Benin or Botswana
Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data
| Benin | Botswana | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | 3 years | 10 years |
| Partner can work | — | no |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | no trouble | no trouble |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | — | no |
| Residence permit fee | 250 000 XOF | — |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 332 · estimate | $ 360 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 28,9 | $ 21,0 |
| Life expectancy | 60.96 | 69.29 |
| Homicides/100k | 1.13 | 12.98 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 3.1 | 2.2 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Benin — 8, Botswana — 14. Types present in both: work and study. Botswana adds: family and investment.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Benin: fees range from 32,798 to 800,000 XOF. Routes with a published decision deadline: 6; the shortest is 1 days. Botswana: fees range from 1,500 to 3,000 BWP. Routes with a published decision deadline: 13; the shortest is 7 days.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Benin after 6 years, Botswana after 5 years. Citizenship: Benin after 3 years, Botswana after 10 years.
Benin in brief
Benin is noticeably calmer than the region's reputation suggests: 1.13 homicides per 100,000 people (World Bank, 2017 data — the authorities publish nothing more recent for the country), political stability −0.4 and control of corruption −0.24 on the World Bank scale from −2.5 to +2.5. The strong points end there: life expectancy 60.96 years, health spending of 46.5 dollars per person a year, basic water access for 69.6 per cent of the population, and mean PM2.5 of 39.66 micrograms per cubic metre — nearly ten times the WHO guideline. Road deaths run at 24.8 per 100,000. Natural risk is moderate overall (3.1 out of 10 on INFORM), but flooding scores 6.7. The immigration framework has been rewritten from scratch and simplified: law No. 2025-15 of July 2025 and the decree of March 2026 left two resident statuses instead of three — an ordinary card for three years and a privileged one for ten. Two rules are worth knowing in advance: silence from the authority at the end of the decision period counts as a refusal, and a visa refusal cannot be appealed at all — three days are allowed to leave. Fees for nationals of ECOWAS states and for everyone else differ by a factor of five or more. There is no separate work permit: the labour directorate endorses the contract with a foreigner, and that is the employer's obligation.
Botswana in brief
Botswana regulates labour and permanent migration through the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs): the official categories are the Work Permit (14 working days to process), the Residence Permit (30 working days), the Exemption Certificate, which exempts certain categories of foreigners from the Work Permit requirement (7 working days), and the Permanent Residence Permit, which requires a minimum of 5 years of continuous lawful residence — except for the investor category, to which this threshold does not apply; the official page gives the processing time both as "56 working days" and as "about six months". Ordinary naturalisation requires at least 10 years of residence in total and the last 12 months continuously before applying, and concludes with a mandatory renunciation of foreign citizenship; for spouses of Botswana citizens the threshold is reduced to 5 years of residence within the marriage. Dual citizenship is preserved without restriction only for those who acquired it by birth or by descent; those who acquire Botswana citizenship by registration, naturalisation or marriage must renounce their foreign citizenship, while citizens by birth/descent who simultaneously hold foreign citizenship must choose a single citizenship by age 21 or automatically lose Botswana citizenship. The import of dogs and cats is handled by the Department of Veterinary Services as an import permit: a valid rabies vaccination certificate and an inspection of the animal before the permit is issued are required — quarantine and rabies antibody titration are not among the listed requirements, and the permit is issued within 1 working day. The country's economy has historically relied on diamond mining and exports: in May 2026 diamonds accounted for 59.0% of all merchandise exports (Statistics Botswana). Access to basic water supply covers 91.77% of the population (World Bank, 2024), and the INFORM drought risk indicator is 5.4 out of 10 (2026). HIV prevalence among adults aged 15–49 is 15.7% (WHO, Global Health Observatory, 2024) — one of the highest rates in the world and a significant factor when planning health insurance and access to treatment.
Other comparisons
Benin or… Nigeria · Rwanda · Tunisia · Algeria · Tanzania · Kenya · South Africa · Angola
Botswana or… Gabon · Madagascar · Sierra Leone · Uganda · Zambia · Eswatini · Lesotho · Mozambique
More on each: Benin · Botswana. Build your own comparison — up to four countries
This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.