Zimbabwe Revises Visa Regime

The Department of Immigration issued a revised visa regime last week, changing visa requirements for citizens of more than 35 countries all over the world. A few changes in the three category lists were made to relax visa requirements.

Zimbabwe uses a 3-tier list which has the following visa requirements:

• Category A: No visa required
• Category B: Visa purchased on arrival
• Category C: Obtain a visa before arrival

In Southern Africa, Angola and Madagascar moved from Category C to A, while Seychelles moved from Category B to A. This now means that all members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are now in Category A, and do not require a visa to visit Zimbabwe.

The immigration department has also relaxed visa requirements for other countries on other continents, allowing citizens from those countries to get a visa on arrival to Zimbabwe. The list of countries that have moved from Category C to Category B include:

Algeria
Andorra
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Burundi
Cape Verde Islands
China (subject to certain conditions)
Comoros Islands
Croatia
Cuba
Estonia
Equatorial Guinea
French Polynesia
French West Indies
Gibraltar
Haiti
Iran
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Macau
Marshall Island
Micronesia
Moldova
New Caledonia
Northern Mariana
Rwanda
Samoa
Sao Tome
Serbia
Slovenia
Suriname
Tajikistan
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Uzbekistan

For the complete country list, visit this visa page.

The principal director at the immigration department, Clemence Masango said, "This new position is in response to the voice of players and interest groups in the tourism and hospitality industry who want to see more facilitation of movement of persons than control".

As for the UniVisa, Mr Masango commented that "consultations are ongoing to re-institute the KAZA-UNIVISA project which stopped in December last year with a view of resuming the system in this month".