Togo Favorite Tips by Proveres

Favorite thing: UK Citizens (and other visa Nationals) are able to obtain a Togo Visa on arrival at Lome Airport. It works like this:

You queue to the right side of the immigration desks once in the arrivals area. There, you can ask for a visa on arrival form. It's self explanatory and simple to fill out. If an official helps you to complete the form, he will (of course) expect a small "cadeau" for providing his assistance.

Once the form is complete, take it and your passport to the desk on the right of the arrivals area where you will pay the fee. It is, officially, 15 Euros. However, if you do not have the correct change, you won't get any! On arrival at the desk, I personally was asked for 16 Euros, and didn't argue.

You hand over the documents and fees and then go to collect your bags, leaving the documents with the Immigration Office. Once you have your bags, you have to and queue for your passport back. We were informed by a Senior Officer that they often ask passengers to ome back after 24 hours if it's busy, but our Afriqiyah flight was pretty quiet so they processed everything in one go. No bribes, or attempted bribes were encountered getting the passports back, and Customs didn't seem at all interested.

The visa is valid for 7 days. To get an extension, you go to the Immigration Office in Lome. It's quite a way out to the North of the City (CFA 2000 for a private taxi). There, you have to pay a CFA 500 fee for a form, leave 4 photos and your passport with the completed form for 24hrs. The documents are submitted at one of the windows to the left of the building.

You then return the following day at 4pm to collect the passport. At 4pm, a large wooden box containing all the passports for visa extensions is brought outside by the officers. They then go through all the passports in order of nationality. The passports are bundled by nationality, so listen out first for your country and then for your name. The extension process is quick and hassle free. However, if you're visiting for a short period, the 24 our wait is a bit of a pain and ties you to Lome somewhat.

Overall, I found officials to be helpful and polite. Any attempts to get a donation from you were low key, non-threatening and seemingly half-hearted. On departure, I was asked by a Customs Officer for a "cadeau" as held held onto my bag after it had come out of the scanner. I explained that I had very little cash, and wanted it all to buy myself a beer from the bar at the airport. His reaction was a shrug of the shoulders, a smile and and a cheery "OK".