Dar es Salaam Airport: Arrival and departure guide

Dar es Salaam International Airport (DAR), also known as Julius Nyerere International Airport, is Tanzania’s main airport located 11km outside of the city centre.  Despite being the largest airport in the country it is still a fairly small airport when you compare it to other international airports.  Keep in mind, this is Africa.  If you are only used to Western airports, you might need to lower your expectations.

Guide to Dar es Salaam Airport

In this guide we will cover Dar es Salaam Airport Arrivals (both international and domestic), the Dar es Salaam Airport immigration process, obtaining a Tanzania visa on arrival, connecting flights at Dar es Salaam Airport, transportation from Dar airport, Dar es Salaam Airport Departures (both international and domestic), food at Dar es Salaam Airport (both landside and airside), Dar es Salaam airport lounges, and Dar es Salaam airport shops.

Dar es Salaam Airport Arrivals

International Arrivals:

Immigration and Visa Process

If arriving at Dar es Salaam airport from abroad you will need to go through customs and immigration.  Upon landing, you will take the escalator down into the arrivals hall.

You will see a sign overhead for the Visa Desk, located to your right.  Do not expect an orderly line.  There is not much order at all here.  The hall is not very large and quickly becomes packed with confused travelers, leading to some chaos.  Again, keep in mind, this is Africa.

The plus side when we were there was that airport staff were handing out bottles of water.  There was no AC on, or at least it did not seem to be working very well, so this was definitely appreciated.

Get in the “line”, which is more like a mob of people, anxious to get their visa after a long flight.   Once you reach the sole visa desk, show the officer your immigration card which you should have already filled out on the plane.  You will then have your fingers scanned.

Tanzania Visa Fee

Next, you are sent over to another line up where you will pay your visa fee.  Americans pay $100 USD and all other countries pay $50 USD.  They accept payment in US cash (make sure bills are issued in 2006 or later and are in good condition) or by credit card.  The sign says they prefer Mastercard but they also accept Visa, which was what we used.

After paying the visa fee, they will hand your passport and receipt to the officers behind the desk to process.  You will be directed to join the crowd of travelers standing around waiting for their visas to your left.  Listen carefully for your name to be called as it can be quite noisy and they don’t use a microphone.  There doesn’t seem to be much order to how they process the visas.  Ryan’s name was called a few people before mine, despite us handing our passports in together.

Once you receive your passport back with your Visa stamp you can proceed to passport control.  The officer standing there nodded his head for us to continue on – no questions asked nor review of our passports.

This is where you will find your luggage (hopefully, unless it was left behind like ours was).  Once you have all your belongings, you will have to run it through the scanner and then you can proceed to the exit!  The whole process took us about 45 minutes.

Transportation from Dar es Salaam Airport

When you exit the baggage area you will find yourself in the outdoor arrivals area.  If you have booked a shuttle, this is where all the drivers stand around holding up their signs.

As you walk out you are sure to be greeted by many taxi drivers offering to take you into town.  They don’t use meters so you need to agree on a price before getting in.  The price should be around $20-$25 USD but we heard of people getting ripped off.

After our 27 hour journey to get to Tanzania, we agreed a pre-booked shuttle would be worth the extra cost.  After such a long journey we knew we would be tired and not in the mood to haggle with aggressive taxi drivers.  We wanted a quick, reliable and stress-free ride to our hotel to get a good rest for the adventures ahead of us.

We pre-booked a shuttle with our hotel (Protea Dar es Salaam Courtyard) which cost us $40 USD.  The driver greeted us with ice cold water which was definitely appreciated.  Even though it was nighttime, we were still sweating a lot.  The drive took only about 20 minutes, but this was at midnight.  During the day it can take 1 to 2 hours!

Uber has recently started up in Dar es Salaam within the past year so that is currently another option as well.  It is much cheaper than the cabs but we did not get to try it out ourselves.

If you are brave, you could also choose to rent a car from Dar es Salaam airport and drive yourself.

We heard there were public buses (known as dala dalas) but they don’t go right up to the terminal.  You have to catch them from the road so you will have to walk a bit.  If you have luggage then this isn’t really an option for you.  The daladalas can get pretty packed so you wouldn’t want to bring on more than a backpack.

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Wondering what to do in Dar es Salaam?  Check out our Dar es Salaam One Day Itinerary

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Domestic Arrivals:

Landing at Dar es Salaam Airport from Zanzibar or any other city in Tanzania is a much simpler process.

