Monday 10 / March / 2025
Muscat: New signboards have been installed at Oman-UAE road borders informing that visa-on-arrival requests for residents of GCC will be processed electronically and manual processes have been discontinued.
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However, this doesn’t apply to nationalities of around 46 countries having a treaty with the UAE, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, Germany or the European Union countries. Citizens of these countries have a choice between visa-on-arrival or applying for a visa online.
Embassy officials of these coun-tries also confirmed to Times of Oman that citizens of these countries don’t require an e-visa to visit UAE. “Our citizens don’t require an e-visa before travelling,” confirmed a senior official of Italy Embassy in Muscat.
Frequent travellers, however, said that Hatta border was providing visa-on-arrival even when the airlines had completely stopped it from April 29, 2016.
“But from June 15 they stopped completely and even put up sign boards at the Hatta border,” said Indian expat, who travelled to Dubai this weekend.
He said that many travellers were turned down at the border as they were not carrying the e-visa.
“They are just not entertaining anybody without e-visa,” he added.
Effective from April 29, 2016 all the Gulf Coopertaion Council (GCC) residents/permit holders requires an on-line visa prior to their travel to Unite Arab Emirates (UAE) which is applicable at all airports in the Emirates plus border entry points from the Sultanate of Oman.
The cost of Dubai e-visa is around OMR25 but if the airlines or the travel agents are arranging then they is asking for little more to process the visa.
“Then we have to pay around OMR 4 as exit fees while leaving UAE. So travelling to Dubai has really becoming an expensive affair,” one of them said.
