I spent so much time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, just getting visas for my next countries that I put together this post that will hopefully help some other people on the same mission. So here is a guide to getting visas for Somaliland, Djibouti, Sudan and Egypt in Addis Ababa. If you’re heading to Kenya, check out this Kenya E-Visa Guide.

Please note that regulations, locations, and prices can change quickly in Africa, so I don’t guarantee that everything here is accurate anymore. I was in Ethiopia in July 2017.

Egypt

I started with Egypt because in order to get a visa for Sudan, you’ll need your Egyptian visa first if you plan to travel overland. I also thought this was going to be the easiest one; I could normally get the visa on arrival after all. How wrong was I…

Here is what you need:

• 700 + 400 Ethiopian Birr
• ATM receipt
• two color passport photos with white background
• printed hotel booking confirmation
• copy of your passport and yellow fever certificate
• filled application form

The visa section is open from 9a.m.-12 p.m., and I went there with a high confidence thinking that it will only take 10 minutes. I had 700 Birr, a copy of my passport and passport photos. I filled out an application form and handed it to the lady working at the embassy. She told me that I would also need a hotel reservation and an ATM/currency exchange receipt for the money.

I had asked my taxi driver to wait for me outside to take me back to my hotel because I had thought this is only going to be a quick thing. We then spent the next two hours trying to find an ATM which gives you a receipt. Most of them were out of paper, and some didn’t even give you a warning of that, and I ended up taking out way too much Ethiopian Birrs just trying out different ATMs. Finally, we ended up in Hilton Hotel which proved to be the best place so far as they have lots of ATMs and I also managed to get a copy of my yellow fever certificate.

In a car going back to the embassy, I booked a hotel for Egypt (which I then canceled later on), and I thought I was all settled. Nope, I was told that I need to print the hotel booking confirmation AND my black-and-white passport photos were not alright. You’ll need color passport photos. So off we went again, and my taxi driver was doing his best to find a place where you could get passport photos done right away (at this time I only had 20 minutes left before the embassy was closing). We found a place, I got my photos done, and I rushed to an internet cafe to get my hotel booking confirmation printed.

I made it back to the embassy 12 o’clock sharp, and this time everything was alright. I left my phone number to them, and they promised to call when the visa was ready.

It took three days for them to get back to me and I was also told to pay extra 400 Birrs when picking up the visa because some regulations had changed. I wasn’t expecting that, but I was just so happy to get my visa that I didn’t really care.

Somaliland

Getting a visa for Somaliland was surprisingly the easiest one of these all, and you could actually get the visa on the same day! The most difficult part was finding the embassy itself because no one seemed to know the location. I had two different locations, one provided by Google Maps and another by an offline map application. Both of these were wrong. My taxi driver finally managed to find out the location, and because the street names are not commonly used in Ethiopia, I try to explain the best I can. If you use Google maps, search for the Embassy of Malawi. Coming from Cameroon St, you’ll pass the Embassy of Malawi, and the Embassy of Somaliland is after that on the same side of the street. Check out the exact location here.

Here is what you’ll need:

• $100
• one passport photo
• copy of your passport
• filled application form

I left my application, and only three hours later I came back to pick up my visa and passport. Easy! Remember to ask for the receipt; this will come in handy later on when you travel to Somaliland.

Djibouti

This was the second hardest to get after Egypt which is also funny because I could get the visa on arrival at the airport. I had, however, planned to travel there overland and I had heard so many people having issues when crossing the border without a visa that I didn’t want to risk it.

Here is what you’ll need:

• $80 or $95 if you want to get it on the same day
• printed hotel booking confirmation
• flight ticket OR a letter from your embassy
• filled application form

If you travel to Djibouti overland, you need to get a letter from your embassy. I never really figured out what the letter was supposed to say. I was told by the lady working at the embassy of Djibouti that the people at my embassy will know what to write. I rushed to my embassy where after half an hour of arguing was told that they had never heard of this type of letter and refused to provide it to me.

I went back to the embassy of Djibouti where the same lady showed me a letter from some Dutch guy. So apparently some nationalities have more luck than me… The lady also told that she couldn’t issue me a visa without the letter, so my only option was to buy a flight ticket. If you’re in the same situation, go to any Ethiopian Airlines ticket office, buy a flight ticket, make sure you can cancel it, take the booking confirmation, leave your visa application, go back to the ticket office and cancel the ticket.

You apply for the visa in the morning between 9-11:30 a.m. and you can pick up the visa in the afternoon after 14:30 p.m.

Sudan

Getting a visa for Sudan might be more expensive and difficult for Americans. This is my experience getting the visa with an EU passport.

Here is what you’ll need:

• copy of your passport
• copy of your Ethiopian visa
• copy of your onward flight ticket OR copy of your visa for the next country
• $68
• two passport photos
• filled application form
• sponsor details: name, address, phone number

The most straightforward visa to get is a transit visa, and for that, you’ll need either a flight ticket out of the country or the visa for your next country (in my case, Egypt) if you travel overland. The transit visa is for two weeks, and it’s valid for one month.

You’ll also need sponsor details which you can get when you email any hotel. I stayed at Corinthia Khartoum who provided me the details.

I had heard some horror stories how difficult it is to get the visa, but maybe they have changed some regulations because for me it only took a day after I had finally left my application. Prepare to wait a long time when leaving the application though because this was the busiest embassy of all these four. There were hundreds of Ethiopians trying to move to Sudan for work, and they were all waiting there to get their visas. The staff at the embassy was very friendly though, and I didn’t mind waiting.

Some General Tips:

• Buy a local SIM card in Ethiopia. For example, the Egyptian embassy will call you when your visa is ready, and overall it just makes your life easier when you have the local SIM card.
• Hilton Hotel is everything. I didn’t stay there, but I went there so many times to either take copies or use their ATMs to get a receipt.
• Travel with a USB stick. It’s so much easier just to give a USB stick to someone and ask them to print something. Internet connections are not always reliable, and some places only print documents if you provide a USB stick.
• Bring some US dollars before traveling to Ethiopia. I can’t stress enough how important this is. Trying to get dollars in Ethiopia is a pain in the ass.
• If you don’t have enough dollars, try Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and their head office. The exact location on Google maps is the intersection of Churchill Avenue and Yohanis Street. For the exchange process you’ll need: a receipt from an ATM (must be Commercial Bank as well), an onward flight ticket (another problem if you’re traveling overland), passport, a filled application form. Seems like a lot of work for just exchanging money? And did I forget to mention that you also can’t get more than $100 at once? Just bring your dollars, you don’t want to go through this process three times as I did…
• Ask for receipts. For all your visas, exchange and ATM receipts, ask for receipts and save them. You may not need them at all but people in Africa love their paperwork and bureaucracy and sometimes a piece of paper can save your day. For example, I was asked to pay some extra fees when entering Somaliland, but I showed them my visa receipt and I was free to go without paying.

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