Travelling to Senegal by Campervan: Customs Guide and Useful Information

If you want to get to Senegal aboard your own vehicle, whether it’s a motorbike, car or campervan, and don’t know how, you’re in the right place! Entering Senegal with your own vehicle is doable, with the right precautions and a good dose of patience. Our own entry into the country wasn’t one of the smoothest, so during our stay we decided to gather various pieces of information that we’re now sharing with you, in case you’re planning to take on the same adventure. Get comfortable and enjoy the read.

2024 Update Following the presidential elections held in Senegal in March 2024, the situation at the Rosso border crossing seems to have changed.

Also, our friends from @R4 Team Piemonte  travelled from Saluzzo all the way to Dakar in August 2024, passing through this very crossing, and with the help of a passeur they paid about 200 euros and took 4 hours to get out of Mauritania and into Senegal without any problems. Here are their contacts:

Ifra Ril Passeur +222 48 58 71 16

We still recommend reading on through the article and checking on iOverlander ( here  and here  ) for the latest situation.

A quick premise

Before we start, a quick premise: to reach the Senegalese border from the north you first need to cross Morocco (watch our adventure here  ) and then Mauritania (click here if you want information about it). If you’re planning to take on this adventure, we strongly recommend reading the previous articles to find out about road conditions and the costs involved in getting to your destination!

Rosso or Diama?

To enter Senegal there are two border crossings:

• Rosso
• Diama

Both have their pros and above all their cons, and the choice essentially depends on three factors:

1. how much money you’re willing to spend
2. what time of year you’re travelling
3. what kind of vehicle you have

Rosso

PROS

• Easy to reach with any kind of vehicle
• Accessible in any season

CONS

• Extremely corrupt
• Exorbitant costs to get in (and out)

The road is very easy to drive, fully paved and easily accessible with any kind of vehicle. The real problem is the extreme corruption, which translates into exorbitant costs if you want to cross at this border. When we were at the famous Zebrabar, we heard about people who’d shelled out as much as 1000 euros to get in (and we imagine the same to get out of Senegal)!

Diama

PROS

• Cheap
• Not very busy

CONS

• Less easy to reach
• Only reachable with a 4x4 during the rainy season

The only problem with this border crossing is the road, since from the last “town” in Mauritania to the border there are 48 kilometres of dirt road in terrible condition, which takes about two and a half hours to drive. This road becomes impassable for non-4x4 vehicles during the rainy season. On the plus side, it runs through Diawling National Park and lets you spot plenty of wildlife, especially warthogs and birds of every colour migrating towards the nearby Djoudj Park.

If you’re careful, the road can be managed even with a coachbuilt campervan (as our friends did  ).

Costs are relatively lower than at Rosso, on top of all the taxes to be paid along the road in Mauritania and just before entering, which we’ll look at shortly.

So which one should you choose?

The winner is, drumroll 🥁:

Diama

This is the choice we made, and one we highly recommend to everyone wanting to go to Senegal. Obviously, think carefully about when to plan your visit to this fantastic country if you don’t have a 4x4.

The Rosso crossing is absolutely to be avoided in all cases, unless you don’t mind spending a lot of money. At that point it might actually be worth flying instead.

read also Senegal by Campervan: Itinerary, Tips and Useful Information

The Diama border crossing

If, like us, you’ve decided to head for the Diama crossing, once you’ve left Mauritania, here’s what you need to do:

1. pay the “toll” to have the bridge barrier raised
2. get your visa
3. get the vehicle’s passavant
4. get insurance
5. finally enter the country!

It’s all very simple, since there are only two buildings where you need to handle all the paperwork required to enter, but for the sake of completeness we’ll explain the steps below.

Where to get the visa

Leaving Mauritania behind you, head to the building on the right with your passport held firmly in hand. It’s a fairly quick step. Just enough time to take fingerprints and a photo with a webcam.

The tourist visa for Senegal is valid for 90 days.

