Travelling in Eritrea: a permit for every road out of Asmara

Where a foreign visitor needs a permit in Eritrea

The British and United States governments both describe the rule in their advice to travellers, and they draw its edge in different terms.

How far from Asmara the permit line runs

The State Department's guidance, issued on 24 September 2026, sets a distance. Every foreign national needs a permit to travel more than 25 kilometres outside Asmara, and that includes the department's own embassy staff, who need special authorisation to leave the capital. The British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office uses an administrative boundary instead. Its advice, current in October 2026, requires a permit to travel outside Zoba Maekel, the province around Asmara, and to reach certain sites inside the capital as well, the tank graveyard among them. Photographing the tank graveyard takes a separate permit from the Ministry of Tourism. Officials check permits at checkpoints outside the city. Read side by side, the two rules leave Asmara and the ground just around it as the part of Eritrea a foreigner reaches on a visa alone.

The rule binds foreigners who live in Eritrea too. Anyone living or working outside Asmara needs a permit to leave the area of residence or work, issued by the local zoba administration office. The British advice says the restrictions apply equally to foreign diplomats, so staff at its embassy cannot always reach a British national outside the capital in person. The State Department adds that certain remote islands are closed to tourists, and the British advice records vessels impounded and crews detained for entering Eritrean waters, or landing on Eritrean islands, without permission.

Who issues the permit and what it asks for

In the British account three ministries divide the applications by the kind of traveller: Trade and Industry takes business travellers, Tourism takes tourists and Foreign Affairs takes diplomats. The State Department names the two Ministry of Tourism offices that hand out the forms, one on Harnet Avenue and one on Airport Road. An application has to give details of the car the traveller will ride in. Processing may take several days and does not always succeed, according to the British advice, which also mentions reports of tourists being refused the use of public transport outside Asmara.

Who the permit system was built for

Eritreans need permits to move around their own country, and for many visitors of Eritrean origin those rules apply from the moment of arrival.

What Eritreans carry to move around the country

A UN commission of inquiry on human rights in Eritrea reported to the Human Rights Council on 4 June 2015. It was unable to visit the country and built its findings on 550 confidential interviews with witnesses living in third countries, along with 160 written submissions. The report described an intricate system of travel permits and identity cards, produced at identity checks to show a person's status in compulsory national service and his or her authorisation to travel. In the commission's account the government also restricts movement towards the border areas and controls who may leave the country legally through what it called the arbitrary issuance of exit visas. The commission judged those restrictions out of proportion to the needs of national defence and recommended dismantling the checkpoints, abolishing travel permits and lifting the exit visa requirement.

The government did not respond to the commission's requests for access, and it rejected the commission's oral update to the Council, saying that "country-specific resolutions and mandates are in breach of the United Nations principles of impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity". It has given continued hostilities with Ethiopia, and what it described as Ethiopia's illegal occupation of Eritrean territory, as the reason national service lasts as long as it does; the Wikipedia article on conscription in Eritrea records that the policy stayed the same after the border conflict was resolved in 2018. Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2024 report describes the same arrangement: individuals need permits to travel within the country, and Eritreans young enough for national service are rarely given permission to go abroad. The National Service Proclamation of October 1995 applies to every national aged 18 to 50, in the State Department's summary. The politics article follows how national service grew into the state's main institution.

Who counts as Eritrean at the airport

For many of the people who land in Asmara, the rules written for Eritreans are the ones that apply. Sources from 2015 cited in Wikipedia's article on Eritrea found that most tourists were members of the Eritrean diaspora, and Eritrea does not recognise dual nationality. The British advice says the authorities consider anyone of Eritrean origin to be an Eritrean national, whether that person holds Eritrean identity documents, out of date ones included, or holds none. Such a person may owe taxes and national service, and the British embassy cannot offer consular help to dual nationals in Eritrea. A dual national who enters on an Eritrean identity card needs an exit permit from the Immigration Office in Asmara to leave.

The State Department adds that proof of payment of the 2% income tax is required for any civil document, among them birth certificates, educational transcripts, property ownership records and court records. The commission of inquiry reported in 2015 that Eritreans abroad could obtain a passport only on payment of that tax, which it called a "rehabilitation tax", and that those who had left unlawfully also had to sign a regret form. The economy article sets out what else the tax is tied to at the embassies.

What UNESCO inscribed in Asmara

Asmara stands at 2,325 metres, and the State Department advises visitors with a condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure to talk to a doctor before travelling to it. The World Heritage Committee inscribed the city at its 41st session, in July 2017, under the name Asmara: A Modernist African City.

Which streets and buildings the listing names

UNESCO dates the planned city to a series of phases between 1893 and 1941. It began in the 1890s as a military outpost of the Italian colonial power, and after 1935 a large building programme applied the Italian rationalist idiom of the time to government offices, housing, shops, churches, mosques, synagogues, cinemas and hotels. The listed area also takes in two indigenous neighbourhoods that were never planned, Arbate Asmera and Abbashawel. In Tigrinya oral tradition Arbate Asmera means "the four made them unite", after four clans whose women decided that the clans must join to keep the peace.

