Ramokgwebana - Plumtree border post | Customs and Immigration

relatively easy border post (bots to zim), zim takes a bit of time for family of 4 and 1 car about 1.5hr . bots went easy. visa single entry 30 us, double entry 45 for B listed countries (europe eg). stamped Carnet de passage went ok, paid 50 us for insurance carbon and road. be sure to carry enough cash. change can be a hassle. no cards! no questions or checks anymore about covid. also, we extra carried petrol in the car in jerrycans, no questions were asked.

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Easy and quick border crossing. Be aware that you can't take extra fuel into Zim.

They still want to see a pcr test or vaccination card. I had a picture of 1 and in combination with my EU passport the lady was OK with it.

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easy border crossing. Hassle free stamp out of Botswana. Showed vaccination certificate for Zimbabwe. 45$ for double entry. Can also be paid in rand (700R). Just outside the crossing you'll find sellers for food and SIM-cards. Econet card is 50R and 10GB of data 10$ (30days). Money exchangers can also be found here trading Pula and Rand into dollars. Got 21$ from 270P

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BOT-ZIM
Checking out of Botswana took 10 min. Fill out form and have the Carnet stamped and then a quick drive across to Zim side

At Zim. Show vaccination paper outside the building. Fill out form. Paid $45 for double entry visa. Some manual work to fill out the visa sticker, that took some time. Then stamp Carnet. Pay $50 for insurance and tax. Then customs check of the car and finally some booths that wanted to double check everything. Took just over an hour altogether.

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Easy border crossing ZIM to BOTS. Pcr test checked at Botswana border. Make sure you do not have raw meat, milk or vegetables on you, they cannot enter BOTS.

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Coming from Botswana to Zimbabwe. Botswana side took 15 minutes. Stamping your passport and the carnet. Zimbabwe side check your health, filing immigration document and pay for the visa according to your origin for us 30$ for one entry or 45$ for two entries, you get visa only for 30 days than every 30 days you can ask for another 30 days up to half year. Get your get pass. Stamping your Carnet and pay according to your car size, we paid 60$ 7.5 ton. Than go to custom check, they just looked that everything is OK. After the gate you have top go to stamp the police and then the custom and you are done it took U
us about 1.5 hour but all officers were very nice and helpful. Although they have pictures of Visa cards you can pay only cash with many options (US$, Pula, Rand, €, etc)

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Zim > Bot
TLDR; Easy, costs 321 Pula (~30 USD) in car fees.

Exit is super simple. Takes a few minutes.

Entry in Bot: Ignore the long line of locals and go inside to the offices. Personnel will help you find your way.

Do immigration (visa free for many countries), continue to the next both to get your Carnet stamped. 5 minutes to do this.

Proceed to cashier to pay: Motor Vehicle Insurance (minimum 3 months, 50 BWP), National Road Safety Fund (1 month, 50 BWP) and Road Transport Permit (transit, unlimited time, 221 BWP), all given on the same paper. They do accept Pula or Visa/MasterCard. If you want to pay by card, you might have to stand your ground as they asked us to go change USD to Pula with the money changers when we asked to pay by card. The cashier gave in and allowed us to pay by card when we insisted (encouraged by a friendly local behind us in line).

Customs check is relaxed and just want to peek. All shoes should be dipped in disinfectant, but they didn’t really bother to check your luggage for additional pairs.

All in all quite easy, but during busy hours you might be sitting in a queue for an hour or so to have your car checked by customs.

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Quick and easy border. The exchange rate is better on the Botswana side, $10 USD gets 105 Pula. On Zimbabwe side $10 USD gets 100 Pula.

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Exiting Botswana was easy. Entering Zimbabwe was more troublesome but customs and police were very friendly and helpful. Customs was not familiar with a carnet. We needed to help customs with the formalities. Needed to pay 50 USD for insurance, road tax etc. for a one month allowance. At customs there are several desks. Pass the waiting line of people to ask for the right desk for the carnet (or tip). By doing so we were being helped immediately. The total border crossing took us about one hour. In our case we were faced in Zimbabwe with a serious fuel shortage resulting in sold out diesel. Also other normal items such as groceries were not available. Being totally self supporting was a must in our case. Before entering Zimbabwe make sure what the current situation is.

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Foreign travelers must be inform that although there are plenty of ATM and banks in Zimbabwe, they might hardly get the local currency (bond notes) in the country. One must take U$D, Pulas or Rands before crossing the border. International credit card (Visa or Mastercard) are widely accepted in most supermarkets, but many fuel station can not accept international C.C. (local diesel price is twice the Botswana diesel price, 1,3 U$D in april 2018)
All prices are in U$D and the 1 bond note is suppose to equal 1 U$D, but they will change 1U$D for 1,25 bond at the black market.

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Botswana side was easy; Zimbabwe carnet took about 2,5 hours. Paid USD 70 for Carbon tax, road tax and 3rd party package

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