Yemen

Do South Africans need a visa for Yemen?

Yes, South Africans need a visa. An e-visa system exists for organised group travel, business and transit. But Yemen is divided between rival authorities, so which authority’s paperwork you need can depend on where you enter.

What the travel advisory says

The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to the whole of Yemen because of the unpredictable security conditions. That includes the island of Socotra, which some specialist operators sell as a destination in its own right.

This is the advice as we checked it on 19 September 2026. It can change overnight, so read the current FCDO advice before making any decision. We use the UK Foreign Office as our benchmark because its advice is detailed, broken down by region and regularly updated. The US State Department and Australia’s Smartraveller are worth checking too.

If you have to travel

There’s no realistic way to make this a normal trip. Anyone with an essential reason to go needs organisational security support and current local advice.

Check that your travel insurance explicitly covers Yemen. Most standard policies exclude destinations under these warnings, and travelling against official advice can void your cover. Tell someone at home your plans, and find the nearest South African mission before you go — DIRCO lists them.

Why this page exists

South Africans search for the entry rules for Yemen, and they deserve an honest answer, so we cover them here. This isn’t a travel guide, though, and Yemen isn’t in our where-to-go filter because the official advice is against travel. If that changes, we’ll build it out into a full guide.