Start with the fact that undoes most of what is written about this country online: Botswana does not issue a study permit at all. Its own national university says so in one flat sentence — your residence permit is your study permit. Anyone selling you a "Botswana study permit service" is selling a document that does not exist. If you are researching a Botswana student visa from Bangladesh for 2027, that is the first thing to get straight, and the second is that Botswana prices international undergraduates at exactly double the local rate while charging postgraduates only about half as much extra.
Botswana issues no study permit. A Bangladeshi student applies for an entry visa before travelling, using immigration support Form D and a BWP 500 fee, then applies for a residence permit after admission and registration, paying P1,500 to immigration. At the University of Botswana, non-resident undergraduates pay P74,700 a year in science and engineering — double the local rate.
If there is no study permit, what am I actually applying for?
Two separate things, in this order.
First, an entry visa, applied for before you travel. The University of Botswana advises students to check with Botswana's missions in their own country whether a visa is needed at all, then lists the requirements: a fully completed immigration support Form D, a certified copy of the passport page showing passport number, date of birth and expiry, two identical passport photographs, a covering letter from the host, a copy of the airline itinerary, the admission letter, the sponsorship letter, and BWP 500 as an application fee per applicant.
Second, a residence permit, which is what lets you stay and study. The university is explicit: the application "will be processed only after admission and proof of registration at the University of Botswana."
You arrive in Botswana on an entry visa, register at the university, and only then does the permit that governs your stay get filed. It is the same sequencing we documented for Namibia and Mauritius — the destination country's institution, not a Dhaka agent, drives the immigration step. UB states plainly that "the International Office will assist all international students with the application of a residence permit after registration." Nobody in Bangladesh can file it for you, because it cannot be filed before you are registered.
What does the residence permit file contain?
- Copy of the admission letter
- Copy of the sponsorship letter
- Two passport photographs
- Certified copies of the passport pages showing number, date of birth and expiry
- Certified copy of your birth certificate
- Payment of P1,500 charged for immigration services
- A letter from the International Education and Partnerships office
Three warnings come attached to that list, all in UB's own words. Emergency travel documents will not be accepted — only a valid passport. Bring certified copies with you to avoid delays and the cost of certifying in Gaborone. And students are responsible for maintaining the validity of the permit throughout their stay; nobody chases you when it is due to expire.
Laid out in order, the whole process runs like this:
How much does the University of Botswana charge a Bangladeshi student?
Botswana splits students differently from its neighbours. Namibia uses the SADC bloc; Botswana's category is "Resident and African Students" versus "Non-Resident Students" — a continental line rather than a regional one. Bangladesh sits in the non-resident band. From the university's 2025/26 Schedule of Fees:
| Programme | Resident / African | Non-Resident | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelors — Science & Engineering | 37,200 | 74,700 | 2.0× |
| Bachelors — School of Medicine | 41,400 | 82,500 | 2.0× |
| Bachelors — Other Faculties | 28,200 | 56,100 | 2.0× |
| Masters — Other Faculties | 26,160 | 39,360 | 1.5× |
| Masters — Science & Engineering | 33,120 | 49,680 | 1.5× |
| MBA | 37,920 | 57,120 | 1.5× |
| Postgraduate Diplomas | 30,300 | 45,600 | 1.5× |
Read the right-hand column and a pattern appears that nobody seems to write about: the international loading drops from 2× at undergraduate level to roughly 1.5× at postgraduate level. For a Bangladeshi student weighing where a master's degree is affordable, that is a real finding — the relative premium in Botswana is smallest exactly where most Bangladeshi applicants are looking.
An important caveat that the university prints in capitals: tuition at UB is determined by the number of credits you enrol for, and the annual figures above are estimates based on a minimum load of 30 credits for undergraduates and 24 for postgraduates. A heavier load costs more. The per-credit non-resident rates are P2,490 for science and engineering, P2,750 for medicine and P1,870 for other faculties. The schedule also warns of a separate list of excursion fees "levied over and above the normal tuition fee" for certain courses. These are 2025/26 figures — a 2026/27 schedule will replace them.
What else appears on the bill?
The smaller fees are where Botswana behaves unusually. The application fee is P250 for everyone, resident and non-resident alike — one of the very few charges not loaded for foreigners. But apply late and it splits sharply: P520 for residents, P1,030 for non-residents. Undergraduate accommodation is P7,740 a year; graduate hostels are P13,080, or P18,720 including holidays. Laundry is P830 a year, the student life fee P130, an identity card P70, a transcript P50 and graduation P220. Late registration costs P120 a day for new students and P210 a day for returning ones, capped at fourteen days.
Late application quadruples for a non-resident compared with a resident, and late registration then charges by the day. UB also notes that accommodation "is always available for international students as long as applications are received well on time" — which is as close as a university gets to saying the opposite is true if you are late. The deadlines are the cheapest part of this process to get right, and the most expensive to get wrong.
How do I get to campus, and will anyone meet me?
This is a small thing that matters when a nineteen-year-old lands alone on another continent. UB's International Office collects students from the airport or bus terminus, provided you email your airline, flight number and exact arrival date and time at least three weeks beforehand, and arrive between 08:00 and 17:00. Outside those hours, or without notice, you arrange your own transport — a private taxi from the airport costs about US$15–20 for the twenty-minute trip.
Where do I apply from, and does the apostille work?
Botswana is a contracting party to the 1961 Apostille Convention — in force there since 30 September 1966 by succession, read off the HCCH status table on 27 September 2026 — and it is not among the twelve states that objected to Bangladesh's accession, so an apostille issued in Bangladesh should be the right route for your certificates. Note that UB separately demands certified copies — certification and apostille are different steps, and you will likely need both.
Unconfirmed and important: we could not verify which Botswana mission handles Bangladeshi applicants. Botswana maintains a High Commission in New Delhi, and concurrent accreditation to Bangladesh is plausible given the pattern across Southern African states — but we found no Botswana government page confirming it, and we are not going to assert it. UB's own advice is the right instruction here: check with Botswana's missions about your own country before you do anything else. Do not travel to any address published by a visa-aggregator website without confirming it first; we have documented three separate cases of aggregators listing embassy addresses in Bangladesh that no government source supports.
Is Botswana a realistic option?
For a postgraduate student in a field Botswana invests in — mining and geology, veterinary science, public health, business — it is more realistic than its absence from Bangladeshi consultancy websites suggests. English-medium, stable, with published fees and a university that meets students at the airport. For an undergraduate, the 2× loading and the distance make it a harder case unless the subject is a genuine match.
What we see at Eduvisa is that the countries nobody markets are often the ones where an application actually stands out, because the university is not sorting through ten thousand identical files from South Asia. That cuts both ways: less competition, but also less of a support network when you arrive, and no established Bangladeshi community to help you find your feet. Whether that trade is right for you is a conversation about temperament as much as marks.
Related guides: Namibia student visa from Bangladesh — next door, same double-the-local-rate logic, different permit sequence · How to spot fake universities abroad
Weighing a master's in Southern Africa?
The postgraduate numbers in Botswana are better than most families expect, and worse than the aggregator sites suggest once credits and excursion fees are counted. Bring your transcripts, your intended field and your real budget, and we will work out what a full year actually costs you, which mission handles your file, and whether your documents will survive the certification requirements. If the answer is that another country suits you better, we will say so.
Book Free Consultation →Note: This is blog research for Bangladeshi students, not a statement that Eduvisa currently processes applications for Botswana. Fees are taken from the University of Botswana 2025/26 Schedule of Fees and its international students page. Immigration rules are set by Botswana's Department of Immigration and change without notice. Verify every figure before acting.