🇬🇭Ghana

What changed in May 2026

• Visa on arrival is discontinued. On 25 May 2026 Ghana replaced a largely visa-free and visa-on-arrival framework with digital pre-travel authorisation. Arriving and asking at the desk is no longer a route.
• There are now two documents, and which one you need depends on your nationality. An eVisa for people who always needed a visa, and a free electronic travel authorisation (ETA) for people who used to arrive without one.
• ECOWAS and AES nationals still enter visa free and pay nothing. That is unchanged.

The eVisa

• Apply at evisa.immigration.gov.gh, the portal run by the Ghana Immigration Service with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It accepts applications from over 190 countries and has an eligibility checker that tells you which of the two you need.
• Processing is 72 to 96 hours. Three to four working days, so this is not a same-week decision if you are cutting it fine.
• The passport must be valid at least 6 months beyond the day you arrive.

The postal route still exists, and some advice still describes only that

• The FCDO's Ghana page still walks British travellers through the High Commission route: an online form, documents posted in, 10 to 15 working days, with a roughly 3 day express service through the Ghana Premium Application Centre in London.
• That route has not been abolished. It is simply no longer the only one, and for most people it is now the slow one.
• If a guide tells you to get the visa at the airport, it was written before 25 May 2026. Check the date on anything you read about Ghanaian visas, including this page.

Two things checked at the border that are not the visa

• A yellow fever vaccination certificate is compulsory, not advisory. It is checked on arrival.
• Declare hard currency. All of it, and USD 10,000 equivalent is the ceiling. Above that the entire amount can be confiscated, not just the excess.
• Ghana recognises dual nationality, so a second passport is not a problem to declare.

Yellow fever

• The certificate is a border requirement, checked on arrival, not a recommendation.
• If you arrive without one, the airport vaccinates at 20 US dollars, the same price for Ghanaian and foreign nationals. That is a published rate rather than a negotiation, but it is also a delay and an injection you did not plan, so get it at home.
• Port Health, which handles the vaccination at Kotoka, is in Terminal 3.

The other risks the FCDO names

• Malaria, countrywide. Start the prophylaxis before you travel, not on arrival.
• Dengue, which no tablet prevents, so it comes down to repellent and covered arms at dawn and dusk.
• Marburg virus. Ghana declared the end of its 2022 outbreak in September 2022, so this is background rather than a current alert, but it is on the list.
• See a travel clinic at least 8 weeks before departure, which is the window vaccine courses actually need.

Care on the ground

• Medical facilities are poor outside towns. For anything serious, medical evacuation will be necessary.
• Insurance has to cover evacuation and repatriation, with accessible funds, because a policy that pays a hospital later does not get you onto an air ambulance now.
• The airport clinic is 500 metres from the terminal and open 24 hours, dental, physiotherapy, paediatric and gynaecology included, and it is open to the general public.

Registration is not a formality

• SIM registration is mandatory in Ghana, set by the National Communications Authority rather than by the operators.
• A non-resident foreigner registers on a passport number, or an ECOWAS card number if you hold one. Bring the physical document.
• Biometric capture happens at the point of sale. Your fingerprint is taken in the shop, which is why a SIM cannot be bought and registered remotely for you by somebody else.
• 404 is the short code the process runs on, so a message from 404 is the network and not a scam.

Practically

• Buy in a branded operator shop rather than from a street table. The biometric step needs the operator's own equipment, and a SIM sold to you already registered is registered to somebody else.
• The airport has free wifi in both terminals under the name KIA FREE WIFI, so there is no need to buy a SIM in the first ten minutes at whatever price is quoted.

Power

• Type G sockets, the British three pin, at 230 V and 50 Hz. A UK plug goes straight in.
• Sockets are often universal, taking more than one plug shape, but do not plan on it.

Language

• English is the official language, which makes Ghana one of the easier arrivals in the region. Twi, Ewe, Ga and Dagbani are the languages actually spoken around you.

Getting about

• Tro-tros are the shared minibuses that most of the country moves on. They are cheap and they go everywhere.
• No central licensing. Taxi drivers, tro-tro drivers and app drivers are not licensed by a national body and there is no authority accountable for their safety standards. Ride-hailing apps at least leave a record of the trip and the driver, which a flagged-down taxi does not.
• Agree the fare before the journey on anything unmetered, which is nearly everything outside the airport rank.

Bring a Visa card, not only a Mastercard

• Many hotels, guesthouses and shops accept credit cards except for Mastercard, which is not widely accepted. This is the FCDO's own wording and it is the single most useful money fact about Ghana.
• Check ahead that a place can take your card, and carry back-up funds. A card that works in Accra hotels is not a card that works everywhere.
• Tell your card issuer you are travelling, or the first Ghanaian transaction may block the account.

Cash

• ATMs are common in large towns and may simply not exist in rural areas. Draw what you need before you leave a city.
• Be alert at ATMs, go by pre-arranged transport where you can, and look at the slot for a skimmer before you insert the card.
• Keep your card in sight when you pay a bill.
• Do not carry large sums or visible valuables.

The declaration

• Hard currency is declared on arrival, all of it.
• USD 10,000 equivalent is the ceiling. Carrying more risks confiscation of the whole amount rather than the excess, so this is not a rule to round off.

At police checkpoints

• Do not hand cash to a police officer. It can be treated as a bribe, and impromptu checkpoints on roads at night are normal.

The travel advisory, stated plainly

• The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the Bawku Municipal area, in the Upper East region on the Burkina Faso border. Travelling against that advice can invalidate travel insurance.
• The rest of the country carries no such advisory, which is why Accra and Kumasi are ordinary destinations and this page is written for people going there.

Roads

• Street lighting is poor or absent. Avoid road travel outside the main towns after dark, both for accidents and for the higher risk of attacks on vehicles.
• Expect impromptu police checkpoints if you drive at night.
• The FCDO names specific Accra roads where robberies happen, including Graphic Road, the George Walker Bush Highway, the Accra Mall roundabout, Awudome Cemetery Road, the Pokuase to Amasaman road, the Teshie to Nungua road, the Labadi beach area, the GIMPA road and Kokrobite beach.

Water

• The southern coast has rip tides. Beaches that look calm are the ones that catch people, and lifeguards are not a given.

Laws that catch visitors out

• Cannabis possession can mean 5 years or more. There is no tourist allowance.
• Photography near the airport and near military sites is illegal. Put the phone away rather than argue about what counts.
• Camouflage clothing is illegal for civilians. This is a common rule across West Africa and a common way to lose a bag of clothes.

The numbers

Before you need them

• 112 works from a mobile with no credit, which is the number to remember if the SIM has run out.
• Call your insurer as soon as you are referred to a hospital, because a private facility will want to know who is paying before it starts.
• Save your embassy's number offline. A number in a cloud contacts list is not a saved number when there is no data.