The inscription lists its attributes one by one, and many of them are things a visitor on foot walks past: Harnet and Sematat avenues, Mai Jah Jah park, the walking paths, the old plaques with traces of the street names, the post office on Segeneyti Street, the market square and the mosque square, the bell towers, spires and minarets, the civil and military cemeteries, and five cinemas, the Impero, Roma, Odeon, Capitol and Hamasien. The Impero opened in 1937. UNESCO states what the plan was for. Its statement describes colonial planning "based on functional and racial segregation principles". The 1939 census counted 98,000 people in Asmara, 53,000 of them Italian.

The Wikipedia article on the city counts more than 400 buildings of Italian origin, among them the futurist Fiat Tagliero building and the cubist Africa Pension, and names shops that still trade under Italian names, Bar Vittoria among them.

How the old centre has been held in place

UNESCO names three instruments that protect the city: the Regolamento Edilizio of 1938, issued at the time of Cafiero's plan; a moratorium on new construction inside a Historic Perimeter drawn around the centre in 2001; and the Cultural and Natural Heritage Proclamation of 2015. The Asmara Heritage Project and the Department of Public Works Development issue the building permits and approve maintenance. The listing records the original layout as retained in its entirety, while noting that a number of buildings suffer from lack of maintenance and that some built in the late twentieth century are out of scale with the rest. The World Monuments Fund had already put the historic centre on its 2006 watch list. The culture article asks who built the city and who looks after it now.

How the road and the railway reach Massawa

Massawa lies 65 kilometres from Asmara and about 2,300 metres lower, and Britannica gives average temperatures of about 30 °C on the coast and about 17 °C on the plateau. The Ministry of Information wrote in October 2024 that a traveller between the two could "experience three seasons in a two-hour journey". The State Department's guidance describes the Filfil Road from Asmara to Massawa as carrying a large amount of mountain debris and washed away in parts, and it warns of wild baboons on the mountain roads, which are narrow and winding, with crumbling edges and generally no guardrails. Filfil Solomona holds subtropical rainforest, and Filfil receives more than 1,100 millimetres of rain a year. Paved roads link Asmara with Massawa, Mendefera, Dekemhare, Barentu and Keren; the roads to small villages are unpaved.

The Eritrean Railway was built between 1887 and 1932 on a narrow gauge of 950 millimetres. It reached Saati in 1888 and Asmara in 1911, and on the way down it passes through the town of Ghinda. Damaged in the Second World War and in later fighting, it was closed section by section, the last of it in 1978. After independence the first rebuilt section reopened in 2003, and by 2009 the line between Massawa and Asmara had been fully rebuilt. The Eritrea article describes the service as very limited, because most of the equipment is old, and says steam locomotives are sometimes run for groups of enthusiasts. The British dismantled the Italian cableway between Asmara and Massawa during the Second World War. A coastal highway of more than 500 kilometres, built under the Wefri Warsay Yika'alo programme, now connects Massawa with Asseb.

When the rains and the holidays fall in Eritrea

Which side of the escarpment gets rain when

Eritrea has two rainy seasons, and they fall on opposite sides of the escarpment. The State Department places the summer rains from June to September over the highlands and the west, and the winter rains from October to March over the eastern lowlands and the coast. Britannica gives the winds behind the split. The highlands and the western lowlands take their rain in summer on a southwesterly airstream, while the eastern edge of the plateau and the coastal fringe receive much smaller amounts from a northeasterly airstream in winter and spring. The interior of the Danakil plain is practically rainless.

Asmara's long dry season runs from September until around April, with occasional showers from April to June, and the three months from December to February bring an average of 9.1 millimetres between them. Temperatures recorded in the city range from minus 4.5 °C to 31.0 °C, and frost is extremely rare. The coast in the hotter months is another climate altogether: the State Department warns of dangerous heat on the Red Sea coast, Massawa included, and the Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet, assessed in 2001, gives day and night temperatures of 40 to 50 °C on the Dahlak islands. Malaria is a risk in the lowlands only, outside Asmara.

The British advice says that in many parts of the country roads become difficult or impassable in the rainy season, and that the runway at Asmara International Airport is occasionally damaged by weather, particularly during the rains, which can delay or cancel flights until it is repaired. Flash floods are most likely during and just after the rainy seasons, in low-lying areas and dry riverbeds.

