How to Find African Bride or Woman for Dating: Statistics, Guide & Prices 2024

International dating sites with South African women for marriage are growing rapid-fire in the US. But why? That’s why we’ve studied the African bride market to learn the reasons for popularity, how to search, the average bride price, and much more about mail order African brides. Read on!

African Mail Order Brides & Dating Sites in 2024

There are multiple sites promoted as top African dating platforms, but not all of them are worth using. We’ve tested the most promising platforms and learned everything about user bases, profile quality, features, and prices, and now we’re ready to share our top picks with you. 

	🔥 Best choice	🎁 Get free credits	SakuraDate
	Best mobile experience	🎁 Get free credits	Naomidate
	Best reply rate	🎁 Get free credits	EasternHoneys

Paul Bloom

Author

SakuraDate rate

SakuraDate is now the number one online dating platform in the African segment of the international dating market. It has everything a good site is supposed to have: real active members, multiple high-quality communication features, a few free search features, a team of professional moderators, and great special offers for both new and regular users. Registration is free, and so are many interesting features, so everyone can test the service without paying.

African Mail Order Bride Cost

The African bride price is probably one of the most common things men ask searching for South African brides. However, men can’t just choose an African girl from the catalog, pay a fixed price and get a wife—it’s just a myth. Men can meet an African woman who wants to find foreign husbands online, start dating her, then meet in real life and get married if it works for both of them. Though it costs money, it has nothing to do with buying an African bride. Still, it’s natural to be interested in the price of such a relationship, as before, to jump into using mail order bride services—it’s worth exploring whether you can afford it.

To help you get that estimate, we gathered the main expenses you might have searching for an African woman for marriage. Let’s explore all the components of the African wife price.

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Online Dating Expenses

The cost of mail order bride services is the first expense you face when looking for African wife. To help you, we found all the main categories of mail order brides sites and apps in Africa and the current costs.

Usually, it takes around 2 months to find African wife through a dating site. So, consider that when calculating your bride price. Also, exploring dating apps and sites to meet an African girl, we collected a few ways to help you get the most value for the cost:

• Keep an eye on platforms that offer discounts for new members. For example, Love Fort offers a first purchase discount where 20 credits cost $2.99 instead of $9.99, or Colombia Lady provides a 1-month free premium worth 9.99 with the 1rst purchase.
• Check seasonal discounts—they can be from 20% to 50%.
• Go for credit-based platforms, as you don't pay when you don't use the site.

Following these few tips can help you get the best bride price and cut unnecessary expenses.

Expenses on Traveling to Africa and Marriage

Another component of the bride price is travel expenses. Those can vary from a couple to tens of thousands of dollars depending on your destination, personal traveling preferences, and the time you plan to spend in Africa.

In our experience, the biggest expense field are plane tickets, accommodation, and transportation in the country. According to our calculations, it's most cost-effective to fly to such countries in Africa:

1. Namibia
2. Rwanda
3. Ghana

And these 3 countries are the most expensive in Africa in terms of traveling:

1. Egypt – a popular tourist destination
2. Kenya – many people come there to enjoy a safari, so prices are inflated
3. Zanzibar – the Maldives of Africa might be cheaper than the actual ones, but still quite expensive

To help you have a more precise estimate of a bride cost, we calculated the cost of trips to the top 3 locations in Africa that are the most popular countries among the US people:

Morocco

*Prices provided according to BudgetYourTrip.com.

Nigeria

*Prices provided according to BudgetYourTrip.com.

Ethiopia

*Prices provided according to BudgetYourTrip.com.

These are travel costs for the top countries in Africa. The African bride price from other popular countries in Africa has been collected in the infographic below.

Moreover, a South African bride must apply for a K-1 visa (if you want to get married in the US), which costs around $2,290. And you also need to budget for a wedding. The average cost of a wedding in the US in 2022 was around $20,000.

Men’s Stories About Dating and Marriage With a Woman From Africa

During our research of African mail brides, we interviewed 3 men who were or are in a relationship with a lady from South Africa. And that's what we found:

Liam

USA

I always knew that African women are known for their strength and resilience, but I truly felt that only when I married one. What touched me the most was how bright and loving my wife is. She always strives for a better life and isn’t afraid to advocate for her beliefs. Oh, and her beauty—she never seems to age; we’ve been together for over 10 years since I’ve found her on SakuraDate, and she still looks gorgeous.

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Daniel

USA

I’ve been in a relationship with an African woman for over 6 months now. We met through NaomiDate, and I was surprised to have a wonderful experience (I always assumed that all profiles were fake).

I immediately felt deeply connected to my girlfriend, and our relationship grew quite quickly. I feel so much respect for my girl, as she is kind, generous, and full of life. Also, my future bride’s family (fingers crossed) are very supportive and happy of us. They treated me as a son the first time I came to visit. Frankly, I feel lucky to have such loving future in-laws, as I never had a big family.

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Johnathan

Australia

My story, unfortunately, doesn’t have a happy ending, but my first love was an African girl. I have a lot of respect for our relationship of 2 years from the moment we’ve met on EasternHoneys, as the level of compassion and understanding my ex-girlfriend had for me was amazing.

