Dubai Visa on Arrival

It depends only on your passport and any other residence permits you hold. GCC citizens need nothing. Some nationalities get 90 days on arrival, others 30 days with a 10-day grace period. Indian passport holders with a valid US visa, green card, or UK or EU residence visa get 14 days. Check the current lists on the UAE government portal, u.ae, before you book.

For the main 30-day and 90-day routes the UAE government portal states no fee. For the newest route — nationals of Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, the Philippines, Kenya and South Africa holding a qualifying residence permit — the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states AED 100 for the 14-day visa and AED 250 for the 60-day.

We deliberately do not publish the list, because it changes and copied lists go stale. The UAE government portal u.ae holds the current one. What we will repeat is the recent expansion: Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, the Philippines, Kenya and South Africa, conditional on holding a residence permit from the US, an EU member state, the UK, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.

Yes, with a condition. The UAE government states Indian nationals holding a valid US visit visa, US green card, UK residence visa or EU residence visa can get a visa on arrival for “a maximum stay of 14 days provided that the visas or the green card is valid for at least six months from the date of arrival into the UAE”. Without one of those, you need a visa arranged in advance.

At least six months. The UAE government states “Passports must be valid for at least 6 months from the date of entry into the UAE.” Airlines check this at check-in rather than on arrival, so a short-dated passport ends the trip before you board.

It depends which one. The 30-day route comes with “a 10-day grace period for extension”. Of the new fee-paying visas, the 14-day “may be extended once while the holder is in the UAE”, while the 60-day “is issued for a single stay and is not extendable”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states “An overstay fine of AED 50 per day will apply”. It is per person and accrues daily, so a family overstaying a week is a meaningful amount. Know whether your route has a grace period before you plan a long trip.

We checked the UAE government portal and it publishes no such rule and no cash-in-hand threshold. The figure circulates widely without a source. Immigration officers anywhere may ask how you will support yourself, and a return ticket plus a hotel booking answers that. If someone quotes you an exact amount, ask which government page it came from.

Not if you stay airside and never clear immigration. If you want to leave the airport and you are not eligible for visa on arrival, you need a 48 or 96-hour transit visa arranged through your airline before you fly.

If you are eligible, yes, clearly. It is longer, free or cheaper, and needs no arrangement before you fly. The transit visa exists for travellers who are not eligible for visa on arrival but still want to leave the airport on a connection.

Neither is stated as a formal requirement on the UAE government portal, but both are what you would show if asked how you intend to support yourself and when you intend to leave. Having them on your phone costs nothing and removes the question.

For the new six-nationality route, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that accompanying family members of eligible nationals may also apply. For the other routes each traveller is assessed on their own passport, so check every member of the party separately rather than assuming.

Yes. Entry is granted to the United Arab Emirates, not to one emirate, so a visa obtained at Dubai International lets you travel on to Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and the rest without anything further.

The UAE Government portal at u.ae, and your airline. Those are the two that matter, and they are the only two we would rely on. Any travel site publishing a country list without a checked date, including this one if we published one, should be treated as out of date.

It depends on your passport. The UAE government portal states that citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council countries do not require a visa, a permit or a sponsor, and may enter on a GCC passport or national ID, while citizens of many other countries do not require advance visa arrangements and are stamped in on arrival (u.ae, read 17 August). Emirates describes three tiers of visa on arrival, of thirty days, ninety days and a longer multiple-entry option for Mexican passport holders (emirates.com, read 17 August). The portal warns the lists change, so confirm with a UAE embassy before flying.

Airlines publish the working lists. Emirates groups them into a thirty-day free stamp for a short list that includes Andorra, Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Mauritius, a ninety-day multiple-entry stamp for around fifty nationalities including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and most European Union states, and a longer multiple-entry stamp for Mexican passport holders (emirates.com, read 17 August). flydubai publishes the same three groupings (flydubai.com, read 17 August). The government portal notes the lists vary from time to time, so treat any list as a snapshot.

Thirty or ninety days, depending on your passport. The UAE government portal describes the shorter stamp as thirty days with a ten-day grace period for extension (u.ae, read 17 August). Emirates says the ninety-day stamp is valid for six months from the date of issue and for a stay of ninety days in total, so those days can be split across more than one trip (emirates.com, read 17 August). The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office frames the same entitlement for British travellers as up to ninety days within a one hundred and eighty day period, counted from first entry (gov.uk, read 17 August).

For most eligible nationalities, yes. flydubai states plainly that your passport will be stamped with a free-of-charge thirty-day visit visa on arrival, and the ninety-day stamp is likewise issued without charge (flydubai.com, read 17 August). A fee only appears in specific cases, such as the shorter stamp available to some Indian passport holders, where flydubai confirms a visa issuance fee applies. Because it is free, there is nothing to buy in advance and no reason to pay anyone for the stamp itself. If a site wants money for a free stamp, walk away.

