Customs checkpoint Tanzania and Sambia | Customs and Immigration

We crossed from Malawi to Tanzania at Isongole but were sent here to pay for our visa and do the customs for our car. At first I spoke with the guard at the exit gate to let us in and we drove in the wrong way. In the building itself we skipped the Zambian steps and went directly to Tanzania immigration. We got a holiday visa and wanted to pay by card. Everything went smooth but the card machine printer didn’t print a receipt. The officer wanted us to pay again but I had a look at the credit card app and there the amount was deducted. Turns out the machine didn’t have any paper in it and couldn’t print. But even with paper it didn’t want to print our receipts. In the end we gave the officer our contact details and if we don’t hear anything from him our payment went through and if he writes us on WhatsApp we should pay again when we leave.
At customs we filled out a form with the vehicle details, got an inspection of the car, the Carnet stamped and had to pay 25$ or in our case 65000 TZS. It is no longer possible to get a transit TIP for 5$ as the law was changed. It was not possible to pay by card as the network was down. This whole process is easy and straightforward but everything took a long time to get processed and we were there for 3 hours at the end.

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Zambia > Tanzania

New Zealanders with vehicle registered in a SA’s name (no carnet)

Process explained well below by others but have outlined our process:
- Arrived, got TIP doc stamped out at yellow building on the left.
- Drove around left to the Tanzanian building. Here stamped out of Zambia and got Tanz Visa ($50 USD)
- Same building, paid for TIP (cost $25 USD for 30 days).
- Drove to gate, here at a building on the right handed over the revenue doc to Zambian authorities.

Note:
- Worth having both a hard and soft copy of Vehicle rego docs, passport, drivers license, and affidavit from owner (if needed)
- No official place to buy insurance. However, we weren’t asked about it and can purchase in town if needed
- No need for fixers
- No health X-ray or vehicle fumigation.

Whole process took 2 hours.

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Zambia into Tanzania
VERY EASY!!
Don’t use Agents!
Sign out Carnet at Yellow building at right as well as proof of road tax.
Proceed through all the chaos to one stop Tanzania Entry, Zambia exit building. You will have plenty of people wanting to sell
You third party etc, ignore them! Cars/smaller vehicles veer to the right in the parking area, park in front of the building, very easy.
Have the health X-ray, proceed to immigration.
Once done proceed to Customs. It helps to have a Carnet, makes it a lot
Smoother. You pay $5 for each week you intend to stay in Tanzania.
Once you have paid and paper work done they will want to inspect the vehicle and x-ray some bags. X-ray machine not working so will do a quick inspection of your bags. Once done you free to go. Have a smile on
Your face, be patient, courteous etc. Our process took exactly one hour and 14 minutes from carnet checkout to exit.
Could have been quicker but they appeared to be doing a form of training with the carnet etc.
the agents make it
More confusing.

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As all have said: you need patience at this border. It took us 7hrs to cross (a staff one hour lunch break was included here 😅). The delay is if you are entering the Zambian side, lots of corruption unfortunately e.g. pay extra for Interpol (even though they didn’t check our car), pay extra to the Zam Revenue guys for the stamps.

We believe fixers do help but make sure to decrease the amount of help you need, get all your documents photocopied before reaching the border, check the exchange rate and make sure you ask the fixer what’s happening at every step.

Check steps to cross in the reviews below.

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Tanzania > Zambia.
This border post requires extreme patience, 5 hrs total for crossing with a fixer! A few of the customs and Interpol officials are on a power trip causing major delays.

Frank was a brilliant fixer without a set fee (pay what you think the service deserves, we paid K300 as he has the patience of a saint!)
He can help on either side of the border, contact on WhatsApp:
+260 96 5085528
+255 768 024 072

He also helped with SIM cards and money exchange at good rate, he summarised all the costs in advance and they were in line with our expectations from other travellers.

Would recommend using a fixer as the different steps are quite confusing and the tax office wanted a copy of driver stamped passport so had to visit a local print shop etc, a long and drawn out process with ‘the system is down’ type delays!

Summary of costs:
Road toll / tax - $20
Carbon tax - K520 (2+L engine, can be as low as K250-K400 for smaller engines)
Third party insurance - $10 or K200
Interpol (TIP as we don’t have a Carnet) - K200
Council fee - K50

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Zambia to Tanzania.

After reading previous enteries, I decided to get a fixer as it was already 2pm and we didn’t want to spend too long there. Process isn’t too complicated but I can see why without a fixer it can take long. Our fixer was Richard. Whatsapp No: +255 653 514 090. I found him to be decent & professional. Asked $20, agreed for $10. Stepwise
1. Get past the lorry queues, there is parking in front of one stop border post.
2. Get cpd stamped out in the yellow coloured room opp main building. zambia Officer will come & check chasis/reg no
3. As you enter main blgs, you show ur YF & Covid certi. Pay 30000 schilling for disinfection spray. I asked them to do outside only, they didn’t seem bothered.
4. You still have to apply for TIP even with cpd. They call it road tax $5/wk $25/month. You need copies of drivers license, car registration and passport. Richard filled the form, hotbit past the correct officers, he took some pics on his phone and sent them to the admin which I think expedited the process.
4. Tanzanian custom official came out to check the chasis no and inspect. Asked bags to be xrayed. I took a couple of bags to the machine but it’s out if order.
5. TIP costs 60000 for 1 month I asked Richard to pay.
6. Cpd was stamped as well.
7. All in all took 1.5 hrs.
8. Most atms have a flat charge of of around 5-7$ for withdrawal.
9. TIP/road fee doc is checked at exit gate.
10. Sims can be bought in stalls 200m from the gate. 2500 Schilling.

