alberto / stock.adobe.comCountry Guide № 174 / 194 · Africa
Togo
A 50-kilometre-wide country with a fetish market, coffee hills and empty beaches.
“A 50-kilometre-wide country with a fetish market, coffee hills and empty beaches.”
Togo is barely 100 kilometres wide and runs 550 kilometres north from the Atlantic, which means you can cross the whole country in a day and pass through coast, forested hills, savanna and Sahelian scrub. Lomé sits right on the Ghanaian border and has one of the most functional city beaches in West Africa alongside the Grand Marché and the Akodessewa fetish market, where the raw materials of Vodun practice are traded.
Ninety minutes inland, Kpalimé sits in coffee and cocoa hills with waterfalls, butterfly forests and the country's highest point. Far north, Koutammakou is a UNESCO-listed landscape of Batammariba tower-houses - fortified mud structures that are also the reason the region is called the land of the Tamberma. It is a small, cheap, easy country that pairs naturally with Benin or Ghana.
Chapter 01
Highlights
Akodessewa fetish market
The largest Vodun supply market in West Africa on the eastern edge of Lomé - animal skulls, dried remains, herbs and the practitioners who prescribe them. Confronting, and entirely a working market rather than a display.
Kpalimé and Mount Agou
Coffee and cocoa hills ninety minutes from the capital, with the Womé and Kpimé waterfalls, butterfly-rich forest and the climb up Mount Agou, the country's highest point at 986 metres.
Koutammakou
UNESCO-listed Batammariba country in the far northeast, where families live in takienta - fortified two-storey mud tower-houses with granaries on the roof. Visits are arranged through the villages themselves.
Lomé's beaches and Grand Marché
A palm-lined coastal road east of the city, and the three-storey market where the "Nana Benz" wax-print traders built one of the region's most famous merchant class.
Chapter 02
Entry requirements for Togo
Checking your passport…
up to 7 days · €15 / $16 · e-visa
7 days on arrival
Official portal only
Paid look-alike sites charge for a process that is free or cheap on the government portal. Use the link below and nothing else.
voyage.gouv.tg →Before you fly
The detail
- Maximum stay
- up to 7 days
- Process
- e-visa
- Fee
- €15 / $16
- Passport validity
- Most destinations want validity beyond your stay, and some want six months. Check yours against the return date.
- Onward travel
- Airlines may ask for a return or onward ticket at check-in.
- Health
- Yellow fever certificate compulsory for entry. Malaria year-round nationwide. Medical facilities are limited; Lomé has the best of them. Evacuation insurance advisable.
- Money
- CFA franc, pegged to the euro. ATMs in Lomé and larger towns; cards at better hotels only. Carry cash for the interior.
A United States passport needs a visa for Togo, it is cheap, and the thing to understand before you land is not the price but the CLOCK. The visa Togo issues on entry runs for seven days. Seven is enough for Lomé and a look at the coast and it is not enough for Koutammakou and the north, so unless your trip is genuinely a week you will be extending it, and the extension is done in person at the immigration service in Lomé within those first seven days. It is routine, it costs more than the entry visa did, and it costs a morning - build it into the itinerary on the way out rather than discovering it on the way back. The government now runs its own online travel portal and the sensible order is to complete the application there before you fly. A counter at Lomé's airport has issued the seven-day visa for years, for around 10,000 CFA francs - the CFA is pegged to the euro, so that is roughly €15 - and it still exists; what has changed is that the first authority you meet is the check-in agent rather than the immigration officer, and an approval obtained in advance removes any argument about whether you may board. Apply on the government portal itself and not on the sites that appear beside it, which charge a premium for the same form. A yellow fever certificate is a condition of entry to Togo for every arrival old enough to be vaccinated - not only for arrivals from a country where the disease is a risk, which is the rule at most of its neighbours - and it is genuinely checked at the border, and often at the airline gate, rather than merely filed. The vaccination counts only from ten days after the injection, so it is the one part of the trip that cannot be arranged in the last week: get it before you book anything non-refundable, carry the yellow booklet rather than a photograph of it, and understand that there is nothing to be done about a missing one on the day. Land arrivals follow the same process: the Ghanaian border at Aflao is a ten-minute walk from central Lomé, which makes a day trip from Accra deceptively easy to attempt and a visa no less necessary, and the Beninese crossing at Hillacondji is equally routine. Carry CFA francs - cards work at better hotels in Lomé and effectively nowhere else - and read the current advice on the Savanes region in the far north before planning anything up there, which has been under a state of emergency since 2021; Koutammakou sits in the Kara region just south of it.
