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Kenya is budgeting about Sh720 million a year to run its electronic Travel Authorization (eTA), a pre-screening system that vets travelers before they board flights, highlighting that βvisa-freeβ entry still carries a sizable back-office cost. Treasury budget documents indicate the state could spend up to Sh20 billion over 14 years, with the first implementation phase starting July 2025 and multi-year allocations planned thereafter.
The financing mix is the headline risk: roughly Sh18 billion (β80%+) of the total project estimate is earmarked for consultancy, outsourcing, maintenance, and operational fees, while the core equipment/system component is about Sh1 billion (with another Sh1 billion tagged as βotherβ). That structure suggests the long-term burden is less about buying tech once and more about paying for a continuing service layer, systems operations, interoperability, upgrades, and presumably vendor-led risk analytics year after year.
Strategically, the State is arguing that eTA fixes weaknesses in the previous eVisa setup by improving interoperability with other border/security systems, strengthening fraud detection, and enabling automated checks and risk profiling earlier in the travel journey. But the growth narrative is already being driven by policy design as much as technology: Kenya moved to exempt most African countries from eTA requirements (except Somalia and Libya, citing security concerns) to boost arrivals. The early data point being used to support the shift is that inbound travellers (excluding Kenyans) through JKIA and Moi airports rose to 1.27 million in the months to September 2025, up from the comparable 2024 period.