Ghana has been ranked the 5th best country in the 10th Africa Visa Openness Index (AVOI) Report 2025, prepared by the African Development Bank Group.
The report is designed to track progress on visa policy by African governments, facilitate intra-African travel for African citizens, encourage the removal of obstacles that impede travel within the continent, and promote cross-border trade investments and innovation.
Methodology
To calculate each country’s score, the AVOI assesses the visa policy each country applies to the citizens of each of the other 53 countries on the continent and classifies each policy in one of three categories, and the AVOI gives each category a weighting. The categories are “Visa Free, Visa on Arrival, and Visa Required.”
Other rankings
The Gambia and Rwanda are tied at number one in the ranking. Kenya placed 3rd, Benin 4th, and Cabo Verde took the 6th position.
The rest are Mozambique, 7th, Mauritius 8th, Burundi 9th, Sierra Leone 10th, Eritrea 11th, Djibouti and Comoros 12th, Senegal 14th, Madagascar 15th, Ethiopia 16th, Tanzania 17th, Namibia, 18th, Zambia 19th and Malawi 20th.
Recommendations
As part of the report, the researchers made the following recommendations to African countries. First was that countries need to “keep administrative and information overheads to a minimum in electronic processes, use of social media to support and inform travellers and promote official and legal channels, and Alignment with IATA information given reliance by airlines and border management authorities.
Other recommendations were for African countries to “offer any electronic authorization services through simplified processes – app (uploading biometrics and selfie), multiple entry visas as a default with expiry date linked to the validity period of travel document, regional visas and collaborative approaches to movement and travel – one visa for all REC states.
“Allow identity documents among neighbours – those with advanced population registry systems, create a means to recognize top performers – engage through the AUC and RECs to share experiences and accelerate and recognize impact of people’s skills through an AfCFTA pass offering fast track digitized authorization.”