Where to sort out the vehicle paperwork

Once you’ve got your visa, still with Mauritania behind you, head to the building on the left with your vehicle registration document (or a photocopy, just in case) to handle everything related to the vehicle. Here there are various possibilities depending on the age of the vehicle or on whether or not you have a Carnet de Passages (CdP from now on).

Carnet de Passages: do you need it?

The CdP isn’t required to enter Senegal (if you don’t know what it is, you’ll find more information about this document on the ACI  website) but it’s recommended because:

• you won’t have any bureaucratic problems
• you won’t have any extra costs
• it means you’re issued a passavant that only needs renewing once
• after the renewal you can stay in the country for 90 days

If you don’t have the CdP you can still enter by getting a document called a Passavant:

• you may run into bureaucratic problems (as happened to us and other travellers)
• the cost depends on the age of the vehicle
• it needs renewing every 15 days, up to a maximum of two times
• you can stay in the country for a maximum of 30 days

Regardless of whether you have the CdP or not, you’re given between 3 and 10 days to reach the first customs office and renew it.

Where to renew it

Before the days you’ve been given run out, you absolutely must head to the first customs office to renew the document. If you have the CdP, it only needs renewing once, at the Dakar customs office.

If you have the Passavant, you can renew it up to two times, every 15 days, at the customs offices in: - Saint Louis - Dakar - Kaolack - Tambacounda - Ziguinchor

Warning: Renewal is free, but every now and then, particularly in Saint Louis and Dakar, they try to ask for money!

And the insurance?

Vehicle insurance is arranged after you’ve sorted out the vehicle paperwork. There isn’t a specific spot for it inside the customs area, so you’ll need to ask around. In our case it was arranged by an old man sitting on a little stool.

How much does it cost?

If you’ve decided to head for the Diama border crossing, before you can reach it, and on your way out of Mauritania, some compulsory “taxes” await you: you’ll find them all in detail in the dedicated article.

Both arriving from the Mauritanian side and leaving through the Senegalese one, you have to cross a simple bridge, at the end of which there’s a barrier that can be raised for the modest sum of 800 ouguiya (Mauritania’s currency) or 8 euros.

The visa is free for citizens holding an Italian passport.

If you have the Carnet de Passages you won’t have any further costs, while if you need to get the passavant the costs are, in theory, as follows:

• vehicle under 8 years old: 10 euros
• vehicle over 8 years old: 250 euros

In reality, unless you use some workaround, you’ll end up paying 250 euros regardless of the vehicle’s age. These are the costs for those coming from Mauritania; if you’re coming from Guinea or Gambia, the cost is about 10 euros!

Vehicle insurance costs 30 euros and is valid for 30 days (and is also valid in Gambia).

To sum up:

• with CdP: total 38 euros
• without CdP: total 288 euros

Passavant: the problems!

Everything we’ve told you so far about the Passavant works fine if the customs officers are honest and, following the law, write “for Tourism” on the document.

If, as happened to us and other travellers, they write “to be declared”, meaning the reason for your stay still needs to be declared, a whole string of problems begins. This happens regardless of the vehicle’s age: we gathered more information about it thanks to other travellers we met in person. Our advice is to always stay calm and check this wording when the form is being filled out, firmly stressing that you’re in the country as a tourist (we didn’t know this detail and only found out afterwards that this is when the problems would start). With a vehicle under 8 years old we paid 10 euros and got in, with a 5-day permit, but with the wrong wording on the document.

Other travellers’ stories

Once we reached Saint Louis we learned about the experiences of a few other camper travellers (and non-camper travellers):

• case 1: vehicle over 8 years old. The owner paid 250 euros at customs, they wrote “to be declared” on his document; in Dakar he was told that passavant entitled him to 3 months but that he’d need to come back the next day. He waited 8 days, going to customs by taxi every morning, and was eventually given a new document granting 3 months but requiring him to contact an official within 15 days, at his own expense. When asked for a further 250 euros, under threat of having the vehicle impounded, he decided to stay until the 15 days were up and then left the country.

