Liberia-Ivory Coast border | Customs and Immigration

All as easy and friendly as described.
Road going straight to Danané is a very good and smooth gravel road. Don’t understand the comments about turning left. Turning left is „the ugly road“ as the customs guy described it.

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Easy border, all friendly, motorbike using CDP English passports. Ivory Coast visa in hand.

Asked to show my yellow fever vaccine on the Ivory Coast side, and had to show the gentleman at customs how to fill in the CDP.

But other then that all the same as below.

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Liberia -> CI
Straightforward border. At Liberia side one fellow checked yellow cards and wrote details in the book while another wrote passport details in another book. Then, going around back, passport details get written again and you get stamped out. Then pass the rope and stop for customs. The customs officials were having a big meeting and presentation in the nearby office so we had to wait 20 minutes but then the carnet was processed easy peasy.

On CI side, the checked passports and visas then stamped. Photos taken of passports and then of us. Then customs processed the carnet super quickly and off we went.

Google maps sends you the most direct route to Danané but as we left the border village it looked like it was going to be a bad, muddy, potholed rutted track. We asked a resident and he said go back 50 m to the (much better) dirt road that heads north. We did and at the point Google maps gave up completely but the trail stayed really good (car-wide and smooth surface) all the way through several towns until the A8 north of Danané. Asked directions one more time along that route when the good road split.

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Liberia -> Ivory Coast

We travel by 4x4 without CDP.

We got our Ivory Coast Visas in Conakry.

If you come as a tourist you can import your car for two months for free. No CDP or LP needed.

We got the free vignette touristique in Danane.

When we crossed there was a big market going on on IC side. Traffic is a very tight one lane. Big problem when a truck came our way.

No IC SIM card at border. Get it in Danane or Man.

Exchange rate:

1 USD = 620 CFA

3.000 LRD = 10.000 CFA

Officer on IC side took photos of several documents, our car and us. It’s a normal process.

There is an Ecowas guy checking your insurance papers on Liberian side. Everything was fine for us. No money asked.

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Côte d'Ivoire to Liberia. On both sides, immigration and customs for the carnet were easy.

After the Liberian customs officer said "you can go", I was intercepted by a guy in a colorful shirt. He wanted to see my ECOWAS brown card. I told him that I don't have insurance but that I would be willing to buy it if it's mandatory. But there was no network to do it with Tourinsure that I use in such cases. He wanted that I send him a bribe by cell phone banking. He wanted to ride in my car to Ganta and watch me buy insurance. If I understand correctly, that brown card is just a rider on top of another insurance you must have to be covered.

It took me too long to figure out that the guy doesn't have the authority to stop me. Is he just an insurance salesman? At the end, I questioned his authority as nicely as I could and got the final go from customs and the guy.

The whole proceedings were not grim and there was some smiling going on as everyone except me liked the entertainment.

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Ivory coast to Liberia:

Both sides super super easy, one of the fastest crossings we’ve ever had. Ivory Coast, 2 buildings, one where they stamp out the CDP, one for immigration. Both spoke English. Liberia side, everyone was super friendly and helpful. Jr customs official didn’t know about using a CDP instead of a TIP. But his boss knew all about it and stamped us in right away.

Our car broke down a bit down the road near a village. We asked to park there for a bit while we fixed it, everyone was super friendly and we parked there for 1 hour while putting a bush fix together before continuing. Probably could have camped there if we wanted and would have felt safe (but lots of curious onlookers).

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Easy, you can find villages in the road if you’re coming from Liberia to camp in school, rood not very bad, now they are working to paved it ! They asked for money in Liberia side but no was Im broke was enough !

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Got visa in Bissau for Cotdivoir stamp CDP bothe side of the border no paying everything nice shiddy road

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Motorcycle taxi from sannequille to border is 1.500LD. The first part of road is pothole - free highway, but the second half is horrible bumpy/dusty road.

Crossed the border without needing the Laissez-passer. Nobody even mentioned it. Only passport with visa and covid vaccination needed.

Ivory coast side expected bribes at customs, but with some patience and jokes I managed to get through without paying extra.

The road to Danané is a nice big and even dirt road. Paid 12.000xof for mototaxi. There's a gate on the road, where my driver paid another 1.000xof.

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From Liberia to Ivory coast.
Easy border first guy asked for some money but accepted a simple no. The rest didn't ask for anything. They speak English on both sides and are generally friendly and helpful. As mentioned make sure you have lp. After the border they checked my documents 3 more times at the checkpoints which is annoying and takes quite a long time.

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laissez passer very necessary. a man called Jenkins Gaye charged $30 to have one sent from Monrovia. However eventually he conceded all ha could do was arrange a motorcycle for me to go, which I can do myself. only got my money back when I started telling the motorcyclists how much he charged. Beware!

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Crossing was easy. On the liberian side they check your health certificates and ask "do you want to support the office" A friendly "Nahh sorry" was enough. They gave me the exit stamp of Liberia after I got the entry on Ivory coast side to make shure that your not stuck between the boarder. No Carnet needet in IC but the Laisser passer for you and your vehicle(get it in 24h at the embassy in Monrovia). After the entry to Ivory Coast the police stopps again a few times and asks for laisser passer. They take pictures of the documents, you and your vehicle. No bribes asked.
Fuel in Ivorycoast is cheaper but first propper gas station close to Man. Road is fine. Just a few parts without tarmac on the Liberian side and in Ivorycoast its getting even better.

