Tanzania to Rwanda – Rusomo Border Crossing
Another consolidated border crossing where you do everything on the opposite side. In this case as we were going from Tanzania to Rwanda you go over to the Rwanda side which includes a rather nice crossover in the roads as you go from left hand side driving to right-hand side driving.
After the crossover from left to right you drive towards the gate to the main complex and there’s a hut on the left hand side. Drive past this and park on the left and walk back as this is where you stamp out your Carnet and discharge your import permit for Tanzania.
Once you stamped out your car and discharged the import permit you can drive to the main building and park in a small car park just after the main door. Unfortunately my dash cam decided to pack up at exactly the point we were passing this so I don’t have a photo of the outside of the building. It’s pretty evident where you are going it’s on the right as you drive through the main truck park.
Once inside there’s security and a metal detector on the door and directly in front of you is the Tanzanian immigration officer. She won’t let you stamp out from Tanzania until you have approval to go into Rwanda. Quite logical. If you want the East Africa visa (EAC Visa) which covers Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya you also need to pay some money which is one hundred US dollars each. This is the price for a UK citizen it could be different for other nationalities.
So go to the Tanzania inbound window marked number two and he will give you a piece of paper to take to window 3 where you pay the money.
You pay the hundred over and he gives you a receipt. You also pay your car import permit or get the Carnet done here. If you don’t have a Carnet the import permit is 15,000 Francs. If you do have a Carnet the import permit is free. He will only give you 14 days. To extend this you need to go to the office in Kigali and there they will give you an extra 30 days. You can do this at any point, you do not need to wait for the 14 days to expire. If you use the Carnet the extension is also free, if not it is 30 US dollars.
After the officer processed the $100 for the EAC Visa he stamped the Carnet and did the import permit. He then followed us to the car outside where he checked only the licence plate.
The office for extension of the temporary import permit is here at this location do not park on the road outside as its chargeable. Park inside where it is free.
-1.977515,30.084918
Upon leaving the car park you stop under a hanger like building where a customs officer did a thorough inspection of the car. We drove from the main building at the right past the trucks and then were sent over to the left-hand side near a table where we parked up the officer went in every draw in the car and asked us about drones weapons and other things. They wanted to see my passport and the import permit. This was quite possibly one of the most thorough inspections we’ve ever experienced. No plastic bags so put them away. Although he didn’t confiscate the ones we had food in etc.