I’ve noticed that many girls from her country are strong yet with gentle spirits. They also are smart, and their wit is captivating. Even though our relationship ended for mutual reasons, we are on good terms, and I’m grateful that I’ve been with such an extraordinary person.

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How to Find South African Brides Online

Over the years of work, we have come across many ways of meeting foreign women, but the main ones remain online and offline ways to get a bride from South Africa. Both can help you meet many women, but they have different effects and won't suit all daters the same.

Going to Africa to Find a Wife Offline

If you were looking for a date locally, you can meet a date through friends, at parties, or just in your favorite cafe. International dating works similarly, but there are still a few things to consider, like arranging a trip yourself or going on a bride tour.

Mail order brides tours still happen in 2024, but it's getting harder to find a good option if you have serious intentions. Also, Africa is a large continent, and romance tours are usually arranged for the biggest ones, like Cape Town, South Africa, or Abuja, Nigeria, while other countries don't have bride tours.

A regular wife tour to Africa usually includes:

1. Round-trip tickets
2. Accommodation and transportation
3. Events and parties where a guy can meet single girls from South Africa who are open to relationships with a foreigner
4. Translation services (if needed)

Basically, with a romance tour, a man buys a fully-organized trip to one of the countries in Africa, and the agency also selects compatible women and arranges meetings and parties.

In most cases, there are 2 types of such tours. First, solo romance tours, when there is one man, and second, group tours, where 5–7 guys meet girls from Africa at the same time. Group tours can be up to 50% cheaper than solo ones. They allow guys who want to become husbands and explore African culture to spend less money on their trip and therefore lower the bride price.

Using Dating Services to Meet Women From Africa

Dating online is not only the most popular way to meet a girl from Africa for marriage but also effective and convenient. In our experience, more than 85% of international couples from distant countries start online. To help you understand how it works, we created a step-by-step guide on how to meet a woman from South Africa through a dating app or site.

❗️Don't join the first you see on Google. Explore your options when you choose a place to date women from Africa. It's always worth exploring niche platforms like Latin Feels, as they have more candidates from the region you are seeking. International websites might also work, but you'll need to choose from different ethnic groups.

❗️Check costs and hidden fees. The “money question” can also become a deal-breaker. So read professional reviews of the site you want to join. Such reviews usually have a cost of paid services and tell whether the platform is legit.

❗️Create an eye-catching profile, as it's half the battle. Some guys forget that girls from Africa are choosing too. So, fill in your profile, add 5-7 good photos of you, and communicate your intentions on the site. Also, it's worth going through verification to help women know that you're a real human being.

❗️Choose the most profitable and effective communication ways. A big chunk of the bride price is mail order bride services. Thus choosing a cost-effective option for communication can help you save money, but you should also consider what works for you. Different services work for different people.

❗️Don't contact all hot girls from Africa. It's just too expensive and time-consuming. Use search filters to find the most compatible matches. If you have a favorite location, like Cape Town, South Africa, you can use location search too. But don't talk to more than 5 ladies, as it's not cheap and you get very distracted.

These are simple tips, but thanks to them, you can avoid many problems and find your perfect match quickly and easily.

A Bride’s Story: How Did I Become a Mail Order Bride

No amount of research data and statistics can substitute first-hand experience. For that reason, we searched for African mail order brides willing to answer a few questions and share their insights into international online dating. We hope our conversation with 26-year-old Jamie-Lee from Cape Town, South Africa, will shed some light on the plight of African brides for you. 

Talking to Jamie-Lee

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

Hello, Jamie-Lee. Thanks for agreeing to chat about your online dating experience. First, could you tell us why you chose an international dating site instead of mainstream dating apps like Tinder? Or even traditional offline dating?

Jamie-Lee

Jamie-Lee

Hi, Paul. Glad to be of help. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision for me. I’ve gone through a rough patch and decided that I needed to change something about my life. And you know what they say about people who do the same thing over and over, expecting to achieve different results. My local dates never went anywhere, so I decided to give TheLuckyDate a try.

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

Was it difficult to sign up? How does it compare to other apps or sites you’ve used?

Jamie-Lee

Jamie-Lee

It’s pretty straightforward and fast, which I appreciated because I was ready to give it up if things got too complicated. I set up an account in under five minutes, though the verification process took a couple of days. Besides, I’m always adding new pictures to my profile, so it’s not like it looked this way from the get-go.

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

Your profile does look gorgeous. Would you say that men pay as much attention to their accounts? How do you choose who to meet online?

Jamie-Lee

Jamie-Lee

I don’t think I’ll surprise you by saying a good photo is a major draw for me. It’s the first thing I see when searching for matches or getting messages, and I always pay attention to the man’s eyes and his smile, trying to gauge if it looks genuine. The background can also tell me a lot. For example, I love the outdoors, so I’m drawn to men whose profile pictures feature them outside. Of course, I pay attention to their profile descriptions, too, but there’s not much info there, so I mostly assess their tone and decide if it’s worth writing back.

