The Gambia or Kenya
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
| The Gambia | Kenya | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | 7 years |
| Partner can work | — | no |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | difficult | no trouble |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | — | no |
| Residence permit fee | — | — |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 122 · estimate | $ 520 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 19,2 | $ 26,0 |
| Life expectancy | 66.06 | 63.83 |
| Homicides/100k | — | 4.65 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 2.9 | 4.2 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: The Gambia — 6, Kenya — 24. Types present in both: work. Kenya adds: remote work, study, family, investment, repatriation and retirement.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
The Gambia: fees range from 100 to 7,700 GMD. Kenya: fees range from 1,000 to 750,000 KES. Routes with no fee: 2. Routes stating an income threshold: 2; the lowest is 24,000 USD a year. Routes with a published decision deadline: 22; the shortest is 1 days.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Kenya after 7 years; the other country publishes no term. Citizenship: Kenya after 7 years; the other country publishes no term.
The Gambia in brief
The Gambia is very cheap and very poor at the same time. **A monthly transit pass at 6.55 dollars is the cheapest in this guide**, and a one-bedroom in Banjul rents for 80 euros with utilities at 26. And alongside that: health spending of 25.74 dollars per person per year — fifth from the bottom among 167 countries. Life expectancy is 66.06 years, basic water access reaches 87.1 percent of the population, PM2.5 stands at 38.27 micrograms per cubic metre (the twenty-fourth highest of 170), and road deaths run at 22.0 per 100,000. Unemployment is 6.52 percent, and 10.86 among young people. Overall natural hazard is 2.9 out of 10 on INFORM and almost entirely water-borne: flooding 4.6, drought 3.0, coastal hazards 2.5, tsunami 1.1, with earthquakes and cyclones practically absent. On the World Bank scale the governance figures are appreciably better than the regional norm: political stability −0.02, control of corruption −0.33, rule of law −0.39 and government effectiveness −0.54. The Immigration Department sets out the procedure in detail. A visa may be single journey, multiple journey (valid no longer than 12 months), transit, diplomatic (heads of missions only, and free) or short visit for 90 days; ECOWAS citizens need no visa. The service states twice that issuing a visa does not guarantee entry: the final decision rests with the officer at the port of arrival. There are two classes of residence permit: A — to live without gainful employment (students, retirees, short business visits) — and B, to live and work. The distinction by nationality runs through everything: an ECOWAS citizen obtains a permit after up to 90 days in the country, while a non-ECOWAS citizen must reside for up to 56 days after admission before a permit can be issued at all, and additionally receives an Alien Card. Fees run from 3,100 to 7,700 dalasi. Hiring is bounded by a QUOTA rather than a procedure: 80 percent of a workforce must be Gambians and 20 percent foreigners with skills unavailable in the country, and the Ministry of Trade administers it. Working without a residence and work permit is an offence. Family is arranged without a document of its own: the children and direct dependants of a permit holder are covered by that same permit, but on reaching adulthood must obtain one of their own. What is not in this data: there is no permanent residence in the department's catalogue, but a catalogue is not a law, and the Immigration Act itself is not published, so the number of years to permanent residence is left empty. The department publishes no processing standard for any of the seven steps of its own "processing cycle". The road to citizenship, by contrast, is published and long: seven years of residence from the date of marriage, or fifteen years by naturalisation. For cats there is no data at all — the British veterinary certificate for The Gambia covers only dogs. The city's population is not given: no official source separating Banjul from its area could be found.
Kenya in brief
Kenya admits foreign specialists through a system of ten classes of work permits (Class A-M), each for a different purpose — from mineral prospecting and agriculture to prescribed professions and religious activity — and, since 2024, through a separate digital nomad visa (Class N) requiring a confirmed minimum income of $55,000 a year from sources outside the country. Permanent residence on the general ground — holding a work permit — is reached after 7 years, the last 3 of which must be continuous residence in the country; the spouse of a Kenyan citizen becomes eligible for permanent residence sooner, after 3 years of marriage, but until then the accompanying spouse holds a Dependant's Pass, which does not carry the right to work. Naturalisation takes the same 7 years — by marriage or by permanent residence with knowledge of Swahili or a local language; former citizens by birth who lost their citizenship on acquiring a foreign one have a separate, faster route to restoration. The 2010 Constitution permits dual citizenship for citizens by birth. Nairobi is the region's largest technology hub: since 2007 it has hosted the African headquarters of Google, IBM, Cisco Systems, and General Electric.
Other comparisons
The Gambia or… Nigeria · Rwanda · Tunisia · Algeria · Tanzania · South Africa · Angola · Gabon
Kenya or… Madagascar · Sierra Leone · Uganda · Zambia · Eswatini · Lesotho · Mozambique · Republic of the Congo
More on each: The Gambia · Kenya. 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.