• case 2: vehicle under 8 years old. The owner paid 10 euros at customs, they wrote “to be declared” on his document too; in Dakar he was also told that his passavant entitled him to 3 months of stay but that he’d need to come back the next day. He waited 7 days, driving around the country at his own risk, then was given a new passavant granting 3 months but requiring a renewal after 15 days, for which he had to call an official to be paid out of his own pocket. They asked him for 800 euros, under threat of having the vehicle impounded, so he too reluctantly decided to leave the country right away.

• case 3: vehicle under 8 years old. The owner had “to be declared” written on his document, but by raising his voice he managed to get the renewal.

• case 4: vehicle over 8 years old, paid 250 euros in advance to a well-known passeur. Document issued with “tourism” written on it. 10 days granted, plus two 15-day renewals (a total of 40 days allowed in the country with the vehicle).

• case 5: two couples with two camperised Toyotas over 8 years old, paid 250 euros in advance to a well-known passeur. Document issued with “tourism” written on it. 10 days granted, plus two 15-day renewals (a total of 40 days allowed in the country with the vehicle).

Our experience

We went to Saint Louis on our third day, where the customs officer was unyielding and refused to renew our document, telling us it wasn’t renewable, and gave us the number of a “colleague” from the well-known private agency. We can be criticised for this (and we have been) for not raising our voices enough and not calling the Embassy, but being fairly inexperienced at the time, we accept we may have made a mistake and take it as a lesson learned. So we paid 240 euros, getting a new 10-day passavant, renewable up to two more times for 15 days each. Customs offices where we later renewed without any problems:

• Dakar
• Ziguinchor

Our suspicion, then, is that the original document gets “tampered with” if it wasn’t arranged in advance and paid for through the well-known agency.

If you want to stay longer in Senegal with your vehicle, or if you run into problems with the passavant, you can leave the country by entering Gambia or Guinea-Bissau. In Gambia the visa costs 5000 F per person plus 5000 F for the vehicle, and on your way out you’re entitled to a new passavant for 2500 F. This applies if you stay more than one day. In the case of a simple transit, it seems no new passavant is issued. Entering from Guinea-Bissau, the passavant for Senegal costs 4 euros.

Tips and tricks

A few useful tips and two tricks to use if you want to go it alone without a passeur.

Don’t hand your passports to anyone: except customs officers. At the border there are plenty of people who’ll try to take your precious documents to “handle” all the paperwork for you. If you’re not careful (and don’t negotiate straight away) they’ll end up asking you for a lot of money.

Make photocopies of your passports: except when specifically requested by the customs officer, try to always hand over the photocopy.

Make photocopies of your vehicle registration document: customs officers and insurers will want the original document; in this case, pull out the photocopy! They’ll rarely accept it outright, but by showing the original and proving they match, you’ll avoid handing over your original documents!

Stay calm…!; don’t rush, stay calm and act as if it were the thousandth time you’d crossed that border.

And now a little trick to get more days on your passavant! If you enter on a Wednesday, since the weekend falls in between, you’ll be given 5 days! This is great because it means you don’t have to rush to Dakar! Note: it’s also possible to get 10 days, but we’ve noticed this is only granted if you pay the private agency.

What not to do at customs

There are some things you should absolutely not do at customs, and others we’d advise against:

• filming: it’s the fastest way to make the police, customs officers and everyone else hanging around the area angry!
• exchanging money: you can exchange euros or Mauritanian ouguiya with the first people who offer, but the exchange rate is decidedly unfavourable.
• buying SIM cards: same as above, they’ll try to rip you off by selling you overpriced SIMs. We recommend doing all these things in Saint Louis, which is less than an hour’s drive away.

Our Vlog

If you want to watch our vlogs or hear our thoughts about the country, here are the videos:

• vlog

• our thoughts

Recommended articles

For more information, itineraries and maps about Senegal and the countries you’ll cross to get there, here are a few links:

• Senegal: complete guide
• Senegal: our itinerary and maps
• Mauritania: how to cross the border