How To Get A Guinea-Bissau 🇬🇼 Visa On Arrival at Bissau International Airport

How To Get A Guinea-Bissau Visa On Arrival at Bissau  International Airport

Guinea-Bissau was the second new country I visited in December 2023 on my West African journey, after Guinea. Guinea-Bissau was also classed as country 222 on my journey, so a magic lucky one, and my flight in was a fast one!

It was a 50 minute flight from Conakry with Air Cote D’Ivoire. Highly recommended, even on a short flight there was a beer!

And as a surprise, I was joined on the flight by two crazy fellow football fans – Moses from Ghana and Aron from Cameroon! We all randomly chose to wear our national football team shirts that day, all were green, we were all on the same first flight, but all ending up in different countries! Moses was heading to Ghana via Bissau, Aron was heading to Cameroon via Bissau! And I was actually just heading on the short 50 minute first flight to Bissau! The lads have promised to meet up and watch football and help with my visas when I backpack Cameroon and Ghana!

Getting To Guinea-Bissau

I had read online before my trip that certain nationalities can get a visa on arrival here. But it all depends on your nationality, I travel with two Northern Irish passports (one from UK, one from Ireland) and used my Irish one for this, which is allowed. Some nationalities may not be entitled to the visa on arrival. I was entitled and I was ready for it.

Arrival Into Guinea-Bissau

My flight arrives on time at the country’s largest international airport, Osvaldo Vieira International Airport, which is smaller than both of the international airports in Belfast!

You fill in the immigration form at the airport (they are not given out during the flight). It looks like this.

Just make sure you have the visa fee in exact cash (85 Euros), details of a hotel or accommodation and proof of a flight out. That’s all you need. Card payments or random currency payments are not accepted, I guess the only options would be to pay in Euros, US Dollars or West African Francs. But I had 85 Euros ready. After queueing at the immigration counter, I am the only one who needs the visa on arrival here – the others must be African from nearby visa free countries, locals or people who work here. I was escorted to the right into a room with the immigration officer who would sort my visa and the lady who would take the payment.

I go into the small office, hand in my immigration form, pay my fee of 85 Euros and I’m done. Quickly! There is no photo taken, no fingerprints (which did happen in The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea and Sierra Leone) and no physical visa. It’s just a large blue ink stamp which fills basically a page in my passport. It’s a tourist visa, valid for 45 days – they also stamp me in on the bottom right hand corner.

And that is it. With no luggage to collect obviously (I’ve been hand luggage loyal everywhere for 5 years after airlines lost 9 of my bags), I am straight out into the open air of Bissau!

Here I am met by my driver Abdullah Mane, who drives me to my elegant, arty abode, the quite splendid Coimbra Hotel And Spa bang in the centre of downtown Bissau. From here, I toured the sights of Bissau, did a spot of groundhopping (football geek), toured the bars of Guinea-Bissau, did some writing, ate oysters at Coqueiros and chilled out over Christmas. I also stayed in a cool hostel in Bissau, the Pensao Creole and then, it was high time to head to Senegal.

Get ready to enjoy the relaxation of Guinea-Bissau! I loved it, embraced it and would go back one day!