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

Thanks for your tips. I’m sure our readers will appreciate your point of view. Can you tell us how long you’ve been a member and if you’ve had any luck finding your match?

Jamie-Lee

Jamie-Lee

I’m relatively new to online dating, and I’ve only been on TheLuckyDate for about half a year. And my experience has been spotty. Some guys are just looking for a cyber affair and ask for nude photos upfront. Others need someone to chat with after a hard day at work but don’t want anything more serious. I only met a couple of men who seemed genuinely interested in something serious, though we’re still in the early stages of our relationships, and I’m not sure either one will lead anywhere.

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

I’m sorry to hear that. But if you find someone perfect for you, would you meet him in person?

Jamie-Lee

Jamie-Lee

Of course. I read a lot of international dating stories, so I know we’d need to meet at least a couple of times to see if we’re truly compatible. I’d welcome a visit to Cape Town, though meeting in another country is also an option because I love traveling.

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

And how do your friends and family respond to your online dating?

Jamie-Lee

Jamie-Lee

Most of them don’t know about it since I’m so new to the idea. Many of my friends use hookup apps, so they are pretty comfortable with meeting guys online, though none have tried to find a serious relationship with foreigners, as far as I know. I guess I’ll worry about it when I meet someone I really like.

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

That’s a good strategy, and I sincerely hope you find a man you can rely on soon.

As Jamie-Lee’s account confirms, international dating sites are not a panacea for loneliness. It takes time and patience to develop an attractive profile and come across compatible partners. That much is true for male and female daters alike.

Read also: In Search of Beautiful Vietnamese Brides or Girls for Dating—Is It Even Worth It?

African Mail Order Bride Statistics

To create an image of an average African bride and help you get a full understanding of modern South African women, we studied current statistics. That's what we have found:

• In 2019, 3,549 African brides for marriage came to the US to marry a foreign husband in the US. But in 2020, the number dropped to 1,906 because of the pandemic restrictions. Still, in 2021, we already see a growing tendency, as 2,488 African brides came to the US that year.
• Moroccan, Nigerian, and Ethiopian brides make up almost 50% of African women marrying abroad. In terms of age, 20% of African girls are 16–20 years, 41% are 21-25, 24% are 26-30, 11% are 31-35, and only 4% are over 35 years old.
• The average age of African women at 1st marriage varies from 17.2 in the Republic of the Niger to 33 in South Africa. In comparison, the average marriage age for women in the US is 28.6.
• The average number of children in African families also drastically varies depending on the particular country. Thus, in 2022 the fertility rate ranged from 2.3 in Morocco to 6.6 in Niger, while the US stats show only 1.8.
• The average age difference between an African mail order wife and her US husband is usually around 6–9 years. So, we can say that the age gap isn't a problem for a typical African woman, and many choose to date older men.
• The success rate of marriages with women from African countries is 80%. That is significantly higher than local marriages in the US, as in 2022, we saw a 40% to 50% divorce rate.

As we can see from the statistics, foreign men have shown increasing interest in beautiful women from Africa. And African mail order wives, on average, tend to start families earlier in their lives and have bigger families.

Expert POV on African Mail Order Brides

Sarah Wright

Author

Adam Cohen

Editor

International relationships with women from South Africa are more common than many people think. US men adore the beauty of mail order brides from Africa, and such relationships work because African-American couples have good chemistry. Men want bigger families and not career-oriented wives, which is something girls from South Africa can give. In addition, many girls don’t mind starting a family in their early 20s, and 10 years difference is not a problem.

A western world is exploring South Africa as a potential bride destination, as there are many ladies who want to get married to a foreign man, the cost of getting a foreign wife is much cheaper than it has ever been, and it takes only a few months. Also, a woman from South Africa makes a great match for a western man, as they are very different from western women—they prioritize family and are less demanding.

African Brides Scams—Help Your Money to Stay in Your Pocket

Unfortunately, no site in the world can claim to be 100% scammer-free. In 2021, FTC reported more than $547M in losses to online romance scams. That's why all singles who are considering searching for a partner in South Africa should learn those common scam schemes.

Conclusion

After our deep dive into African brides, we can say that searching for a bride in South Africa will work for you if you prefer the traditional division of gender roles, don't mind exploring a new culture, and want to start a family and don't play around the bush. But if you want a girl with a more westernized mindset, choose a lady from a European country.

FAQ

Sources of Information

1. travel.state.gov (FY 2019)
2. travel.state.gov (FY 2020)
3. travel.state.gov (FY 2021)
4. cis.org
5. wikipedia.org (Age at first marriage)
6. wikipedia.org (Total fertility rate)
7. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
8. divorce.com
9. fool.com

Paul Bloom

Author

The creative jewel of our writing team, Paul Bloom, brings psychology into action and writes expert blog posts, recommendations, and top dating site reviews. Paul makes a comprehensive analysis of current dating trends and analyses them from a psychology perspective to create content that can help you meet a foreign partner, charm a girl you like, and build a happy relationship.

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