Visa Process – Central African Republic (République Centrafricaine)
Visa? A whole post just about CAR’s visa? How difficult could it be?
Oh are you in for a treat!
To start things off – I tried to get a normal visa from the CAR embassy in Paris, but they asked for an invitation from the ministry of tourism. No clue how to get this. Other embassies may be easier and if you have luck – please let us know in the comments. Suggest you try to get a Visa at an embassy rather than the below proccess which relates to recieving a Message Porte
Cant get a visa? – Message Porte
Entry to the country, for most, requires a Message Porte from the Ministry of Interior and Public Security, arranged by someone on the ground in CAR. Its a bit like a prearranged visa on arrival…but horrible. Four days before departure, I blindly sent a CAR local guide named William €129 via Western Union to arrange this. He delivered the MP the day before my flight and then immediately started adding conditions—I’d be without my passport for several days, he’d bring it Monday, and oh, I had to use him as my guide. He stated I needed to use him as his guide and he will accompany me in CAR. He was making up this to get more $$$ You don’t need to be accompanied by a guide at all times in CAR.
Here’s the reality of the new process following my arrival on AF on a Friday evening: at Bangui Airport they stamp you in to mark entry date, then confiscate your passport and give you a receipt. A separate company processes visas at a government facility in the city. They’re closed weekends but it more or less the same process for midweek arrivals.
Monday morning:
William claimed he would retrieve my passport & visa, and bring it to my hotel at 11am. My departure flight from CAR was at 13:30 so this was a little concerning but he assured me he would be there. After several hours I finally got ahold of William around 10am who now claimed that I needed to go to the immigration offices with his driver to retrieve my passport and fingerprints. This was unexpected. At 11am William’s assistant arrived. He introduced himself as Bruno and said he would drive me to immigration and assist me with getting my passport back. We walked from the hotel to the street where I discovered Bruno didn’t have a car. We took a moto. We ended up wasting 20 minutes at immigration because he forgot to bring the passport photos I’d sent last week, and we had to go fetch some. Mid-chaos, William called demanding additional +10,000 XAF because of the extra work related to Bruno’s screw up. I still can’t believe it—they created this disaster and wanted me to pay extra for the privilege.
The city had a power outage and I sprinted up 10 floors to find backup photos. The hotel manager Johnathan saved the day providing me a shuttle to immigration and then onwards to the airport afterwards. Hotel Oubangui has free airport RT transfer. We reached immigration at 11:30. My flight? 1:30pm. After 10 minutes at immigration Bruno had disappeared, so I went through the corridors of the government complex looking for him. Finally I found Bruno and he was upset, and yelled at me to come back tomorrow. I couldn’t believe it. Come back tomorrow? My flight in an hour!. He just repeated “you come back tomorrow” angrily . I couldn’t understand why he was angry, and why I needed to come back the next day so I ignored him, rushed past into a crowded office with five immigration officers, mountains of paperwork, and hundreds of passports scattered everywhere.
My French is terrible, so Google Translate became my best friend. I pleaded with each officer in succession until I reached the boss’s corner office— The Chief. AC, nameplate, the works. There was never a word about coming back tomorrow, but clearly the process is not a quick one. I apologized for the urgency, and reminded them of my flight departing in an hour and this finally seemed to spur one of the managers into action. My passport and paperwork was retrieved from a stack of hundreds, processed by several people and we moved to another building for biometrics, final approval and much more paperwork and signatures. Bruno was banished from the building at this point; I was offered a place to sit. They were really distrusting and upset with him. I asked why, and the people in the room said I shouldn’t trust Bruno. They said he was “no good”. They seemed to be protecting me a bit, but I am not sure from what.
