An Ethiopian tourist e-Visa costs $62 for 30 days or $152 for 90 days, both single entry, and processing takes up to three days. You apply at evisa.gov.et, which is the only official portal, and you upload two things: a recent passport-size photo and a passport valid for at least six months from the date you intend to enter.

Three details catch people out, and all three are stated by the Immigration and Citizenship Service rather than inferred. The visa is single entry, so leaving and coming back means applying again. Its validity counts from the entry date you chose on the form, not from the day it is approved. And if the application is refused, the office tells you that it was refused without telling you why, and the fee is not returned.

This guide covers the fees, the steps, what the portal actually asks for, and what you can control about the outcome.

What it costs

These are the fees published on the official portal for a tourist visa.

Visa	Entry type	Maximum stay	Fee (USD)
Tourist e-Visa	Single entry	30 days	$62
Tourist e-Visa	Single entry	90 days	$152

Extensions are a separate, higher charge, applied for once you are in the country.

Extension	Entry type	Maximum stay	Fee (USD)
Tourist visa extension	Single entry	30 days	$102
Tourist visa extension	Single entry	90 days	$302

Two things follow from those numbers. Extending costs considerably more than the original visa, so if your itinerary is genuinely five weeks, the 90-day visa at $152 is cheaper than a 30-day visa plus a 30-day extension at $164. And the fee is charged for the application, not for the visa. Paying it does not make approval certain, and it is not refunded if the answer is no.

Payment is by card at the point of application.

The application, step by step

1. Go to evisa.gov.et and nowhere else. More on this below, because it is the single most expensive mistake available here.

2. Choose Tourist Visa, then 30 or 90 days. The tourist visa is for tourism and other non-business travel. If you are travelling to work, report, attend a conference or volunteer, the portal lists separate categories and the tourist visa is the wrong one.

3. Pick your intended date of entry carefully. This is the field that decides everything. Validity starts counting from the date you enter on the form, not from the date the visa is issued. Choose the date your flight lands. If you put a date two weeks before you actually arrive, you have spent two weeks of your stay sitting at home.

4. Upload your passport and photo. The portal requires a recent passport-size photo and the passport itself, valid for at least six months from your intended entry date. Camera photographs of the documents are accepted rather than proper scans, provided the result is clearly legible.

5. Check every character before you submit. Name, nationality, passport number, email. The system cannot change them afterwards. Its own guidance is blunt about this: applicants are responsible for entering information correctly, and wrong details cause problems at the immigration counter on arrival.

6. Pay, then wait up to three days. The stated processing time is up to three days and can be quicker. The portal advises applying at least three days before departure, which is the bare minimum rather than a sensible plan. Apply two or three weeks out and the timing stops being a risk at all.

7. Collect the approval letter from your email. Approval arrives as a letter sent to the address you gave. You can also check status on the portal and download it there. Ethiopian embassies cannot check e-Visa status for you, so contacting one achieves nothing.

Print the approval letter. A phone battery is a poor single point of failure at a check-in desk.

Use the real website

The Immigration and Citizenship Service publishes a warning about counterfeit sites that copy the look of the official portal, and it names them. At the time of writing the list includes ethiopiaevisa.com, ethiopiaimmigration.org, ethiopiaonlinevisa.com, evisaforethiopia.com, ethiopian-visa.com, ethiopia-evisa.com and ethiopiavisas.net.

The government states plainly that it has no agreement with these operators, that applications or payments made through them are not acceptable, and that it takes no responsibility for money paid to them.

Search "Ethiopia visa" and the first page is thick with sites of this kind. Some are outright fake. Others are legitimate agents who submit to the same portal you could use yourself and charge a service fee on top of the government fee. Neither is necessary.

The test takes one second. Look at the address bar and check the domain ends in .gov.et before you type a passport number or a card number. The real address is evisa.gov.et.