What the national calendar marks

Independence Day falls on 24 May, the date in 1991 on which EPLF fighters entered Asmara and the date of formal independence in 1993. Martyrs' Day, on 20 June, remembers those who died in the war of independence, and Revolution Day on 1 September marks the anniversary of the first engagement of that war, in 1961. The Christian holidays follow the calendar of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church: Lidet, its Christmas, falls on 7 January and Timket, the Epiphany, on 19 January, and Meskel fell on 27 September in 2026. The Muslim holidays move from year to year: in 2026 Eid al-Fitr fell on 20 March, Eid al-Adha on 27 May and the Prophet's Birthday on 25 August.

What lies offshore and beyond the plateau

Which islands lie off Massawa

How many islands there are depends on the source and on what it counts. Britannica describes the Dahlak Archipelago as more than 100 small coral and reef-fringed islands, few of them permanently inhabited. The Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet, last assessed in 2001, counts about 220, lying from about 20 kilometres to more than 100 kilometres offshore east of Massawa; Dehalak Kebir covers 64,500 hectares, and only about six islands in the archipelago have surface fresh water. Writing about the whole coast in October 2024, the Ministry of Information gave about 350 offshore islands. The factsheet lists tourism and recreation among the archipelago's land uses and puts its protected area coverage at 0%, and the Eritrea article lists a Dahlak Marine National Park among the country's protected areas.

Where the towns of Dʿmt and Aksum stood

Southern Eritrea holds the sites of two towns of Dʿmt, a kingdom of the first millennium BC. Qohaito is often identified with Koloe, the town named in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. At Matara stands Hawulti, a pre-Aksumite obelisk inscribed in the ancient Ge'ez script. Aksum's trade route to the sea ran from its capital to the port of Adulis, near modern Zula. Debre Bizen monastery was built in the 1350s near the town of Nefasit. Near the Gulf of Zula, south of Massawa, the Eritrean Research Project Team found a Palaeolithic site in 1999 with stone and obsidian tools dated to more than 125,000 years old. The history article places each of these in the longer record.

The State Department reports landmines in many remote areas, naming Nakfa, Adi Keih and Arezza, the 40-kilometre-wide strip between the Setit and Mereb rivers, the areas north and west of Keren, ground near Massawa, Ghinda, Agordat, Barentu and Dekemhare, and the land south of Tessenae.

How a visitor pays and keeps in touch

The economy runs on cash. The State Department's guidance of September 2026 says Eritrea has no ATMs and that credit cards are accepted nowhere, and the Bertelsmann Transformation Index's 2026 report adds that online banking is not available. Money may be changed legally only at a branch of Himbol, the state foreign currency exchange. Paying in foreign currency is illegal except at a few official hotels and shops, where foreigners are required to pay in dollars or euros, and those that take dollars want notes printed in 2013 or later.

Foreign cash of 10,000 US dollars or more has to be declared on arrival, against a certificate kept for departure. On the way out a visitor must show that any foreign currency spent was exchanged at Himbol or spent at an official hotel, and the British advice warns that anyone who cannot account for it may be delayed or prosecuted. No more than 1,000 nakfa may leave the country. The nakfa, introduced in November 1997, has been fixed at 15 to the US dollar since 1 January 2005, and the African Development Bank's outlook covering 2025 still gives that rate.

Laptops, phones, cameras and other electronic items must be declared on arrival, or customs may confiscate them on departure, and the State Department reports that binoculars, long-lens cameras and drones are considered illegal. Data service and roaming are unavailable, international SIM cards do not work, and VPNs and satellite phones are not permitted. The two governments disagree on local SIM cards. The State Department says a visitor can buy one through the Ministry of Tourism after an application, while the British advice says a residence permit is needed and that getting one can take several weeks. Photographing government buildings and military installations is illegal, and the State Department advises asking Eritreans' permission before photographing them.

How many visitors Eritrea has counted

The World Bank's series on international arrivals, last updated on 8 October 2026, has values for Eritrea from 1995 to 2016 and none after.

Arrivals fell from 410,000 in 1997 to 188,000 in 1998, the year the border war with Ethiopia broke out in May, and to 57,000 in 1999. Tourism had made up 2% of the economy up to 1997, according to the Eritrea article; after 1998 revenue from it fell to a quarter of the 1997 level, and in 2006 it made up less than 1% of GDP. The World Tourism Organization put international tourism receipts at US$73 million in 2002. The Economy of Eritrea article names a lack of access to funds, large numbers of landmines and the continuing tension with Ethiopia as what held a tourist industry back. Arrivals came back to 142,000 in 2016, the last year with a figure.

The government describes the industry in its own terms. In October 2024 the Ministry of Information called tourism "the largest smokeless industry" and described Eritrea's as "in its embryonic stage waiting for the government's and private sector's investment". It pointed to the 2020 Eritrea Tourism Development Plan, which the Eritrea article describes as a twenty-year plan, and to Proclamation No. 177/2015 on Cultural and Natural Heritage. National Geographic added Eritrea to its Cool List in 2019, picking out Asmara, the Dahlak Islands and the country's wilderness areas.