Côte d'Ivoire visa guide: e-visa, embassy visas and residence

Every foreigner entering Côte d'Ivoire needs a passport or travel document carrying a biometric entry visa, unless they hold a nationality on the exemption list. That list covers the ECOWAS member states (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo) and, according to the government's visa information sheet, a handful of other countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Chad, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Seychelles, Singapore and the Philippines. The visa system itself is run for the State by SNEDAI, which the government recognises as the only official visa application channel.

There are two ways to get the biometric visa. The e-visa is applied for online: you upload your passport page, a return flight booking and a legalised invitation or accommodation certificate, pay EUR 73, receive an approval by email from the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), and then complete fingerprinting and photo at the Visa aéroport booths in Abidjan's Félix Houphouët-Boigny airport, where the visa is printed on the spot. The embassy visa costs EUR 50 plus booking and card charges, is booked online and enrolled in person at one of about thirty Ivorian embassies equipped for it, and is ready around 48 hours after enrolment. Both give a stay of up to three months.

Anyone staying longer than three months moves into the residence system run by ONECI, the national civil registry and identification office. Non-ECOWAS nationals apply for a biometric carte de résident after online pre-enrolment, with an annual fee of FCFA 300,000 (FCFA 150,000 for French nationals), and late applicants pay a penalty. Students, employees, traders, retirees, clergy and dependent spouses all use the same card with category-specific documents. Yellow fever vaccination is compulsory for entry and is checked on arrival.