Dar es Salaamculture & etiquette

The Labour Commissioner issues the work permit; the Immigration Services Department issues the residence permit; immigration's own guidance says the work permit comes first. Both use the letters A, B and C for their classes and the letters do not mean the same thing in each system. Approval of one is not approval of the other, and confusing them is the most common way a Tanzanian relocation goes wrong.

Tanzania moved its seat of government to Dodoma, and ministries, the parliament and much of the civil service are there. Dar es Salaam remains the commercial capital, the port, the banks and where almost everyone works — but if your business is with a ministry, the trip inland is a real feature of the job, not an occasional inconvenience. Budget for it.

Tanzania made Swahili the national language and it genuinely functions as one across ethnic lines and social classes. English is common in business and in the expatriate bubble, but daily life outside Masaki runs in Swahili. Tanzanians are notably generous with learners and standard Tanzanian Swahili is the form taught worldwide.

Nothing about Dar's climate resembles Nairobi, Kigali or Addis. It is coastal, humid and hot most of the year, with a heavy long-rains season around March to May. Air conditioning, ceiling fans and lighter clothing matter, and the middle of the day genuinely slows down. If you are relocating within East Africa, this is the biggest physical adjustment.

The ferry from the port takes about two hours and Zanzibar is part of Tanzania — but it runs its own immigration administration, and residence permits and investment approvals there go through Zanzibar's own offices and ZIPA rather than the mainland department. For a weekend it does not matter. For a job, a business or a property purchase, it is a completely separate process.

Dar's congestion is among the worst in the region. The DART bus rapid transit corridor — locals call it mwendokasi — has dedicated lanes and moves while everything else does not. Expatriates routinely overlook it because they arrive assuming there is no public transport worth using. On the corridors it covers, it is the quickest way across the city.