THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
Togo became the fifth African country to grant unconditional visa-free entry to all African passport holders on 18 May 2026, when its Ministry of Security announced the immediate removal of visa requirements for continental travellers. Under the new policy, any African national holding a valid passport may enter Togo without a visa for stays of up to 30 days.
Travellers are required to complete an online pre-arrival declaration at least 24 hours before arrival, while standard immigration, security and public health checks remain in force. The announcement, made via the ministry’s official platform, came as Lomé prepares to host the Biashara Afrika 2026 trade summit, reinforcing Togo’s stated ambition to position itself as a hub for intra-African commerce and integration.
With this decision, Togo joins Rwanda, Benin, The Gambia and Seychelles as African states to have adopted full visa-free access for all continental travellers. Ghana, frequently cited in the same breath, deserves a more precise description. Accra’s policy, announced for implementation from Africa Day on 25 May 2026, removes visa fees for Africans but does not remove the requirement to apply for a visa.
African nationals will not pay visa fees, but they will still have to submit a formal application and undergo case review, just like all other foreign travellers who require a visa. It is a meaningful step — cost has long been a genuine barrier to intra-African travel — but it is not visa-free access, and the distinction matters.
The broader continental picture demands equal precision. According to the latest Africa Visa Openness Index, only 28.2 per cent of intra-African travel scenarios are currently visa-free — the highest level recorded since tracking began, but still a low figure. More than half of intra-African travel still requires visas obtained before departure, which development institutions describe as a significant drag on intra-continental commerce.
Yet the conversation about free movement in Africa cannot be reduced to the bilateral and unilateral steps taken at the continental level alone. The continent’s most advanced free movement architecture already exists at the regional level. ECOWAS, established in 1975, has long enshrined the right of West African citizens to enter, reside and work across its member states without a visa.
The East African Community similarly allows citizens of its member states to move freely across shared borders using national identity documents, without passports or visas. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Southern African Development Community, have made comparable, if uneven, strides towards liberalised intra-regional movement.
The challenge is that these regional achievements, impressive as they are in principle, have not been uniformly translated into practice. The ECOWAS protocol is not effectively implemented across all member states, making it difficult for populations to move freely and fully realise the socio-economic potential of regional integration. Harassment at borders, bureaucratic obstruction and a persistent securitisation of migration continue to undermine rights that exist on paper.
This is the wider context in which Togo’s announcement should be read. Individual country decisions matter, and they accumulate. In 2025, 31 African countries — 57 per cent of the continent — offered an e-Visa for Africans, up from nine countries in 2016, and 39 countries have improved their visa openness score since the index began. That is genuine progress. But the gap between formal policy and lived experience remains wide, and the AU’s Free Movement of Persons Protocol — which would provide the continental legal framework to underpin it all — has yet to secure the ratifications needed for it to enter into force. Visa Openness Index
Togo’s move is welcome. So is Ghana’s fee waiver. So is every bilateral agreement that eases the movement of Africans across the continent they share. But the dream of a genuinely borderless Africa will not be achieved by five countries acting alone. It requires the political will to implement what has already been agreed — and to ratify what remains outstanding.
Adira Kallo
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