Kenya eTA From Nigeria: You Are Probably Exempt (2026)

On a Nigerian passport you need no visa and no eTA to visit Kenya for up to 60 days. The Kenya Citizenship and Immigration (Amendment) Rules, 2025 put Nigeria on the exemption schedule at etakenya.go.ke. The paid eTA, from $30, applies only beyond that. The portal still contradicts itself, and Lagos check-in has not caught up.

Key facts: Kenya entry from Nigeria

The exemption almost every list gets wrong

In short: the 2025 Amendment Rules exempt nationals of a listed group of African countries from the Kenya eTA for a period not exceeding sixty days, and Nigeria is on that list. Source: etakenya.go.ke/general-information, fetched 25 July 2026.

Kenya dropped the tourist visa in January 2024 and replaced it with an eTA that every visitor had to buy. That is the version still circulating on passport-ranking sites and travel blogs. It is a year out of date.

The exemption schedule now published on the portal sets out several groups. East African Community citizens get 180 days. A named group including Botswana, Mauritius, South Africa and Zimbabwe gets 90. A wider group of African nationals gets 60 days, and Nigeria sits in that group. For a normal two-week trip, a Nigerian traveller applies for nothing and pays nothing.

The portal contradicts itself, in public

In short: the exemption schedule lists Nigeria, while the portal’s own application entry point still says all non-EAC visitors must file under Section 48 and names only EAC states as exempt. Both pages were live on 25 July 2026. Source: etakenya.go.ke/general-information and etakenya.go.ke/apply/exempt.

This is the part worth knowing before you travel. The general-information page carries the exemption. The /apply/exempt page still reads that all foreign visitors except citizens of EAC member states are required to submit immigration forms in compliance with Section 48 of the Kenya Citizenship & Immigration Act (No. 12 of 2011), and warns that failure to comply may lead to denied boarding or deportation on arrival.

Two pages of the same government portal disagree about your face. We are not going to resolve that for you, and neither will a reseller charging you $60 to make the question go away. What we can tell you is which page states the current rules, and what to carry in case the person checking your boarding pass has only read the other one.

What to carry to the Lagos desk

In short: print the exemption schedule, carry it with your return ticket and accommodation booking, and confirm with your airline before you fly. Source: this site’s reading of the portal contradiction above.

An immigration rule and an airline’s boarding policy are different things. The rule says you are exempt. The check-in agent in Lagos is working from a screen that may still say every visitor needs an eTA, and an airline that boards a passenger it should not have carried pays the fine.

So carry the paperwork that closes the argument quickly:

1. A printout of the exemption schedule from etakenya.go.ke/general-information, with Nigeria and the 60-day line visible.
2. A return or onward ticket. This is checked whether or not you hold an eTA.
3. Your accommodation booking and a plausible answer about where you are staying.
4. Your yellow-fever certificate. Kenya requires one from travellers arriving from countries with risk of transmission, and Nigeria is one of them. The eTA exemption changes nothing here.

Call the airline the week before. A two-minute confirmation is cheaper than a rebooked flight.

When you do need the eTA, and what it costs

In short: beyond 60 days, or if the schedule does not cover you, apply on the official portal. Fees start at $30, with expedited processing at an additional $100. Source: etakenya.go.ke/faqs, fetched 25 July 2026.

Naira figures are our own arithmetic at ₦1,540/$, the bank-card rate checked 24 July 2026. They are not an official Kenyan price, and the portal publishes no naira figure at all.

You may have read that the Kenya eTA costs $34. That number appears nowhere on the portal. It has been copied between aggregator sites until it looked official, and it has been repeated with a government attribution it never earned. The portal’s own words are “starting at $30.”

Paying from Nigeria has its own friction. A plain naira card often declines on a foreign government portal. Work through how to pay visa fees from Nigeria before you reach the payment screen.

Clone sites now have a better product to sell you

In short: the only official channel is the .go.ke domain. Reseller sites are still selling a paid Kenya eTA to Nigerians who are exempt from it. Source: etakenya.go.ke; this site’s anti-scam review.

Under the old rule a clone site overcharged you for something you needed. Under the current one it can sell you something you do not need at all, which is a cleaner sale and a harder refund.

The tell is the domain. The real portal ends .go.ke. A lookalike sits on .com, .net or .org, usually with “Kenya”, “visa” or “eTA” in the name, and buys the search ad above the government result. Check the exemption schedule yourself before you pay anyone. If a site tells you a 10-day holiday needs a paid eTA, it has already told you what it is. More red flags: how to avoid visa scams in Nigeria.