São Tomé and Príncipe e-Visa (eVisaST): how to apply

The SMF directs travellers who need a visa and live where São Tomé and Príncipe has no consular representation to request an entry authorisation through eVisaST, which they present on arrival. The authorisation is individual. The platform lists four categories: tourist, business, transit and temporary.

Foreign spouses of São Toméans and their accompanying children do not need a visa under Article 25(2) of Law No. 5/2008 if they show a passport and the birth and marriage certificates proving the family link. Everyone else who needs a visa and cannot obtain one from a São Tomé consulate requests the entry authorisation online before travelling.

Upload a scan of your passport in PDF; it must remain valid for three months beyond the last day of stay on the visa (Article 13(1)(c) of Decree-Law No. 11/2009). Attach your return ticket, which is mandatory, and give your booking details: the reservation number, who made it and who it is for. If you have no contact person in the country, your hotel serves as your contact in São Tomé and Príncipe.

For a minor, add a scan of the birth record and a declaration by the legal guardians. Transit applicants add proof that they may enter their country of destination (Article 30(1) of Law No. 5/2008). Uploaded files must be under 2 MB, and no information can be changed after submission.

eVisaST does not take payment: the fee is paid at the border. The SMF's published figures date from a Council of Ministers deliberation of 10 February 2011, which created tourist and business subcategories of the temporary visa and cut its fee from 1,960,000 STD to 490,000 STD for tourists and 1,470,000 STD for business travellers. These amounts are in old dobras (STD) and the SMF has not published a newer table on the pages we read, so expect the amount to be confirmed at the border.

The application has three steps: choose the visa type, fill in the form, then review and confirm. The request is validated only after the third step. Save the process number generated at the end, because the SMF publishes all entry authorisations on its own website under Entry authorisation and Entry visa query, searchable by reference or process number, and no longer sends them by email.

By applying you authorise the SMF to process your data, which is kept in its information system for 20 years, and you undertake to leave before the visa or authorisation expires. Holding an authorisation is only one of the conditions for entry.

Present the entry authorisation, your passport and your return ticket. Border officers ask for proof of means of subsistence of EUR 100 per day of stay, and you pay the visa fee there.