East African Community (EAC)

In 2025, EAC further improved its AVOI score to become the REC with the second-highest visa openness average (0.540). Following several membership changes over the years, with Somalia and the DRC joining the bloc and being included in computations of the region’s average score, a direct comparison with previous years is not possible. Despite its upward trajectory, visa-policy divergence by EAC countries towards the rest of the continent remains significant. Rwanda and Kenya have achieved the highest levels of visa openness, in contrast to DRC, Somalia and South Sudan, which still rank in the lowest quartile of this year’s AVOI. Kenya climbed 43 positions and is now almost completely visa-free, in contrast to Somalia, which in most travel scenarios now requires a visa ahead of travel and arrival (e-Visa), where previously visitors to the country could obtain a visa on arrival. This drops the country out of the top 20 ranking to 41st on the AVOI.

Visa-free reciprocity within EAC is at 57% (2024: 54%), the second highest of the RECs and slightly up from last year. This incremental change is due to Kenya’s move to a visa-free regime, albeit that all EAC partner states apart from Somalia already qualified for preferential access. Free movement of persons within EAC is well grounded in the region’s founding objectives and policies, including the Treaty Establishing the EAC (Article 104) and the Protocol on the Establishment of the EAC Common Market (in Article 5).

As shown in the reciprocity chart above, five countries have achieved high levels of visa-free reciprocity within the region, namely the three founding members, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as Rwanda and Burundi who joined in 2007. DRC and Somalia, and to a lesser extent South Sudan, each have yet to align their visa regimes more broadly with the region’s visa-free aspirations (DRC and Somalia currently reciprocate visa-free status with only two and one other member states respectively). Somalia granted one country visa-free status during 2025 (Rwanda) and changed its visa-on-arrival policies in favour of a visa-required for most countries despite, for example, EAC members Kenya and Tanzania granting citizens of Somalia visa-free status. Similarly, the DRC still requires a visa ahead of travel from citizens of Uganda and offers a visa-on-arrival to citizens of Kenya and Tanzania, whereas each of these countries grant DRC citizens visa-free access. In the future, changes by DRC and Somalia would result in a significant increase in the region’s overall visa-free reciprocity score, ease intra-regional travel and further cement the EAC’s position as having the second highest level of policy alignment on this important integration metric. Intra-regional travel is further enhanced through an optional EAC passport, while Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda also recognise each other’s national identity documentation for the purposes of travel.¹

¹ eac.int