By Omar Bah
The United States government will shut down routine visa processing at 25 diplomatic posts across Africa including Banjul, The Gambia from Saturday, August 1, 2026, redirecting applicants to a network of 20 regional hubs under a major restructuring of America’s consular operations on the continent.
The US Department of State confirmed the changes, describing the move as the most significant reorganisation of US visa operations in Africa in recent years. The overhaul covers all routine visa categories, including tourist, business, employment, family-based and immigrant visas.
Diplomatic posts that will cease routine processing include those in Antananarivo, Abuja, Asmara, Bamako, Banjul, Brazzaville, Bujumbura, Conakry, Cotonou, Durban, Freetown, Gaborone, Harare, Juba, Libreville, Lilongwe, Lusaka, Maputo, Maseru, Mbabane, N’Djamena, Niamey, Nouakchott, Ouagadougou and Windhoek.
Applicants from these countries will instead need to schedule their visa interviews at one of 20 designated hubs: Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Johannesburg, Kampala, Kigali, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Malabo, Monrovia, Nairobi, Port Louis, Praia and Yaoundé.
The State Department said concentrating visa processing into fewer locations would deliver “more uniform screening, vetting and adjudication standards” while cutting operational waste.
“President Trump is putting America and Americans first by strengthening national security, cutting government waste, and ensuring government works in the interests of the American people,” the department said in a statement.
The policy also keeps in place existing immigration restrictions introduced by the Trump administration, among them visa suspensions under Presidential Proclamation 10998, visa bond requirements and pauses affecting certain immigrant visa categories.
In June, Legit.ng reported that the Trump administration was weighing a plan to reduce the number of US posts processing visas across Africa from 50 to 20, citing an internal State Department memo obtained by the Associated Press. The August 1 announcement confirms those plans.