Kenya follows Tanzania to dig visitor pockets as tourism industry expresses outrage

Kenya has just done something no serious tourism destination in the world does. From 5th October 2026, every non-Kenyan arriving in this country must buy a travel health insurance policy through eCitizen, issued by a Kenyan-licensed insurer, before they board their flight. Every adult. Every child. Every grandmother on a once-in-a-lifetime safari. And airlines have now been asked to police it at check-in.

Let me be blunt. This is a tax wearing a stethoscope, and it is aimed squarely at the industry that earns this country more foreign exchange than almost anything else.

The tourist was never the problem. The international leisure tourist is the best-insured person who will ever walk into a Kenyan hospital. The German couple in Diani, the American family in the Mara, the British retirees in Watamu they arrive with comprehensive cover from Allianz, AXA, Bupa or their credit card provider, cover that includes medical evacuation and repatriation, which no eCitizen policy will match. Tour operators already insist on it. Their own governments tell them to buy it.

These visitors do not queue at Coast General or Kenyatta National Hospital. When they fall ill, they go to Aga Khan, Nairobi Hospital or Mombasa Hospital, pay with a card, and claim later. They have never been a burden on our public health system.

Not once in my 30 years in this industry have I heard a hospital administrator complain that safari tourists were bankrupting the wards so what problem is this solving?

Nowhere in the circular does the government make any provision for a visitor’s existing policy. The question is not whether the visitor is insured. The question is whether the visitor has paid us.

Nobody else does this.

The government will point to Schengen. That comparison collapses on contact. Europe asks visa applicants to show cover from any compliant insurer. Georgia, which brought in its rule this year, accepts Georgian or international policies. Even Cuba accepts foreign insurance and only sells local cover to those who arrive without it.

Kenya does none of this. Kenya says: whatever you have, buy ours as well.

The only real precedent is Zanzibar (and Tanzania mainland adds ATCNews), a single island and look at who has quietly walked away from mandatory visitor insurance? the United States, Aruba, Costa Rica. They learned what we are about to learn the expensive way.

The double payment a family of four from Frankfurt already insured now pays four extra premiums. Not one. Four, because the rule says every traveller, “including a minor”, must be individually covered. Families are the backbone of our beach business. We just made them pay a penalty for bringing their children.

Each policy runs for 90 days to match the eTA. Fine for a safari but what about the long-stay European winter visitor in Malindi and Kilifi, the snowbirds who fill our coast for four months and keep entire villages employed through the low season? More paperwork, more cost, more reasons to choose other destinations.

Airlines are being asked to verify compliance at check-in for every non-exempt passenger. Every airline station manager in Doha, Dubai, Istanbul, Addis Ababa and Amsterdam now carries the risk of fines for carrying an “inadmissible” passenger. What do airlines do with risk? They deny boarding. A tourist turned away at Heathrow does not reschedule. He goes to Cape Town and they will forever hate Kenya .

The requirement applies to all arrivals “irrespective of the date on which tickets were issued”. Tour operators in Europe sold Kenya packages for this winter at prices that did not include this cost. Who absorbs it? Our DMCs, our hotels, or the client who now feels ambushed. Every one of those outcomes damages trust in Brand Kenya.

We abolished visas for most of Africa to great applause. Now Nigerians, Ghanaians, South Africans and Ethiopians who need no eTA must still buy Kenyan insurance before they fly. The Pan-African welcome mat has a toll booth on it and our Africa market is not small. Africa contributed 40% of arrivals in 2025 Business travellers from Lagos and Johannesburg attending a two-day conference in Nairobi will now ask why Kigali, which competes ferociously with us for MICE, does not treat them this way. (allafrica).

Here is the arithmetic the Cabinet should be confronted with. Kenya recorded 2,652,540 international arrivals in 2025. The government has publicly committed to 5 million international visitors by 2027, and the Tourism CS has since spoken of 5.5 million visitors and Sh1.1 trillion in revenue by 2028. (Tourism in Kenya +2). To get there, we must nearly double arrivals in a little over two years. That requires every barrier to be lowered: cheaper visas, more airlift, faster airports, smarter marketing. Instead, one arm of government is spending money to sell Magical Kenya, while another arm is building a wall of fees and forms at the departure gate.

You cannot run a campaign that says “Karibu” and a policy that says “Pay first.”

Kenya’s tourism earnings rose to KSh 501.34 billion in 2025. Lose even 3 percent of that through cancellations, diverted bookings and families who simply choose elsewhere, and we forfeit roughly KSh 15 billion. No insurance premium pool will recover that. That is the very definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish.

What government should do now:

1.Accept existing cover. Let travellers upload proof of any policy meeting the US$50,000 benefit standard, exactly as Europe and Georgia do. Sell the eCitizen product only to those who arrive without cover.

2. Exempt children and group tours booked through licensed Kenyan DMCs, who already require insurance in their contracts.

3. Extend the exemption to all visa-free African nationals, consistent with our own Pan-African policy.

4. Freeze enforcement for tickets sold before 5th October 2026. Retroactivity punishes our partners for trusting us.

5. Remove airlines from the enforcement chain. Verification belongs at our own immigration desks, not at a check-in counter in Frankfurt.

The High Court in Marsabit has ruled that the Gazette Notice was lawfully issued. I respect that but a policy can be legal and still be a mistake. The courts decide what is lawful. Parliament, the Ministry of Tourism and the industry must now decide what is wise.

To GOK and Health and Interior ministry we want a strong SHA. We want hospitals funded. Just do not fund them by taxing the golden goose at the gate.

Kenya is too beautiful, too competitive and too ambitious to shoot itself in the foot this way.

When goverment policies is not predictable and communication is also poor then it means it get really difficult to promote MagicalKenya .

As tourism players we may not know everything but at least we know some things.

I hope I am wrong

Mohammed Hersi