Check another destination with this passport →
Entry details: Editorial synthesis - Togolese Service des Migrations entry practice and the government travel portal, ECOWAS free movement protocol (2025–2026) · compiled 18 Sept 2026
Who needs a visa for Togo
12 common passports| Passport | Requirement | Stay | Process |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| United Kingdom | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Germany | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| India | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| China | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Brazil | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Nigeria | Visa-free | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Indonesia | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Philippines | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Vietnam | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Egypt | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
| Nepal | e-Visa | - | e-Visa · €15 / $16 |
Holding a passport that is not listed? The picker above answers for any of them. See where your passport takes you. Source: Passport Index, updated 14 Aug 2026.
Chapter 03
When to go
BestNov–Feb. AvoidMay–Jun, September.
Dry and clear; harmattan haze possible.
The band above each month is our editorial verdict - it weighs crowds, prices and access as well as weather. The line is average daily temperature, the bars are monthly rainfall. Select a month for the figures. Climate figures: ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo, 2005–2024 normals.
Chapter 04
What it costs
A day in Togo
Comfortable · sample day
≈ $60
Line items are real prices we track. The daily budget is an editorial estimate for this level, not their sum.
Where this sits among 244 countries we have costed
Prices barely move through the year; Lomé business hotels are the only thing with a weekday premium.
Updated Aug 2026 · Editorial synthesis - market sampling and published tariffs (2025–2026) · confidence medium
Excludes international flights - they depend on where you fly from.
Chapter 05
Regions to know
5Lomé and the coast
The border capital, Grand Marché, the fetish market and the palm-lined beach road east towards Aného.
The Plateaux and Kpalimé
Coffee and cocoa hills, waterfalls, Mount Agou and the artisan workshops around Kpalimé.
The centre
Sokodé, Fazao-Malfakassa national park and the wooded hills along the Ghanaian border.
Kara and Koutammakou
The Batammariba tower-houses, Kabye iron-working villages and the Tamberma valley on the Benin border.
The Savanes
Dapaong, the far north and the Burkina Faso border - under a state of emergency and travel advisories since 2022.
Chapter 06
Practical guide
Getting there
Lomé Gnassingbé Eyadéma is ASKY's hub and has good West African coverage plus Brussels Airlines, Air France, Ethiopian and Turkish. Walking across from Aflao in Ghana or driving from Cotonou are both routine.
Getting around
Minibuses and bush taxis run the north–south highway. Zemidjan motorbike taxis do everything local, including inter-village trips. A hired car with driver is the comfortable option for Kpalimé and the north.
Money & costs
CFA franc, pegged to the euro. ATMs in Lomé and larger towns; cards at better hotels only. Carry cash for the interior.
Safety
Lomé has petty theft, particularly on the beach and around the market. The Savanes region in the far north is under advisory. Political demonstrations occur in the capital and are best avoided. Motorbike-taxi accidents are the most common tourist injury.
Health
Yellow fever certificate compulsory for entry. Malaria year-round nationwide. Medical facilities are limited; Lomé has the best of them. Evacuation insurance advisable.
SIM & internet
Togocom and Moov; SIM registration requires a passport. 4G in Lomé and the main towns; sparse in the north.
Chapter 07
Driving
The single national highway is decent for most of its length. Zemidjan motorbikes dominate urban traffic and ignore most conventions. Avoid driving at night.
Rules change - verify with an official source before you rent.
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Become ExplWorld Verified →Chapter 08
Itineraries through this country
Chapter 09
From the Journal
Chapter 10
Before you go
TogoChapter 11
Frequently asked questions
Is the visa easy?
Yes. Most nationalities get a seven-day visa on arrival at Lomé airport for around €15, extendable at the immigration office in the city for a longer stay. An e-visa portal also exists. ECOWAS nationals enter freely. A yellow fever certificate is compulsory and checked.
Can I combine it with Ghana and Benin?
It is the obvious way to do it. Lomé sits on the Ghanaian border - you can walk across at Aflao - and Cotonou is three hours east. A ten-day loop covering all three coastal capitals is straightforward, with Benin's e-visa and Ghana's advance visa the two things to organise ahead.
Is the north safe?
The Savanes region on the Burkina Faso border has seen attacks by Sahelian armed groups since 2021 and has been under a state of emergency, with governments advising against travel there. Koutammakou sits in the Kara region just south of that zone - check current advice before planning it. The coast and the Plateaux region are unaffected.