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Dado que CI está cerrada la frontera, antes de ponerme el sello de salida de Liberia, te hacen pasar la frontera a que te revisen los papeles por si está todo en regla, luego vuelves de nuevo a Liberia y sellas salida en pasaporte y en carnet de pasage. es mi primera frontera desde España que me piden dinero de manera totalmente descarada para sellarme la salida, el señor estaba borracho. me puse un poco serio, y le dije lo.que ya pague por la.visa de Liberia, en mi caso 150 dólares por que pedí. on urgencia, me pidió el recibo, y me dejó pasar sin pagar nada extra. por lo demás todo bien, el lado de CI, todo facilidades, y simpatía. en mi caso sellé CDP en CI, pero no sé si era necesario o no

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Going east I arrived from Liberia to Ivory Coast the day after that the Ivory Coast president ordered to close borders to travelers who come from countries with more than 100 cases of coronavirus. The IC officers didn't let me in cause I had Spanish passport and Spain has thousands of people infected despite I haven't been in Spain for the last 3 months. I came from Liberia that has only 1 case. Impossible to deal with them. I had to come back to Liberia and try to cross into IC from Guinée (visa needed). Very crazy times for travel.

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Going west. Easy and friendly as mentioned before. Vaccination book checked on both sides. Took us maybe 1.5 hours for both sides. Mainly because we needed a TIP for Liberia which took some time to issue. First they asked US$50 'office fee' for that. But since she wrote 'gratis' in the 'amount payed' section of the form, we refused to pay and they let us go fairly easy.
They also charge the US$10 brown card fee here. Looks legit although we don't really understand why everybody has to pay this.

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The border close at 6 pm!!! And no chance to pass after.

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Easy crossing. Altogether, it took max 30-40 minutes. Many photos were taken with phones of passport and me on the Ivorian side. They required meningitis vaccination.

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Very easy crossing. My visa for.Liberia was.already expired for.one.day but no one.bothered. I had.to show my
yellow.fever card on both borders.

IC took pictures of.me and.my bicycle as well.as.of.the passport.

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Very easy crossing both sides no issues. CI immigration is very busy with taking pictures from us and our truck + writing many details extra on a sheet of paper... in total we spent maybe 45 minutes for both sides.

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We (Dutch and Swiss with each a car, English and Irish with a motobike) came here from Liberian side.
On the Liberian side no worries, even had some „nice“ music in the douane office.
Ivory coast side Immigration and Health was no problems but slow as hell. At the douane the problem started: Dutch and Swiss didn‘t have carnet so they wanted us to take an escort to Man to get the vignette touristique. Of course they asked for money. We pulled the „this is not correct“ card, demanded the officer‘s name and threatened to call anto-corruption office. Things escaleted a bit, we we‘re called rassists etc. We tried to discuss but nothing worked. So we said we stay for the night, handed our papers over (just copies), sleep in a hotel nearby and go with the escort to Man the next day.
We came to the border rather early but they somehow tried to annoy us by not showing up, so we jumped into the car and decided to drive to Man without escort. They chased us, caught us at a checkpoint, called the lieutenant, he took our keys and acted as they started an official case. They didn‘t offer any kind of solution and just did a lot of official-looking stuff (protocols, „you need a lawyer“, etc).
We solved the situation after six days by driving to Man with public transport, getting the Swiss embassy to call the boss in Man, getting the vignette without car (for free) and suprising them with having the vignette back in Danané.
Very corrupt and acted very official, really thought I‘m in trouble. But in the end escort and vignette should be free, officers declined to identify themselves. No foolproof solution available. Just calling embassies, police and luck did the trick. Even embassies are not fully aware of the problem.

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I crosse from Ivory Coast into Liberia and everyone was friendly in both sides. They asked to do a baggage check but it was nothing more than opening and looking at it for less then asecond. .

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Easy but long boardercrossing.
The officials dont know how to read a passport, didnt find the key for the stamp or are not there in the morning...
Had to explain the Carnet on Liberia side.

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Easy exit of Liberia, no payments. Had to show them how to stamp my carnet.
Entering CI; first health officials, we already had meningitis vaccine so no problems there. Then customs, took pretty long time because we didn't have a copy of insurance and lazzies passer and he had to make copies for us. About 45 min wait. But no payments at all. Easy border.

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Exiting Liberia was simple enough. No meningitis scam or other problems with the health officer in Ivory coast. The police made a very annoying and long search of my luggage and stole a bunch of malaria pills, then asked for a cadeau. Everyone else was friendly and helpful.

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Exiting Liberia easy enough. Nobody asked for cash. I'm in the habit though of telling everyone at borders how honest their country is, and its so refreshing because the previous country is very corrupt!

I had to get them to stamp the carnet. Explain how to do it as per entry. Probably shouldn't have bothered on the way in

Entering CI again easy enough. immigration on the right. Then they wanted to vaccinate for meningitis. The needles were sealed but vaccine in a cooler not fridge. At the Liberia border i had thought about addingthe vaccine to my book. But decided to blag it instead if i didn't trust the vaccination setup.

So i told them i had it in 2015 but on my old vaccination book which was lost. They let me through. I'd recommend just adding the vaccination to your book or better yet get it in advance

Police than gave my bike luggage a good look (most thorough so far). Customs were very disinterested in my Carnet. So it wasn't stamped. Nobody wanted more than the bike papers for ownership

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Border was closed from 2014 but officially opened again on 12th of Sept 2016.

To exit Liberia, pass by immigration, health port and one more stop, then get exit stamp from Maj. Betty Benson. Corrupt immigration and health officials asked for money, but we told them we spent our last dollars. Major was very nice.

Pass by immigration and health to enter Ivory Coast. Meningitis shot apparently mandatory now. Can be issued on the spot for 2500CFA, check vaccine storage temperature and expiration date of vaccine/needles.

Border opens around 730am, officially closes at 6pm but with some diplomacy and a few small hand outs may be 'open' until 8pm or so.

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