Visas

Who needs a visa to visit Madagascar, and how and where do I get one?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hello and welcome to the Madagascar Travel Show. Today we're going to talk about visas. So, who needs a visa to come to Madagascar and how do you get one? The first thing you need to know is everybody needs a visa, so if you're coming to Madagascar, you need to deal with it. So, visas can be obtained in two main ways. The first way is to go to your nearest embassy. Now, if you're going to go to an embassy, you will need to supply your passport. You'll have some forms to fill out, you will need to supply some passport photos. There's a fair bit of hassle to be honest with you. And you need to have everything ready and have enough time to send the embassy your passport or go into the embassy if there's one near to you, if you're very lucky, and then wait for them to process your application, put the visa in your passport, and send it back to you. There are risks involved in putting your passport in the post, so you need to go to the expense of sending it by courier. The second main option of getting a visa for Madagascar is visa on arrival. Visa on arrival is available to all nationalities. What you need to get a visa on arrival in Madagascar is your passport with at least six months validity in your passport. So it doesn't expire within six months. And at least two empty pages blank for stickers and stamps. And your ticket out of Madagascar, so you must have an onward ticket to qualify for visa on arrival for most nationalities. The visa on arrival process is pretty easy, really. You land at the airport, you will have been given a form while you're on your flight into Madagascar, and you complete that form before you get off the plane. So bring a pen with you in your hand luggage. Very important to note. Sometimes they don't have the forms on the flight. Don't worry, don't panic, they'll give you one when you land. Once you've filled out the form, keep that safe. When you get off the flight, you will enter the arrivals hall. And depending on what's going on at the time, sometimes there's a health barrier, sometimes there's not, but you may have a health form to submit to the health authorities first. But then you just queue up for your visa. So I always recommend trying to get a seat near the door when flying to Madagascar. It just makes your arrival procedures a little bit easier. Unlike other much bigger, busier airports, there is usually only one flight arriving at one time. So you're not going to be queuing with thousands of people. But there are occasions when a couple of flights land very close together, in which case it really is important for you to have chosen your seating so you're somewhere near an exit. So you're amongst those first to get off, therefore first in the queue. So you enter the building, you deal with health requirements if they're required, then you queue for your visa. Now you can pay for your visa with cash in foreign currency or with a credit card. MasterCard and Visa Card only are accepted. At the moment, now this is the 19th of February 2023, and at the moment the costs for a visa, if you're staying for less than 15 days, is 10 euros or the equivalent in dollars. And that's really just an admin fee. That's for less than 15 days. If you're staying between 15 days and 30 days, the current cost is €35 euros or 37 US dollars. If you're staying for up to 60 days, the cost of your visa is 40 euros or 45 US dollars. Your visa can be extended from 60 days up to 90 days as the absolute maximum within the country by popping into the police. You pop into their police station and ask to speak to the PAF, the PAF, the police aérienne et frontier. So that's the errand frontiers police, errand borders police. So they can sort it out for you up to a maximum extension of 90 days in total. There'll be some small fees to pay at the police station. The police will also want to see your ticket out of the country to do that. So once you've got your visa, you then line up for the at the immigration desk where the uh the PAF, the police of the air and borders will just have a look at it and put a stamp in it and wave you through. Once you're through, that's it, you're at the the carousel and you wait for your luggage. So that's that's all there is to know really about getting a visa for Madagascar, except a lot of people like to try to get a visa in advance by buying one online. I'm sorry to tell you that in Madagascar this service is not possible. There is an e-Visa website, it can't take your payment, and it doesn't actually give you a visa, it gives you a landing permit, which you really don't need unless you're landing without an outward-bound ticket. I recommend that you go to the one and only place where you can get a landing permit for Madagascar, which is evisa Mada. E V I S A M A D A. One word, hyphenmg.com. E V I S A M A D A, M G dot com. Now look, there are a lot of other sites where people will ask you to pay, and all they will do is take your information and they will go to this site and do it for free. So I recommend that you come to this site and apply for your landing card. Like I said, it's not a visa, it just gives you an authorization to land. Now it can take them some time to reply, and in fact, there are a lot of complaints that some people don't get a reply at all. So uh have a go at it. But like I said, it can be hit or miss. So there you are, in summary, one at an embassy with some paperwork to fill out, passport photos, etc., sending your passport in by a courier and waiting for it to come back, or at the airport with your passport, six months validity, two blank pages, and your fee, which you can pay in either cash or credit card. If you have an outbound ticket, you do not need this electronic authorization. You still have to queue, you still have to pay when you land in Madagascar. There is no way, except at an embassy, to get a visa and pay for it outside Madagascar. Alright, well, look, that's giving you visa information, and the next thing we're going to do is have a little chat about the ongoing arrival procedures after you've landed in Madagascar. So this is me signing off for another day. Thanks for listening. You can check out uh much more about us in the links that I provide in the information below. I give you our website, our uh Instagram, our TikTok, and I recommend that if you have uh questions or you'd just like to join in a conversation about planning your trip to Madagascar, you could look at the Madagascar Travel Forum on TripAdvisor. Okay, speak to you next time.