Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar ferry: times, prices and the short flight

Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar ferry times in 2026

The Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar ferry is run by Azam Marine, whose boats are all called Kilimanjaro followed by a number. It is a foot passenger line: no cars, no cabins, just airline style lounges. Four departures leave Dar every day.

The 1 h 45 on the timetable is time on the water. Add the queue at the gangway, boarding and the slow shuffle off at Malindi port and you are closer to 2 to 2.5 hours dock to dock. The boats run the same pattern from Zanzibar back to Dar, and Azam warns that times move with the weather and the season, so confirm on azammarine.com a few days before you travel.

Azam is not alone on the route. Zan Fast Ferries runs its own boats, leaving Dar at 07:00, 12:00, 14:15 and 16:30, which helps when Azam is full on a December weekend. Fares are in the same range as Azam Economy.

Zanzibar ferry prices: Economy, VIP and Royal class

Fares depend on the class and on your status. Visitors pay the non-resident rate in US dollars. Tanzanian residents, foreign residents with a permit included, pay roughly half. Prices below are one way, for an adult aged 12 or over.

• Children. Roughly 5 to 11 pay a child fare, about $30 in Economy. Under fives are not booked as passengers. Ask at the counter.
• Paying. Non-residents pay in foreign currency. Dollars are preferred, pounds and euros are accepted at the office, and US notes need to be recent and clean, as everywhere in Zanzibar.

Where to buy Azam ferry tickets in Dar es Salaam

Buy direct, one of two ways. Online, on azammarine.com, which has a non-resident portal priced in dollars. The booking is only held once it is paid, a missed boat is not refunded, and a cancellation has to be made at least two hours before departure.

Or at the Azam office at the ferry terminal, at the harbour end of Sokoine Drive, opposite St Joseph's Cathedral and about 1.5 km from the city centre. Buy the day before if you can. On the morning itself, arrive an hour before the boat: the ticket queue, the passport check and the luggage drop all take longer than they look.

The touts at Dar es Salaam ferry port

The pavement outside the terminal is where the trip goes wrong for first timers. Men in lanyards offer tickets "cheaper than the office", money changers offer dollars at a rate you will regret, and porters take hold of a suitcase and expect a tip for carrying it twenty metres. None of them works for Azam.

• Walk straight in. The ticket windows are inside the terminal building. Nobody needs to show you the way.
• Never pay a stranger for a ticket. A real ticket comes from the Azam window inside or from azammarine.com, nowhere else.
• Keep hold of your bags. If you want a porter, agree the price first. A couple of thousand shillings is plenty.
• Come with shillings or dollars already. Change money in town or at an ATM, not on the street.

Luggage allowance on the Azam ferry

Azam allows 25 kg per person and charges for anything over. Big bags go into numbered luggage cages on board and you collect them on arrival. Keep the passport, the ticket, medicines and anything fragile with you in the lounge, because you will need the passport before you see your suitcase again.

Ferry or flight from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar?

Both get you across the 70 km channel the same day. The choice comes down to your bags, the time you land in Dar and how you feel about a choppy sea.

• Take the ferry if you are already in Dar, travel with a hard suitcase or dive gear, or are staying in Stone Town, which the boat drops you right in.
• Fly if your international flight lands in Dar after midday, if you get seasick, or if you travel between June and September, when the wind makes the afternoon crossings rough.
• Coming off a safari, the question is often whether to go through Dar at all. Flights from Arusha and from the park airstrips reach Zanzibar directly, which is covered in our safari and beach guide.

Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar flight: airlines, prices and baggage

The hop from Julius Nyerere International (DAR) to Zanzibar (ZNZ) takes about twenty minutes and runs many times a day. Five airlines share it: Auric Air, Coastal Aviation and Flightlink on small propeller aircraft, and Air Tanzania and Precision Air on larger aircraft.

Fares run from about $40 on a promotional seat booked early to $150 close to the date, and December is the expensive month, when searches for the route more than quadruple. Once you are connecting from a long haul flight, read the flights to Zanzibar guide first: flying straight into ZNZ is often cheaper than Dar plus the hop, and it avoids a split ticket.

Baggage on the small planes: 15 to 20 kg, soft bags

This is where the flight loses to the ferry. Coastal Aviation allows 15 kg in total, hand luggage included, in soft bags, and the hold door of its Caravans measures 76 by 48 by 29 cm: a hard suitcase may simply not fit. Auric Air allows 20 kg in soft bags up to 90 by 65 by 35 cm. Air Tanzania and Precision Air are more generous because their aircraft are bigger, but check the fare you book. With safari duffels and a beach suitcase, the ferry takes everything without a fuss.

Immigration on arrival in Zanzibar, even from mainland Tanzania

It surprises almost everyone. Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, your Tanzanian visa covers it, and yet there is a passport check at Zanzibar port when you step off the Dar ferry. The reason is that Zanzibar runs its own immigration desk, a leftover of its semi autonomous status, explained on our page is Zanzibar a country?

• Passport and ticket in hand. They are checked when you board in Dar and again in the arrival hall at Zanzibar port.
• The $44 Zanzibar insurance (ZIC). It is compulsory for every visitor, including those arriving from the mainland or a safari, and it is asked for at the port as it is at the airport. Buy it online before you travel and keep the certificate on your phone.
• No new visa. There is no separate Zanzibar visa. The one you entered Tanzania with is enough, see the visa page.
• Yellow fever. No certificate is needed to go from the mainland to Zanzibar. It only matters if you came into Tanzania from a country with yellow fever, which the health page covers.

From Malindi port to your hotel

The ferry docks at Malindi, on the edge of Stone Town and a short walk from Forodhani Gardens. If your hotel is in the old town, you can walk or take a taxi for a few dollars. The drivers at the port gate know you have just landed, and quotes of two to five times the normal fare are common. The going rates are the same as from the airport, listed on our Zanzibar transfer page: about $40 to $60 to Nungwi or Paje. Agree the price before you get in, or have your hotel send a driver.

Seasickness on the Zanzibar ferry: which season and which seat

The Zanzibar channel is open water, and a fast ferry slamming into a head sea is not gentle. Most crossings are fine. The rough ones follow two patterns.

• The season. From June to September the kusi, the south east trade wind, blows steadily across the channel and builds a swell. It is the same wind that makes the dry season pleasant on land.
• The time of day. The wind picks up after midday. The 07:00 boat is usually the smoothest, the 16:00 the roughest.

Where you sit matters as much. A boat moves least low down and in the middle, so pick a seat on the lower deck, midships, rather than at the front or upstairs. If you are prone to it, look at the horizon from the outside deck where it is open, and take a seasickness tablet an hour before boarding rather than once you feel it.

Questions people ask