Rwanda has been ranked first in the East African region and second overall in Africa, be-hind The Gambia, in the 2025 Africa Visa Openness Index (AVOI).
Kenya follows in third place, with Burundi (9), Tanzania (17), Uganda (24), Somalia (41), the Democratic Republic of Congo (46), and South Sudan (51) also featuring in the rankings.
In 2023, Rwanda was ranked the most open country in Africa, but it dropped to second place in 2025 after The Gambia, according to the latest Africa Visa Openness Report.
Read: Visa openness: How Kenya turned around a tedious immigration policyThe report is a joint initiative of the African Development Bank and the African Union (AU) Commission.
The AVOI measures the extent to which African countries are open to visitors from other African nations. It analyses visa requirements to show which states most facilitate travel across the continent.“This year, Rwanda and The Gambia (1) retain their top ranking, Kenya (3), while Benin moves to fourth place following the recent introduction of a visa for citizens of five coun-tries,” the report notes.
Rwanda and Kenya have achieved the highest levels of visa openness, in contrast to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and South Sudan, which remain in the lowest quartile of this year’s AVOI within the East African Community (EAC).
Kenya has become the third-most visa-free country, following updates to its ETA system, which now exempts citizens from 52 African countries.
After being downgraded in 2024 when its ETA processes were categorised as an e-Visa, Kenya has now attained its highest-ever rating, ranking third behind Rwanda and The Gambia, which share joint first place.
Over the past decade, Benin, Seychelles, The Gambia, and more recently Rwanda have been trailblazers in visa openness, offering visa-free access to the rest of the continent.
Rwanda reached a milestone in 2023 when it extended visa-free access to citizens of all AU member states, a major step in its liberal visa policy.
President Paul Kagame, who chaired the AU Institutional Reforms Committee in 2018 to make the organisation more efficient, initiated visa reforms that culminated in the 2023 decision to allow visa-free entry for all African countries to Kigali. This policy eased travel for many nations and boosted Rwanda’s score on the AVOI.
Regionally, Ecowas and the EAC are the leading blocs in visa openness. In 2025, the EAC improved its AVOI score to become the REC with the second-highest average (0.540), after Ecowas (0.597).
Also read: Kenya and Senegal abolish visasAVOI scores range from 0 to 1, with 0 applying to countries with the most restrictive visa policies (requiring visas ahead of travel for all visitors), and 1 applying to countries that have removed visa restrictions for all African citizens. The higher the score, the more “vi-sa-open” a country is.
Despite its upward trajectory, visa-policy divergence among EAC countries towards the rest of the continent remains significant.“Ecowas retains the highest average score of all RECs (0.597), albeit significantly lower than its 2024 score (0.629),” the report states.“This is also the regional group’s lowest score since 2019, driven by policy updates in several member states and changes in membership after Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger withdrew in January 2025.”Benin, once among the most improved countries, dropped from joint first to fourth place this year after introducing visa requirements for citizens of five African countries.
Benin had climbed from 31st place in the first edition to top spot in 2018.
The Gambia became visa-free for all African citizens in 2020 and has retained its place at the top since. Seychelles, which had previously led the index, later introduced a compulsory ETA system for all visitors, recently extended to maritime arrivals.
Other countries have also made significant progress, even from relatively low bases. Eri-trea and Ethiopia are among the most improved when comparing scores in 2025 with 2016.
Eritrea recently introduced visa-on-arrival for all countries, except Kenya and Uganda, whose citizens enter visa-free.
Ethiopia now requires visas ahead of travel only from citizens of Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, and Sudan.
Zambia also stands out. In January 2025, it abolished visa requirements for citizens of 53 countries globally, enhancing its status as a tourism, business, trade, and investment des-tination.“This increases visa-free access to citizens of 167 countries, including six addi-tional African states—Cabo Verde, Comoros, Madagascar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Liberia, and Morocco,” the report says.“This raised Zambia’s AVOI rank from 24th to 19th, with 20 African countries now granted visa-free access, seven eligible for visas on arrival, and 26 still requiring visas ahead of travel via the e-Visa portal.”Several West African countries—particularly Ghana, Senegal, and Sierra Leone—now feature prominently on the index after adopting more liberal visa policies. They had already demonstrated openness towards Ecowas citizens. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
