Can the new Somali passport be used visa-free in the countries of the East African Community?

On Saturday, October 31, 2026 {HMC}, Somalia officially joined the East African Community at the end of the year 2023, and its application for membership was officially accepted on November 24, 2023.

The President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, signed the agreement for joining the community on December 15, 2023. On March 4, 2024, Somalia completed all the legal requirements after the Parliament approved it, and it became the 8th member of the community.

Now, will the new Somali passport allow visa-free travel to the countries of the East African Community? This question was posed to the Director of the Somali Immigration and Naturalization Agency, Hussein Iidow, who responded, “The East African Community has protocols and procedures that member states must ratify; many of those procedures have been established by Somalia, and some are pending.

I hope they will be fulfilled as soon as possible. The movement between Somalia and the East African Community is already good, and it will improve further when the new passport is implemented,” he said.

The Somali government and Parliament are expected to approve the necessary regulations and procedures aimed at facilitating travel.

The Somali Immigration leaders expect that when the new passport is issued at the end of this year, it will significantly change the travel experiences of Somali citizens, who have faced ongoing difficulties at airports and borders of the countries they travel to, a situation that has persisted since the collapse of the Somali state in 1991.

The citizen holding a Somali passport struggles to obtain entry into many countries around the world, some of which do not recognize it.

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