MBABANE – In a move that will significantly alter travel logistics for Eswatini nationals, the United States Embassy in Mbabane will cease accepting routine visa applications.
In a statement by the US Embassy in Eswatini, effective today, 2026, citizens and residents wishing to travel to the US will have to schedule appointments and pay the required fees at the US Consulate General in Johannesburg.
Consequently, the kingdom appears to be left with only two main foreign embassies offering direct visa application services to local travellers. These are the Embassy of the Republic of China on Taiwan and the High Commission of India.
It must be said that the development stems from a broader strategic shift by the US Department of State, which is realigning visa operations across Africa to regional hubs.
According to the US Department of State, President Trump’s administration is putting America and Americans first by strengthening national security, cutting government waste and ensuring the government works strictly in the interests of the American people.
The department explained that it is constantly evaluating its overseas operations to advance these priorities as efficiently and effectively as possible.
This includes maintaining a visa process that upholds rigorous standards of security screening and vetting, while aligning resources and operational capacity with America’s national interests. The Trump Administration has maintained that it has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans, noting that the State Department will continue to provide Americans with appropriate consular services and assistance at diplomatic posts around the world.
Centralising these services to designated hubs is described by the State Department as a long-standing practice that strengthens national security by promoting more uniform screening, vetting and adjudication standards, while simultaneously improving efficiency. The department noted that realigning visa services has already been successfully implemented with several African nations, as well as in Europe.
Eswatini is not alone in this transition. This August, routine visa services will be realigned from a host of African nations, including neighbouring Maseru, Maputo, Gaborone and Harare, as well as posts as far afield as Antananarivo, Abuja, Bamako and Windhoek. Routine visa services will instead be provided at regional hubs such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Accra and Lagos.
Crucially, the realignment of routine visa processing does not mean the closure of the US Embassy in Mbabane.
The embassy will retain its operating status and continue its important work on behalf of the American people, including providing American citizen services and limited non-immigrant visa services. The specific services being relocated to Johannesburg encompass all routine visas, spanning both non-immigrant and immigrant categories.
This includes tourist and business-related visas, petition-based non-immigrant visas, immediate relative and family preference categories and employment-based visas.
Additionally, fiancé visas, adoptions, diversity visas and follow-to-join asylee and refugee cases will all be processed at the regional hub.
For Eswatini nationals, it is said that the transition requires careful planning. Currently valid US visas remain entirely unaffected by the upcoming changes. However, applicants who have already paid their Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) fee at a post with limited services must have ensured they scheduled their appointment before July 31, 2026.
The State Department has clarified that fees will not be refunded if an applicant fails to secure an appointment by this deadline. Specific guidance for visa applicants affected by the realignment will be sent directly via email.
Regarding the required immigrant visa medical examinations, applicants have the option to complete these in their home country should a panel physician be available or alternatively, at their designated hub in South Africa. Furthermore, travellers should note that existing visa suspensions designated by Presidential Proclamation 10998, specify visa bond requirements and immigrant visa pauses for certain nationalities remain firmly in place despite the operational shifts.
Reacting to the decision, E. Nathi Dlamini, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Business Eswatini, expressed deep concern over the lack of communication.
“While it’s America’s prerogative to rearrange their visa service centres geographically, the inconvenience caused to emaSwati especially businesspeople, is not lost on us,” Dlamini said.
“What is particularly troubling is that the reasons for this drastic change seem not to have been communicated to anyone. We are, therefore, left to speculate and the prism being used by many people to rationalise the change suggests that America may not be prioritising the interests of our people. Rightly or wrongly, that’s the conclusion being drawn here and I think it’s regrettable.”
It must be said that the United States and Eswatini have had good bilateral relations since the kingdom’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1968.
According to the US Department of State, USA policy seeks to maintain and strengthen bilateral relations and stresses Eswatini’s continued political and economic reform.
The US Department of State states that the kingdom ranks as a lower middle-income country, but it is estimated that 69 per cent of the population lives in poverty.
The Americans perceive the country as having most of its high-level economic activity in the hands of non-Africans, but ethnic Swatis are becoming more active.
It is said that the USA supports health promotion and health systems strengthening, entrepreneurship, youth development and education, security sector capacity-building and trade promotion in Eswatini.
USA believes Eswatini has been struggling to mitigate the world’s highest prevalence rates of HIV and TB. As a result, in 2009, the USA and Eswatini signed the second-ever Partnership Framework Agreement under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The agreement was a five-year joint programme strategy to strengthen, scale up and sustain key components of the HIV response and the overall health sector capacity.
The USA Government brings about six Swati professionals to the United States each year, from both the public and private sectors, primarily for Master’s Degrees and about six others for three-four week international visitor programmes.
Through the security assistance programme, the USA brings approximately 25 members of the Swati security forces to the United States for education and training purposes. The United States also supports Swati participation in regionally based training and capacity-building programmes such as at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Gaborone, Botswana.
Bilateral Economic Relations
In January 2015, Eswatini became ineligible for preferential trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
The country belongs to the Southern African Customs Union, which has signed a Trade, Investment and Development Cooperative Agreement (TIDCA) with the United States.
The TIDCA establishes a forum for consultative discussions, cooperative work and possible agreements on a wide range of trade issues, with a special focus on customs and trade facilitation, technical barriers to trade sanitary and phytosanitary measures and trade and investment promotion.
Eswatini also is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, which has a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the United States.