Inside the second immigration & military building was another chief, and a Lebanese man who seemed to run things helped from the fringes. He also helped move things along. I mentioned loving Beirut and Chateau Musar which amused him. . Five different officers processed my paperwork in this second building, each typing, signing, copying. The shuttle driver grew angrier by the minute. 45 min before my flight, still no passport. The chief in this office invited me to sit and wait, and we talked about CAR as the paperwork ensued around us. Bruno tried to enter the building but the immigration police firmly kicked him out. He was clearly not welcome there. They told me to avoid this man. As I waited the immigration staff helped as fast as they could—calm, professional, never once hinting at a bribe or any payment to move things faster. This was a dance of bureaucracy at its finest and they were doing their best to expedite. Finally, officer five handed it over. It shouldn’t have been last-minute chaos, and William clearly promised what he couldn’t deliver. But props to the officials who actually made it happen.
To the airport @ Bangui
Bruno tries to take my passport. I take it back. You don’t get to hold my freedom just because you’re meaner than me. We rush off to the airport.
We tear toward the airport — 20 minutes away through Bangui’s beautiful chaos. Thousands of motos. A lot of NGO Land Cruisers. The occasional armored vehicle. More dust than traffic.
We arrive at the airport and it’s 20 minutes until my flight departs for Addis. The driver is still angry and now he wants me to pay to park, but instead of drop me at the departure hall he wants to park at a different lot. II refuse, hope out of the bus, run through the parking lot , across a boardwalk, through another parking lot, past a checkpoint (who asks for money to pass, but I tell him I don’t have time, so he says to go).
Finally I open the door entering the airport
The policeman at the entrance say the flight is gone. My heart races. I say “no, what?” Then he says “give me money”. I just say. “Sorry I don’t have money so you can make the plane appear”. I smile and again say “no money”. He tries ”Money” again. This is going nowhere. I say, sorry. and nervously walk past him into the departure hall. This seems to work and he lets me go inside… he puts his AK47 down and rolls his head back in a dejected way, releasing a loud sigh at not receiving his bribe.
Bangui airport is tiny. Like one or two rooms. Concrete floors. Small tables are set up to assume the role of check-in counters. There are only 1 or two flights a day
There is no one at the airport check-in counters?! I run around until someone appears. Finally a man appears, boots up a computer. “Are you business class?” No. “Are you COX?” Yes! He starts firing off WhatsApps and phone calls like he is negotiating peace. Twenty-five minutes to departure. He decides we are doing this. God bless this man.
At this point a dusty dance of bureaucracy ensues all around me. It’s like a musical. A police lady copies my information. She hands me another form…departure “fische”. Phones ring. A third man is typing in info into another computer. A 4th man checks with the 1st man and then calls someone. 2 men go back and forth on two computers for a while and they finally hand me a boarding pass and my passport. There is no seat assigned. More typing. A seat appears. “Run!”
I ran to security. No one is at immigration, the computers are off. I get to security they send me back for a stamp.
Someone calls immigration on a dusty landline.
A few minutes pass and a lady casually walks up in a long blue dress. No id or anything. She asks for my passport and boarding pass, unsure who she is…i just give it to her. At this point anyone who seems likely to help can have it. She casually walks over to the immigration booths, unlocks it and enters. She almost loses my paperwork, then finds it.
The best sound in the world?! The plomp plomp of an African passport stamp hitting my passport, Boarding card, fiche and 2 other random documents that nobody knows what they will ever be used for.
I go through security. One of 3 ladies at security demands that I give her money. I ask for what and she isn’t really sure. Kinda moans. Then she just asks again. I laugh and say sorry, no money. She says ohhhh and seems to lean under the table kinda, literally fading away dejected and gives up and says. OK. Go. Lol I think that’s a record…4, or was it 5 attempts for a bribe just to get through this airport. A personal best
The airport is empty past this point. I get to what appears to be the only departure gate and 2 men appear. I can see my Ethiopian Airlines plane parked in a sea of tiny UN airplanes.
They radio for a car. Stamp some paperwork and I am driven out into the middle of the airport alone to my airplane. They seem amused that I am pretty late, joking that “it’s just you now”. One man calls me “a true African” and say I am arriving at my airplane just in time “the African way”. No one seems that worried.
I climb the stairs. A flight attendant hands me water. “You are here.”
And just like that — I made it out of Bangui