Some can. The UAE government portal states that an Indian citizen holding a normal passport, together with a visit visa issued by the United States, a United States green card, or a residence visa issued by the United Kingdom or the European Union, can obtain a visa on arrival for a maximum stay of fourteen days, provided the visa or green card is valid for at least six months from the date of arrival (u.ae, read 17 August). flydubai describes it as a single-entry fourteen-day stamp with an issuance fee (flydubai.com, read 17 August). Without those documents, arrange a visa before flying.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that ordinary passport holders from Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Kenya and South Africa may receive a visa on arrival if they hold a valid residence permit issued by the United States, a European Union member state, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Two options are described, a fourteen-day visa costing one hundred dirhams that may be extended once inside the country, and a sixty-day visa costing two hundred and fifty dirhams that is not extendable (mofa.gov.ae, read 17 August).

Six. The UAE government portal states that passports must be valid for at least six months from the date of entry into the UAE (u.ae, read 17 August). The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office puts the same rule from the British side, saying your passport must have an expiry date at least six months after the date you arrive (gov.uk, read 17 August). flydubai repeats the six-month minimum measured from the date of travel (flydubai.com, read 17 August). Airlines apply this at check-in, so a passport with five months left can end a trip before it starts.

Sometimes, and the official sources are not identical here. The UAE government portal describes the thirty-day stamp as carrying a ten-day grace period for extension (u.ae, read 17 August), while Emirates states flatly that the thirty-day visa on arrival cannot be extended (emirates.com, read 17 August). We follow the government portal, because entry rules are set by the authorities rather than by carriers. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office says extensions are handled by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai and by the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship elsewhere (gov.uk, read 17 August).

Overstaying is charged by the day. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announcing the newly eligible nationalities, states an overstay fine of fifty dirhams per day (mofa.gov.ae, read 17 August). The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office puts it more generally, warning that you could face fines for exceeding your authorised stay and that these may accumulate for each day of overstay (gov.uk, read 17 August). We publish no other figure, because published amounts change and only the immigration authority can confirm what you owe. Count your days from the entry stamp, not from your booking dates.

Often, yes. Dubai Airports states that smart gate users include UAE and GCC nationals, UAE residents and visa-on-arrival guests holding biometric passports, and adds that you need to be registered, noting that guests who have recently arrived are likely to have been registered at the immigration touchpoint on entry (dubaiairports.ae, read 17 August). It directs travellers to the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs to check individual eligibility. Zayed International Airport describes a biometric eGate built on a profile combining passport, flight and facial data, but says the rollout is phased (zayedinternationalairport.ae, read 17 August).

Yes. Entry is granted to the United Arab Emirates rather than to a single emirate, which is why the government portal publishes one national set of rules (u.ae, read 17 August) and why the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office splits extensions between the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai and the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship for the rest of the country (gov.uk, read 17 August). So a stamp taken at Dubai International Airport covers a day in Abu Dhabi. Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque entry is free with a pre-booked online access pass (szgmc.gov.ae, read 17 August).

Usually not, and we will not take your money for it. For most eligible nationalities the stamp is issued free at the counter (flydubai.com, read 17 August), and the rules are published openly by the government portal (u.ae, read 17 August). We are a DCT-licensed Abu Dhabi tour operator, not a visa agent, and we neither process nor sell visas. If you genuinely need a pre-arranged visa, your airline or a UAE embassy is the right route. Some operators and the large booking platforms bundle visa handling into packages, which suits people who want one invoice rather than the cheapest path.

Dubai Customs sets eighteen as the minimum age to carry an alcohol allowance, and that allowance is four litres, or two cartons of twenty-four cans of up to three hundred and fifty-five millilitres, while the UAE drinking age is twenty-one (dubaicustoms.gov.ae, read 17 August). The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office warns there are strict rules about what medications you can bring, that controlled substances need approval from the Ministry of Health, that visitors may carry up to three months’ supply, and that it is illegal to bring in pork products or pornography (gov.uk, read 17 August).

You can, and nothing is at risk if you do. We take no deposit and no booking fee, payment happens on the day, and cancellation is free up to twelve hours before pickup, so a refused or delayed entry costs you nothing with us. Private tours are priced per vehicle rather than per head, so children add nothing to the fare. That said, if your entry is genuinely uncertain, do not prepay anywhere, including with the large booking platforms, where money often leaves your account at the moment you click confirm.

Follow the authority that owns the rule, and prefer its live page over any downloadable document. Entry conditions belong to the UAE government portal and the immigration authorities, so where an airline page and the portal disagree about extending a thirty-day stamp, we follow the portal (u.ae, read 17 August). The same logic applies to attractions: the live visiting hours page for Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque gives nine in the morning to eight thirty in the evening, with a Friday split, and we follow it over an older terms document on the same domain (szgmc.gov.ae, read 17 August).