US and UK travel advisory levels for East Africa

The two advisories that actually move bookings, compared directly. Levels here reflect the main tourist areas; the regional exceptions are where the detail lives, and the two governments frequently disagree. Read the note before you answer a guest or a trade partner, and verify against the official source before advising on travel.

Updated 17 September 20265 marketsUS State Dept + UK FCDOFree to republish with attribution

Country	US level	US position	UK level	UK position
Kenya	Level 2	Terrorism, crime, kidnapping, unrest, health and 'Other'. Country level unchanged at 2. Terrorism, crime, kidnapping, unrest, health and 'Other'. Country level unchanged at 2. Re-issued 28 July 2026 (rendered page carries 'Date issued: July 28, 2026', verified 12 Aug 2026) — the 'Other (O)' indicator was added and the Nairobi neighbourhoods of EASTLEIGH and KIBERA are now LEVEL 4 DO NOT TRAVEL (crime, kidnapping), corrected from our earlier Level 3 reading. Also Level 4: Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Lamu, Tana River (except Tsavo NP), Kilifi north of the C103 and coastal areas north of Malindi; West Pokot and western Turkana; Marsabit and Turkana within 50km of Ethiopia. Nairobi hotel corridors (Westlands, Upper Hill, Gigiri, CBD, Karen), Diani and Watamu are not in any Level 4 area.	2	Against travel to the Kenya–Somalia border and parts of Lamu/north coast; core safari & coast areas unaffected. Against travel to the Kenya–Somalia border and parts of Lamu/north coast; core safari & coast areas unaffected. HEALTH LAYER (separate from the advisory): three G7 governments now carry a dengue notice on Kenya naming the COAST — US Embassy Nairobi health alert 3 Aug 2026 (coast, Wajir, Garissa); Germany 3 Aug 2026; CANADA added Kenya to Travel Health Notice 517 on 8 Sep 2026. Canada’s notice is Level 1 — practise health precautions — and did NOT change any country risk level. Kenya MoH: 1,678 dengue cases and 5 suspected deaths in Garissa and Wajir as at 26 Aug 2026 (1,276 in Dadaab), PHEOC activated; separately Mombasa recorded 3,989 cases Jan–May 2026 (Health CS Aden Duale via The Standard). The UK has NOT added a dengue line to its Kenya health page as at 9 Sep 2026.
Uganda	Level 4	Do not travel — VERIFIED against travel.state.gov 3 Sep 2026. Do not travel — VERIFIED against travel.state.gov 3 Sep 2026. Date issued 4 June 2026; indicators Crime, Health, Terrorism, Unrest. Advisory history states Uganda was raised from Level 3 to Level 4 on 17 May 2026 'due to the Ebola Bundibugyo Virus Disease outbreak in Ituri Province in the DRC'. The page still describes Kampala mass-gathering restrictions, 21-day quarantine for DRC arrivals and the DRC border closure. NOT UPDATED since 4 June — 91 days — despite Uganda MoH declaring the outbreak over on 28 Jul 2026 and WHO certifying the end on 26 Aug 2026. State's own text links to a CDC travel health notice filed under a Level 2 path. Divergence with the UK (Level 1) is now two full levels.	1	CORRECTED 28 Aug 2026 — the UK advises against travel to NO part of Uganda. CORRECTED 28 Aug 2026 — the UK advises against travel to NO part of Uganda. We carried 'against all-but-essential travel to Queen Elizabeth & Semuliki NP' for nine months after the FCDO lifted it on 2 December 2025. Verified against gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/uganda and its Regional risks page, 28 Aug 2026: still current at 25 Aug 2026, updated 27 Jul 2026, and the Warnings page carries no advice-against-travel block at all. Every 'advises against all travel' line on the Regional risks page refers to the DRC and South Sudan, NOT Uganda. Western Uganda carries caution language only (ADF, Kasese/Bundibugyo attacks Nov 2025). Bwindi and Mgahinga are open; armed escort on gorilla tracking is described as routine practice, not a warning. NOTE: mandatory National Cleaning Day, final Saturday monthly 07:00-10:00, nationwide movement restriction — tourists exempt (Uganda Police, 24 Aug 2026).
Tanzania	Level 3	Reconsider travel — RAISED from Level 2 to 3 on 31 Oct 2025 ('unrest' indicator added). Reconsider travel — RAISED from Level 2 to 3 on 31 Oct 2025 ('unrest' indicator added). Grounds: unrest, crime, terrorism (highest risk in the Mtwara Region near the Mozambique border), and targeting of gay & lesbian individuals. Verified vs travel.state.gov 4 Aug 2026.	1	No advisory against travel except within 20km of the Mozambique (Cabo Delgado) border.
Zanzibar	Level 3	As mainland Tanzania (Level 3 since 31 Oct 2025); no Zanzibar-specific carve-out. Verified 4 Aug 2026.	1	No advisory against travel.
Rwanda	Level 3	Reconsider travel — regional Ebola risk and DRC border security.	2	CORRECTED 8 Sep 2026 — the FCDO advice-against area is PARTS OF RUSIZI DISTRICT ONLY: the parts within 10km of the DRC border, including the Rwandan islands in Lake Kivu and Kamembe Airport. CORRECTED 8 Sep 2026 — the FCDO advice-against area is PARTS OF RUSIZI DISTRICT ONLY: the parts within 10km of the DRC border, including the Rwandan islands in Lake Kivu and Kamembe Airport. RUBAVU IS NOT NAMED. We carried 'Rubavu, Rusizi' and were overstating it — Gisenyi/Rubavu on Lake Kivu carries no advice against travel, and Kigali, Musanze/Volcanoes, Nyungwe and Akagera are all outside the advice-against area. Verified by reading gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/rwanda/entry-requirements directly on 8 Sep 2026; the page's own public-updated-at is 4 Sep 2026 10:15 BST. ENTRY RULE, separate from the advisory: Rwanda denies entry to any foreign national who has travelled to or transited through the DRC in the 30 days before travel, and runs enhanced screening at Kigali International Airport and DRC land crossings (Rwanda MoH notice, 22 May 2026; FCDO links to RBC for it). Commonwealth citizens get a free 30-day visa on arrival.

