is not obligatory anywhere, in restaurants, bars or hotels. It is discretionary rather than expected, which is not what a visitor arriving from South Africa assumes.

Shopping and the practical day

• All the major towns, Maun and Kasane included, have supermarkets carrying basic goods, and most fuel service stations run 24 hour convenience shops.
• Buy what you need before you leave the tar. In the Delta and the Kalahari there is nothing.

The land borders keep office hours

• Most crossings shut in the evening. Tlokweng and Pioneer Gate into South Africa run 06:00 to midnight, Mamuno into Namibia to midnight, Kazungula Road into Zimbabwe 06:00 to 20:00, and several of the smaller posts close at 16:00.
• Check the hours for your specific post before setting out, because arriving at a closed border in Botswana means a long drive back to somewhere with a bed.
• Kazungula is a bridge now, not a ferry. The Botswana to Zambia bridge opened in 2021 and the two governments established a joint authority to run it in February 2026. The tourism board's port list still says ferry; ignore that.

Getting between towns

• Scheduled buses cross into South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia, and internal services link the major and minor towns.
• There is no passenger rail. Botswana Railways is freight only.

The levy you have read about does not exist

• There is nothing to pay on arrival, and nothing to pay online beforehand. The US$30 Tourism Development Levy that travel sites still describe was announced for 1 June 2017 and the Bill was withdrawn in December 2017 before it was ever tabled.
• No Botswana government page publishes an arrival levy today. Neither the FCDO's entry requirements nor Global Affairs Canada's entry section lists one, and the government portal's own search returns nothing.
• The levy that does exist is charged through your bed. A tourism levy is collected from accommodation and paid into the Tourism Development Fund. Operators publish it at P10, about US$1, per person per night, included in the quoted rate.
• If a website asks you to prepay a Botswana travel levy, it is not a government service.

Cash across the border

• Declare pula or foreign banknotes worth P10,000 or more, on the way in and on the way out. There is no limit on how much you may move, only on doing it quietly.
• Travellers cheques and other monetary instruments do not have to be declared.
• Currency counts as goods under the Customs and Excise Duty Act, so an undeclared bundle is a customs offence, not an oversight.

The customs form and the allowance

• Everyone arriving declares their goods on Form J, the baggage declaration, verbally or in writing.
• The duty free allowance is 2 litres of wine, 1 litre of spirits, 200 cigarettes, 20 cigars, 250 g of tobacco, 50 ml of perfume and 250 ml of toilet water.
• Other goods up to R3,000 from outside the Southern African Customs Union, or R500 from within it. Botswana's allowance is written in South African rand because it sits inside SACU. Above that, a flat 20 per cent rate is available if you elect it.
• Failure to declare can mean seizure and a penalty of up to three times the value. Keep the receipts.

The pula itself

• The pula is linked to a basket of currencies, and the Bank of Botswana quotes it against the South African rand, the US dollar, the British pound and the euro. Those four are what banks and bureaux change most readily.
• The US dollar, euro, pound and South African rand are the currencies that change most easily, and lodges quoting in dollars still take pula and rand.
• Cash machines take foreign Visa cards but sit mostly in the larger towns, and a foreign withdrawal attracts extra fees. Draw what you need before you leave the tar.

The two advisories, and they differ

• The FCDO advises against travel to no part of Botswana. There is no British warning against any region of the country.
• Global Affairs Canada advises Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in Botswana, because of crime. That is a step above its baseline and it is worth knowing the two governments read the same country differently.
• Neither reflects a terrorism problem. The FCDO notes no recent history of terrorism in Botswana.

Crime, in the places you will actually be

• Violent crime is increasing in Gaborone, Francistown and Maun, and there have been armed hold-ups of restaurants at peak hours.
• Criminals target cars stopped at traffic lights. Keep the doors locked and the windows up, keep bags, phones and laptops out of sight, and do not leave luggage visible in the vehicle.
• Lodges in the Chobe area have had room break-ins and thefts, particularly the river-fronting ones. Lock the room, use the safe, and say something to the operator if the accommodation does not look secure.
• Botswana has a high number of sexual assaults. Foreign visitors are not usually targeted, but avoid walking alone after dark.
• Carry identification. A copy of the passport photo page is normally enough as long as you can produce the original when asked.

The drone: assume the answer is no

• A drone must be registered with the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana, and the operator has to be a citizen or a resident. As a visitor you do not qualify.
• Registration also requires a fingerprint report from the Botswana Police, security vetting by the DIS, and the aircraft presented for inspection at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. The private fee is P1,050.
• Flying without the certificate carries a penalty of up to P5,000 and confiscation of the drone, rising to P50,000 and two years if it is used in the commission of an offence. Night flying is prohibited outright.
• Leave it at home. This is one of the few rules here with a published fine attached.

Cameras and what you point them at

• Photographing or filming near military and government installations is illegal.
• Ask before photographing people. That is the tourism board's instruction as much as the FCDO's.

Wildlife is not fenced away from you

• Wildlife areas are often unfenced and warning signs are few. Dangerous animals roam the open highways, inside reserves and outside them, and they behave unpredictably.
• A national park will not necessarily provide a guide. Arrange one from a reputable operator before you arrive at the gate, and only leave the vehicle when a guide or warden says it is safe.
• Do not bathe in rivers or lakes. Attack and water-borne disease, in that order.
• In remote areas, arrange transport and accommodation in advance, carry water and fuel, and travel in convoy or with a satellite phone.

Buying anything made from an animal

• It is illegal to buy, sell, kill or capture a protected wild animal or to trade its parts. Trophies, horns, tusks and bones need a government permit or a receipt from a licensed shop, and sentences on conviction are severe.

On the road

• Traffic drives on the left. A UK photocard licence is valid for 90 days; a paper licence needs the 1949 international driving permit alongside it, and Canada's advice is to carry an IDP as well. Hire companies often demand more than the law does.
• The blood alcohol limit is 0.05 per cent.
• Avoid driving after dark. Stray livestock and wildlife on unlit roads are the single biggest hazard, and speeding and drink-driving cause frequent fatal accidents.
• Report any accident to the police, by phone or at the nearest station.

Weather that closes roads

• The rainy season runs November to March, with heavy rain, flash flooding and roads that become unsafe countrywide.
• Flooding closes border crossings at short notice. Check the revenue service for border status before committing to a crossing on a fixed date.

The law on same-sex relationships

• Same-sex sexual activity is no longer criminal in Botswana. Public attitudes are less tolerant than in the UK, and public displays of affection may attract negative attention.

The numbers

Which one to use

• Botswana splits the services across separate numbers and there is no single 112. Save all of them before you land, because you will be saving them on a network you have not registered yet.
• 997, 998, 999 and 911 are toll free. Medical Air Rescue on 390 1601 is a normal number and is the one that matters in the Delta, where the road ambulance is not coming.
• 999 is also who you call after a road accident. Report it by phone or at the nearest police station.

Not an emergency, but worth having

• The FMD National Emergency Operations Centre, toll free 0800 600 130, answers questions about which veterinary zones are restricted and what you may carry between them. WhatsApp 77702971 or fmdneoc@gov.bw.

Before you need any of them

• Call your insurer as soon as you are referred to a hospital. A private hospital in Botswana will want to know who is paying before it treats you.
• Save the numbers offline. A contact stored in the cloud is not saved when there is no signal, and there is a lot of Botswana with no signal.