An important pillar of the AfCFTA is increasingly open borders for both products and people. While several African countries have removed visa requirements for African countries, others have maintained them. But visas are only one of several obstacles in the free movement of people. Report by Kwame Ofori .
When Chad announced in July that it would remove visa requirements for citizens of African countries, it joined a small but growing list of African countries that have extended visa-free access to all African nationals.
The move has once again drawn attention to the question of integration and how much progress could be made if more countries opened up their borders to their continental compatriots.
The arguments for freer movement between African countries are compelling. Visa-free travel would enable entrepreneurs to move freely across borders, identify new markets and build relationships with customers and suppliers.
It would facilitate cross-border investment as businesses capitalise on economies of scale to establish regional operations and reach a larger consumer market. It would boost tourism, improve labour mobility and foster greater knowledge transfer and innovation. Ultimately, easier movement of people would help translate the AfCFTA from a trade agreement on paper into a genuinely integrated African market.
However, visa-free travel is only one piece of the puzzle. Even if every African country opened its borders tomorrow, travellers would still face prohibitively expensive airfares, limited direct flight connections, inadequate transport infrastructure and logistical bottlenecks that continue to fragment the continent. Visa openness is a necessary condition for integration, but it is not sufficient on its own.
The African Development Bank’s 2025 Africa Visa Openness Report describes mobility as one of the foundations on which continental integration will be built.
The report argues that the AfCFTA is ultimately “for people”. While governments negotiate trade protocols and customs procedures, it is entrepreneurs, truck drivers, consultants, engineers, tourists, researchers and investors who will bring the agreement to life through cross-border activity. Without easier movement, the single market risks existing more on paper than in practice.
There is evidence that Africa is moving in the right direction, albeit gradually. The AfDB report points out that the share of intra-African journeys that can now be undertaken without a visa has risen from just 20% in 2016 to 28.2% in 2025, with some 39 African countries having improved their visa openness scores over the past decade.
More countries are also embracing digital immigration systems. Thirty-one African countries now offer electronic visas, up from just nine when the index was first launched. These developments point to growing recognition among policymakers that easier travel supports trade and economic growth.
Yet the overall picture remains mixed. More than half of all intra-African travel routes still require travellers to obtain visas before departure. Visa-on-arrival arrangements, once viewed as an intermediate step towards full liberalisation, have actually declined as several countries have replaced them with electronic pre-travel authorisations.
While e-visas undoubtedly modernise immigration systems, the AfDB cautions that they should not become “visas in disguise”. Requiring travellers to complete online applications, upload documents, pay fees and wait for approval before travelling still creates administrative hurdles.
They discourage spontaneous business travel and increase costs, particularly for small enterprises. The journey towards genuine freedom of movement across the continent, it appears, remains very much a work in progress.
A borderless Africa would have obvious benefits, not least for trade. Despite decades of regional integration efforts, intra-African trade, at 15-18%, remains far lower than trade within Europe (62%) or Asia (59%). While tariffs have received much of the policy attention, businesses frequently identify non-tariff barriers, including visa restrictions, as equally significant obstacles.
Benefits of borderless movement
Small and medium-sized enterprises, which dominate African economies, often lack the resources to navigate complex immigration procedures or maintain overseas offices. Easier travel lowers transaction costs by enabling entrepreneurs to meet customers, inspect products, negotiate contracts and participate in trade fairs.
Services trade would benefit even more. Professional services, from legal advice and engineering to finance, healthcare, ICT and education, depend almost entirely on the mobility of skilled people. As African economies diversify beyond commodities, the ability of professionals to work across borders will become increasingly important.
Tourism is another obvious beneficiary. Although international arrivals to Africa continue to recover strongly in the wake of the pandemic, Africans themselves remain an underdeveloped tourism market. Visa-free travel could encourage more regional leisure travel and business conferences while reducing dependence on visitors from Europe, North America and Asia.
Labour mobility may ultimately prove the greatest long-term prize. Africa possesses one of the world’s youngest populations, but labour markets remain uneven. Some countries experience shortages of specialised professionals while others produce graduates struggling to find employment. Greater mobility would allow skills to flow more efficiently across borders, strengthening productivity and supporting industrialisation under the AfCFTA.
Perhaps the strongest evidence that visa openness works already exists within Africa itself. Despite on-the-ground challenges, West Africa’s ECOWAS has long demonstrated that free movement is possible.
The East African community has also made substantial progress, steadily reducing restrictions while harmonising immigration procedures among member states.
Indeed, the AfDB argues that regional economic communities have become laboratories for continental integration, demonstrating that countries can facilitate movement while maintaining effective border management.
One reason governments remain cautious is concern over irregular migration, organised crime and national security. These are legitimate considerations. Governments have an obligation to know who is entering their territory and to protect citizens from transnational threats.
In addition, the ongoing anti-immigrant violence and rhetoric in South Africa is the other side of the coin. Faced with high unemployment and general scarcity, immigrants in African countries, reflecting a dangerous global trend, are being made scapegoats for all ills. Several countries have sent chartered flights to rescue their besieged citizens.
Other challenges also persist. Getting from one African city to another is often remarkably difficult. The Single African Air Transport Market, launched by the African Union in 2018, was intended to address this problem precisely by liberalising air services across participating countries. Progress has been made, but implementation has been uneven.
Road and rail infrastructure present similar challenges. Border posts themselves can impose long delays despite improvements such as one-stop border posts in parts of East and Southern Africa.
Perhaps the most encouraging finding from the Africa Visa Openness Report is not the rankings themselves but the direction of travel. Countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Egypt, once among the continent’s most restrictive, have become considerably more open over the past decade.
Others, such as Rwanda, Benin, The Gambia, Ghana, and Kenya, continue to expand visa-free access through unilateral reforms rather than waiting for reciprocal arrangements.
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The power of free intra-African movement
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