Why applications are refused, and why you will not be told

Here the honest answer is more useful than a confident one. The Immigration and Citizenship Service states that if an application is rejected it will notify you of the rejection but not of the reason. Nobody outside the office can publish a reliable ranked list of causes, and any article that gives you one is guessing.

What you can do is remove every failure that is inside your control, because those are stated:

Passport validity. At least six months from your intended date of entry. Not six months from today, and not six months from the date you apply. If your passport expires inside that window, renew it before you apply, because the passport number on the visa has to match the passport you travel on.

Legibility. Camera photographs are allowed, but only if clearly visible. A dark, angled or glare-covered shot of the photo page is an avoidable risk. Flat surface, good light, all four corners in frame.

Data accuracy. Names exactly as they appear in the passport, including middle names and the order they are printed in. Passport number transcribed character by character. This is the one that cannot be repaired afterwards.

The right visa category. A tourist visa covers tourism and non-business travel. Applying for the wrong category is a problem you create at the form stage.

A working email address. The approval letter is sent there. A typo in the email field means the letter goes nowhere.

If an application is refused, the fee is not refunded. That is stated in the portal's terms.

Visa on arrival, and who does not need a visa

A visa on arrival service exists at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport for citizens of a list of countries published on the portal, and it is issued as a tourist visa only. Ethiopian embassies also continue to issue visas.

The portal's own argument for applying online rather than turning up and hoping is a fair one: you arrive with the decision already made, instead of risking a refusal after you have paid for flights and accommodation.

Citizens of Kenya and Djibouti with a valid passport enter Ethiopia without a visa.

Eligibility lists change. Check the current one on the portal for your nationality rather than relying on what a forum said last year.

Transit through Bole

If you are connecting through Addis Ababa and staying airside, you do not need an e-Visa.

If you want to leave the transit area and see the city between flights, that is a transit visa obtained at the airport, and Ethiopian Airlines is the contact for how it works. We have written that up separately in our guide to whether an Addis Ababa layover needs a transit visa, including the trap that catches people whose passport is inside six months of expiry.

Extending once you are here

Extensions are possible before the visa expires, on reasonable grounds.

If your visa expired between one and fifteen days ago, the extension is handled online. Beyond fifteen days, you have to go in person to the Immigration and Citizenship Service head office in Addis Ababa. Staying past the validity period without extending brings fines and legal penalties.

The better plan is to buy the right length at the start. Work out the real shape of your trip before you apply, and if you are unsure whether you need three weeks or five, our guide to how long to spend in Ethiopia sets out what each route actually takes.

FAQ

How much is an Ethiopian e-Visa? $62 for a single-entry visa allowing a stay of up to 30 days, and $152 for a single-entry visa allowing up to 90 days. Extensions cost $102 and $302 respectively.

How long does the Ethiopian e-Visa take? Up to three days under normal circumstances, sometimes quicker. The portal advises applying at least three days before departure. Two to three weeks ahead is the sensible margin.

When does the visa start counting? From the date of entry you selected in your application, not from the date it was issued. Choosing an entry date earlier than your actual arrival wastes part of your stay.

Can I get an Ethiopian visa on arrival? Citizens of a published list of countries can, at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, issued as a tourist visa only. Check the current list on evisa.gov.et for your nationality. Applying online first means you travel with the decision already made.

Is the e-Visa multiple entry? No. The tourist e-Visa is single entry. If you leave Ethiopia and want to return, you apply again.

What happens if my application is refused? You are notified of the refusal but not of the reason, and the fee is not refunded.

Can I fix a mistake after submitting? No. The e-Visa system cannot update or modify information entered incorrectly, which is why the review step before payment matters more than any other part of the process.

Once the visa is sorted

The visa is the administrative part. The trip is the rest of it, and that is where we come in.

Drive Ethiopia is an Addis Ababa tour operator and car rental company. Tell us your dates, the places you want to reach and how you would rather travel between them, and you will have a reply within two hours and a detailed itinerary with a quote within 24 hours.

Plan your Ethiopia trip with us, or if you would rather drive it yourself, see our 4×4 and car rental options.