Upon arriving you take the stairs down and right away you can grab your luggage.  You will still need to put it through the scanner before exiting.

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Headed to Zanzibar?  Check out Things To Do In Zanzibar + Itinerary

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Dar es Salaam Airport Connections

If you need to connect to another flight, don’t exit the second set of doors.  You will see a small sign on the wall that says Connections and will lead you down a maze of hallways.  You will question where you are going and if you are really going the correct way.  The maze eventually leads you to the main departures entrance, where you will still have to go through security before entering.

Dar es Salaam Airport Departures

Landside

Waiting Area

You will only be able to enter the airside departures area 3 hours before your flight.  Until then, you will have to hang around in the outdoor landside area of the Dar es Salaam Airport terminal.  It is covered so don’t worry about sitting in the hot sun or rain.

The landside area is not very large and not all that entertaining.  There are some small souvenir shops, a pharmacy, three currency exchange desks, cell phone stores, toilets, and very limited food options.  There is a small seating area consisting of metal chairs facing the departures and arrivals board.  The nice thing is there is decent free wi-fi to help you pass the time!

Food

You only have 2 options for food: Tasty Life and Flamingo Restaurant.

Tasty Life is located right by the parking lot in its own stand alone building.  It is like a local version of KFC.  We decided to have dinner there.  It was clean and nicely air conditioned.

Food is decently priced.  The chicken was good, but not outstanding.  They also serve decent coffee.  At least it is a comfortable place to pass the time rather than sitting in the metal chairs outside.

The second option for food, Flamingo Restaurant, is hidden up on the second level of the terminal.  We would never have seen it if it were not for a Maasai approaching us to invite us to go check it out.  Unfortunately we had already eaten.

We were told there was a buffet, coffee, free wi-fi and air conditioning.

Airside

Once it is time for you to check in for your flight, you line up and show your ticket to the guard.  Then you put all your things through a scanner and enter the check in area.  Despite this being the main airport in the country, the check in area is very basic.  There are no electronic weigh scales or luggage belts – just old school weigh scales.  After checking in your luggage you can head airside.

Side story: Ryan forgot his wallet in the side mesh pocket of his bag that he checked in.  He only realized it once we were already past security and immigration.  We thought it was probably lost forever but he asked if he could go back to try to retrieve it.  The desk agent retrieved the bag for him and to our pleasant surprise his wallet was still there, perfectly intact!

Domestic Departures at Dar es Salaam Airport

Head down the corridor on the right and up the escalator.  You will have to scan your luggage through security once again before entering the departures lounge.

Side story: Even though this is a pretty basic airport it doesn’t mean their security is basic.  They discovered a lighter in Ryan’s bag that we did not know was in there, hidden beneath the liner.  We had made it through all kinds of airports in North America for the past few years and no one else ever caught it!

Waiting Area

The waiting area is not very large, only about 4 gates.  There is one cafeteria, one small duty free shop and one bathroom.

Food

The cafeteria serves drinks, pastries, basic meals and alcohol.  You can also find some snacks in the duty free shop but they are mostly imported and not cheap.

International Departures at Dar es Salaam Airport

After checking in, head to the corridor on the left.  You will have to fill out a departure card (make sure you have a pen) and then go through immigration.  You then take the escalator up and go through security.

Waiting Area

The international departures area at Dar es Salaam Airport is thankfully nicer than the domestic one, but still nothing much compared to Western airports.

Food

You again only have one option for food, the airside version of Flamingo Restaurant.   Since it is the only option it gets very packed.  They serve a variety of food, from pizza to burgers and some Tanzanian dishes.  They also have ice cream and chocolate bars.  The food did not look all that appealing to us so we decided to just get ice cream and juice.

Dar es Salaam Airport Shops

There are a number of duty free shops here so you can pass some time shopping.  The duty free wasn’t too overpriced so we did end up buying some last minute souvenirs here, such as local coffee and wood carvings.  You can also get clothing, books and chocolates.

There is an electronics shop where you can buy cell phones, cameras, memory cards and adapters, etc.  You can also shop for tanzanite and other jewellery at the jewellery shops.

If needed there is also a mosque/prayer hall.

We hope you’ve found this Dar es Salaam Airport guide helpful!  Let us know  below if you have any questions!

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