How this is maintainedevening — NO LEVEL, GEOGRAPHY OR REVISION-DATE CHANGE on any of the five markets, and no change since this morning. The evening tier-A sweep asserted complete (17 sources, exit 0). UK FCDO Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda all re-checked: Kenya’s advice-against geography is unchanged (Mandera, parts of Wajir, most of Garissa, mainland Lamu; all-but-essential for Tana River north of the river and the 15km coastal strip between the Tana and Galana); Uganda’s last substantive revision remains 2 September 2026 recording WHO’s declaration that the Ebola outbreak is over, and the UK still advises against travel to NO part of Uganda; Tanzania is unchanged at all-but-essential within 20km of the Cabo Delgado border with Zanzibar unrestricted; Rwanda’s advice-against area remains parts of Rusizi District within 10km of the DRC border, last substantively revised around 4 September 2026. CANADA, GERMANY AND FRANCE unchanged: Canada’s Kenya page carries ‘exercise a high degree of caution’ with avoid-all-travel for Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Lamu and was last updated 9 September 2026, pre-window; Germany’s Kenia Reisewarnung still covers Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Lamu excluding Lamu and Manda islands, with dringend abgeraten for Baringo, West Pokot, Turkana and northern Tana River including the A3; France still formally advises against the Somalia border zone to 100km inland and retains the pre-electoral framing tied to the 10 August 2027 general election. WASHINGTON — AN ADVISORY-ADJACENT FACT WORTH RECORDING. The CDC Title 42 order of 11 September 2026, signed by Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brian Christine, continues to suspend introduction of covered aliens present in DRC, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days. Reading cdc.gov/port-health/legal-authorities/evdorder.html directly this evening, that order STILL carries the line ‘This Order will be published in the Federal Register’ — future tense — six days after signature, while all five preceding orders (18 May, 22 May, 21 June, 13 July, 12 August) link to their Federal Register publication within three to seven days. The order runs 30 days to about 11 October and was issued with a simultaneous 15-DAY COMMENT PERIOD closing around 26 September. Logged as ledger call P191. The order’s own text concedes Uganda completed its 42-day enhanced monitoring period on 27 August 2026, that Uganda’s last confirmed case was 21 June 2026, and that Uganda recorded 20 confirmed cases and two confirmed deaths, 15 of them imported — and keeps Uganda listed on prospective re-importation grounds. Uganda remains at CDC Travel Health Notice LEVEL 2 (practise enhanced precautions), not 3 or 4: the entry suspension is harsher than the health notice it sits beside. HEALTH — DRC. WHO DON617 of 10 September (data to 7 September) stands at 6,757 confirmed, 3,267 deaths, CFR 48.3%, 61 health zones across SIX provinces, with Ervebo vaccination underway (2,007 people vaccinated by 6 September across six health zones in Tshopo, Bas-Uele and Ituri) and the PARTNERS therapeutics trial past 300 enrolments. Against that, the DRC count to 14 September is 7,258 confirmed and 3,510 deaths, a rise of 58 cases and 35 deaths, new cases in Ituri (44), North Kivu (12) and Haut-Uele (2). At a Geneva media briefing on 16 September WHO Director-General Tedros said transmission is declining in the most affected parts of Ituri, that South Kivu has reported no new case since May, and that more than 1,700 people have recovered. The six-versus-seven province disagreement between WHO and ECDC is unresolved, so ledger calls P178 and P185 both stay OPEN. WHO advice is unchanged and still AGAINST any restriction of travel to, or trade with, affected countries. Rwanda’s 30-day DRC-transit entry denial (Rwanda MoH, 22 May 2026) re-verified and still unrevised, with the Rwanda-DRC border open. BLIND SPOT DECLARED: Zanzibar’s Ministry of Health (mohz.go.tz) was unreachable and a three-query scan surfaced no dated September 2026 notice, so we carry no independent Zanzibar health read tonight.

Machine-readable: /api/v1/advisories.json · free to reuse with attribution, see syndication.

Other live trackers

Follow the Pulse

Every change to this tracker is reported in the daily brief.