Richard came out with us to the market to help with simcards. Nice guy. Contact him if u need help.

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From Zambia to Tanzania
1.Stamp out Carnet on the left side befor actually entering the border 100m befor
2 In the samle little yellow building you sho them the road fee document.
3.drive to the OSB to enter Tanzania
4 Covid registration. Than the will do a free Rapid test
5. pay 30‘000 Ths for car desinfection. But say you do it on your own due the infection which they use is not good for your dashboard etc.
6. Go downstairs to immigration
7. Pay Visa at the Bank ( Green one)
8. Custom- show them their Carnet
9. Discuss with them you dont need a TIP than they say it is for road fee. Make sure to pay at the bank.
They didn‘t stamp the carnet if you dont pay (25 Dollar for one month)
10. will quickly check your car.
11. almost free to go- Quick police check point(want to see TIP)
12 Welcome to Tanzania

Process took us 5h mainly due to the discussion regarding TIP/road fee

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Tanzania --> Zambia
We opted to cross the border extremely early to avoid fixers and excessive amounts of people. We quite possibly got through the border in record time -- From start to finish it was LESS THAN AN HOUR!!! (No fixer and no extra fees -- but read through to end before attempting this as it wont work if you need pay Zambia road toll.)
We slept in a nearby gas station so we could get here so early. Tipped security guard 3,000tsh. Also fearlessonfourwheels gives a great write up!

We stamped out our carnet on the Tanzanian side at 0445. With time zone change it meant local time on Zambia side was 0345.
Customs official on TZ side was a bit annoying saying there was no police around to check the vehicle but luckily he had already stamped the carnet. I argued that it was more his problem than mine. He came out and looked at the vehicle then we left.

Drove over to Zambia side. Parked outside of one stop border building. Green tent outside for rapid COVID test was closed. We went in and completed immigration (stamp out TZ; stamp in Zam). No one asked about any covid test nor were we required to do a PCR/rapid test. Apparently COVID doesn't exist outside of business hours. (We are both vaccinated but no one asked for that card either.)

Got back in the car and drove through the Zambia gate. Take first right turn and park in front of yellow building on the left.
Zambia official filled out my CdP. The other two things you need are carbon tax and road toll. Luckily I had been in Zambia earlier this year so I still had my road toll paper otherwise I would have had to wait until 0800 to get a new one.
For carbon tax he let me through without paying and said I could go to the transportation revenue office in Kapiri Mposhi to get it done. (This is supposed to be a 24-hour border but since in the middle of the night it is mostly truck drivers who are crossing and already have this paperwork I guess some positions aren't staffed in the middle of the night.)

We then drove completely out and no one was around to collect village tax so not sure where that is done (if it's even necessary at all.)

This was unfortunately our FOURTH TIME crossing this border and every other experience had been miserable so this was a very pleasant surprise.

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Be careful with Robert, he invents problems (like all fixers) so you have to pay more. My friends were at the border a few hours before me and he told them they had to pay 50,000 shillings each for the rapid test which they paid. When I arrived I walked straight to the tent, rapid test was done in 15mins for free, they didn’t even ask me for my PCR test from TZ, which I didn’t have anyway. Took piece of paper to the one stop building, first counter on the right as you enter, give them the paper, he gives you health certificate, then you can do the immigration part.
Because Robert was already doing the vehicle documents for my friends I agreed to have him do mine, big mistake. He has a scam going with some guys in the Interpol office upstairs where they find a problem and then you have to pay, it was only $7, but it still annoyed me. This was all after he tried to convince me I had to pay an extra $40 to make things faster. Weird that other people have recommended him, unless he’s tricky and created a couple of ioverlander accounts to promote his service. I’d recommend doing everything yourself, it will end up just as fast and a lot cheaper

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At this point actually is nothing to do. Coming from Tanzania, after you stamped out your Carnet, you park at the Zambian side and go to the Zambian/Tanzanian one stop border building.

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we crossed in 3 hours without any fixer. Official people are helpful and tell you where to go next. detailed process explained in previous comment by "fearlessonwheels" is very helpful, thanks !
we bought a third party insurance at the border for 170kw. paid also
20usd toll fee
480KW carbon tax
50kw council fee

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In my opinion it’s worth paying someone to help. This is the most confusing and around about border we have been to. Robert helped us and was super efficient and it still took 2 hours.

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Here is the process coming from Tanzania into Zambia.
1. Stop at beige building on Tanzania side of border and get your Carnet stamped out of Tanzania, show them your Tanzanian Carbon tax documents.
2. Drive over to the Zambian side and park close to the yellow building.
3. Go into the one stop border building, do your immigration exit and entry in that building.
4. Pay your carbon tax 280 Zambian Kwacha in this building on the ground floor.
5. Pay 20 USD toll fees on First floor of this building.
6. Go across to the yellow building and give in your Tanzania Carbon tax documents to the guy at the table outside the building, he will want to see your vehicle.
7. Go to the window in the yellow building and show your Zambian Carbon tax and Toll fee documents to get your Carnet stamped into Zambia.
8.After 7 km you will get to a checkpoint. Here they may stop you and check your Carnet again, they asked us for interpol clearance which was the Carnet. They also asked for council fees of 70 Zambian Kwacha, I argued and paid 50 Kwacha and insisted on a receipt. I think this is a scam. But I am not sure.
Good luck stay calm.

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Tz customs declared our CDP null and void to “extract” some fee! Be aware that the facilitators are part of the scheme!

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There is a guy sitting in front of the yellow building - custom Tanzania and inside the building is the Sambia Custom
Make sure you pay the road tax (about 30 USD) and get the receipt. You will need it on nearly every police checkpoint.

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