Ghana launched a new electronic visa application system with a 48-hour processing period for business and tourist travellers, while waiving visa fees for all African passport holders entering the country.
President John Dramani Mahama said the initiative formed part of Ghana’s efforts to modernise immigration services and deepen regional integration across Africa.
“Effective immediately, all holders of African passports travelling to Ghana for business or tourism will apply for visas exclusively via the new online e-Visa platform, and they will pay no visa fee,” Mahama said at the launch ceremony in Accra.
Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said applicants who submitted all required documents through the online system would receive visa decisions within 48 hours.
The e-Visa platform currently applies only to business and tourist visas. Diplomatic passport holders, students, family visa holders and nationals from countries with bilateral visa waiver agreements with Ghana will continue to use existing arrangements, the minister said.
Ablakwa said visa applicants from outside Africa would pay a service fee of $260 under the new system.
He said the platform complied with standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and included biometric verification and fraud prevention measures.
According to Ablakwa, Ghana has signed visa waiver agreements with about 50 countries and those arrangements would remain unaffected.
The system was approved by Cabinet following a joint proposal by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Transport, he added.
Ablakwa said the platform was being operated under a public-private partnership with Rock Africa, which financed the setup cost and would recover its investment through service charges over time.
“Taxpayers have not been burdened,” he said.
The minister also rejected claims circulating on social media that the government had cancelled an existing e-visa contract that could expose the state to judgment debt.
“There will be no judgement debt. No contract has been cancelled,” Ablakwa said, adding that investigations found that an earlier agreement related only to machine-readable visa stickers and not to an electronic visa platform.
Interior Minister Muntaka Mohammed Mubarak said the new system would improve border security by enabling authorities to screen travellers before they departed for Ghana.
“Before a traveler even boards a plane, we already know who is coming,” he said.
Transport Minister Joseph Bukari Nikpe said the e-Visa platform had been integrated with Advanced Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record systems introduced at Accra’s international airport in 2025 to strengthen pre-arrival security screening.
