Digital Nomads: Africans from 30 countries could spend $871 million more to enter the US

Consider a Botswana-based tech consultant who travels to the United States once a year for a client meeting. She holds a B1/B2 visa, the standard route for short-term business travel. 

However, Botswana now sits on Washington’s visa bond list, placing a critical condition on her next visa application: before her visa is approved, she must deposit up to $15,000 with the US government. 

The money is refundable, eventually, but it sits frozen for the duration of her stay, earning nothing, while she still sorts visa fees, flight, and accommodation costs.

That financial burden is now spreading across the continent. 

On April 2, the US expanded its visa bond policy. Six more African countries—Mauritius, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Seychelles, and Tunisia—were added to the United States’ visa bond programme, joining 24 other African nations whose citizens must now pay thousands of dollars upfront before entering the US for short-term travel.

The visa bond requirement now applies to 50 countries globally, 30 of them in Africa, according to the US State Department. That means 60% of the nationalities subject to the US visa bond policy are African.

The policy affects travellers applying for B1/B2 visas, the category used for business trips, tourism, conferences, medical visits, and family travel. 

Under the rule, applicants from the affected countries are required to post a refundable bond of $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 after their visa interview and before receiving approval.

For travellers from most of the 30 affected African countries, the restrictions compound further. B-class visas, consisting of B1, B2, and B1/B2 visas, are now issued as single-entry permits valid for as little as three months. Each new trip means a fresh application, a fresh interview, and potentially a fresh bond deposit.