Oman visa-free entry and e-visa: 14 days free, 30 days for OMR 20

A trip to Oman of two weeks or less needs no visa for citizens of more than 100 countries. You land in Muscat, show a passport, a return ticket, a hotel booking and proof of health insurance, and the stay is free for up to 14 days.

The rule has a hard edge, though. Fourteen days means fourteen days, the exemption comes with conditions that officers can check, and a longer trip needs an e-visa from the Royal Oman Police before you travel.

Oman's Foreign Ministry sets out the exemption in one sentence: "visitors from more than 100 countries and regions are exempt from entry visas for stays up to 14 days." The same page then prints the controls that go with it.

The source is the ministry's Entry visas page, last updated on 22 September 2026. It names the Royal Oman Police as the body that manages visas and sends everyone who needs one to the police eVisa portal. Other governments describe the same rule from the traveler's side. The UK's Oman entry requirements say "You can visit Oman for up to 14 days without a visa", and Canada's page lists a tourism visa as not required for stays up to 14 days.

On the police portal the exemption appears as its own visa subtype, "Free Entry for 14 Days", inside the tourist visit visa category. Its detail page gives the length of stay as 14 days.

The ministry splits the exempt countries into two groups, and the difference between them is large.

The first group has 78 entries, and its citizens need nothing beyond the standard conditions. It includes the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the countries of the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, China (with Hong Kong and Macau), Russia, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

The second group has 24 entries, among them India, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Vietnam, Mexico and Peru. Citizens of these countries get the 14 days only with an extra qualification. The ministry's text says they must "be either residents or have a valid entry visa" for the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, a Schengen country or Japan, or be residents of a Gulf Cooperation Council country in one of the professions that qualify. An Indian traveler with a valid US visa meets that test, for example, and one without such a visa or residence does not.

Two more points come from the same page. A husband, wife and children benefit from the exemption "even if they are not nationals of the country", so a family is not split by passports. And citizens of the other Gulf Cooperation Council states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) do not need visas for Oman at all.

If your country is on neither list

You need a visa before you travel. The ministry points to the police portal's eligibility wizard, which asks for your nationality and whether you live in a Gulf state, then shows the visa types open to you. The portal also has a separate class of sponsored visit visas, arranged through a sponsor in Oman, for cases the unsponsored types do not cover.

The exemption is conditional, so think of it as four documents and a date. The date is your passport's expiry: at least six months of validity, which the UK and Canadian pages count from the day you arrive. The documents are a return ticket, a confirmed hotel reservation, health insurance and evidence that you can pay for the stay.

The UK page turns the list into a border check: at Omani border control you must be able to show a ticket for return or onward travel, proof of accommodation such as a hotel booking, and proof of travel health insurance. Australia's page lists the same items for its citizens and adds that you need insurance for the full length of the stay.

For a road trip, the hotel condition needs a little thought. A booking for the first nights in Muscat plus confirmations for the later stops, for example in Nizwa or Salalah, is the cleanest way to show a plan. Keep them on your phone and on paper, with the return ticket. The travel insurance guides cover the policy side.

Who should not rely on the free entry

Skip the exemption and apply for a visa if any of these describe your trip: you might stay a fifteenth day, your flight home is flexible or not yet booked, you are from a second-group country and your qualifying visa expires before you arrive, or you plan to leave Oman and come back and want certainty about the second entry. In each case a paid visa issued in advance removes the doubt.

For more than 14 days you need a visa, and for tourists the ministry says the Tourist Visit Visa (Unsponsored) "will usually be appropriate". The police portal describes that category as granted "for a period of ten (10) days, fourteen (14) days or one month". These are the subtypes that matter to most travelers, with the fees shown on each subtype's detail page:

Group 1 is the portal's own list of countries eligible for an unsponsored visit visa, linked from the eligibility wizard. The 26M and 26N subtypes are for people "in the list of allowed nationalities" who hold a valid Schengen visa or a valid visa for the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia or Japan, and the portal asks for a copy of that visa. For Moroccan nationals it accepts only a Schengen visa issued in Morocco.

The conditions repeat the visa-free ones. For the 30-day and one-year visas the portal lists a passport valid for at least 6 months on entry, a valid hotel booking in Oman and a return ticket. The applicant must be outside Oman when applying and must not hold another current Oman visa, and the portal states that these visas cannot be changed to a work visa inside the country.

Which one should you choose?

The decision is mostly arithmetic. Up to 14 days, and you meet the conditions: pay nothing. From 15 to 30 days: the 26B visa at OMR 20. The 10-day 26A visa at OMR 5 is shorter than the free entry, so it only makes sense for a traveler who is eligible for it but not for the exemption.

The one-year multiple-entry visa costs the same as two and a half 30-day visas, so it pays for itself on the third long visit in a year. Each visit on it is still capped at one month, and the portal says the stay on this visa cannot be extended. It suits someone based in the Gulf who returns to Oman several times a year more than a one-off visitor.

The only official site is evisa.rop.gov.om, run by the Royal Oman Police. Check the address before you type card details anywhere: the fees above are the government fees, and any site charging more is adding its own service charge for the same form.

The portal's application guide sets out the steps. You register with an email address, which becomes your username, and log in. You choose "Apply for a Visa" and then "Apply for Unsponsored Visa", and the eligibility wizard asks for your nationality, the purpose of your visit and whether you live in a Gulf Cooperation Council country. The results show the subtypes you are eligible for, the fee, the length of stay and the conditions.

From there you enter your passport details exactly as they appear in the travel document, add the further details the form asks for, and upload the attachments. The portal lists a digital photograph of the applicant and a copy of the passport for the tourist types, plus a copy of the qualifying visa for 26M and 26N. You confirm the details, add other travelers to the same application if needed, then submit and pay by card. The guide ends with a payment receipt, and you can follow the application under "Find Visa Application" after logging in.

Two details are easy to miss. Before payment the portal shows a notice that the visa fee is non-refundable and that paying does not guarantee a visa will be issued, so check names, passport number and dates first. The guide says the decision, or a request for more information, arrives by email and SMS. And each tourist subtype shows a "use by period" of one month on its detail page, so do not apply many months ahead; check the entry deadline printed on the visa you receive. For questions, the ministry lists the eVisa call centre on 80080011 inside Oman and +968 22848200 from abroad.

Visa on arrival

A visa at the airport still exists. Canada's page says you can obtain and pay for a visa on arrival at Muscat International Airport, and the UK's says you can get a visit visa on arrival at an airport in Oman. Both mention the e-visa in the same breath, and the UK page gives the reason to prefer it: "To avoid the risk of refusal, it's better to apply for a visa online before you travel". Australia's page makes the same recommendation.

Under the exemption rules there is nothing to extend: the ministry's text says the 14 days "cannot be extended or transferred to any type of residence visa", and Australia's page warns that you need to leave before the end of the 14 days to avoid penalties.

Paid tourist visas are more flexible. For the 26A and 26B subtypes the portal says the first extension of stay "can be done by the applicant", that second and later extensions "can only be done by visiting a DGPCS office", and that the extension allowed "is the same as the original visa". If you think you may need more time, that alone is a reason to buy the 30-day visa and not to gamble on the free entry.

Overstaying is priced per day. The portal lists a fine of OMR 10 for each day of overstay on these visas. The UK page describes fines of up to 10 Omani rials a day with a total maximum of 500 rials, and adds that the authorities "may fine and detain you". Do not count on a missed flight being excused: leave a margin of a day or two at the end of a 14-day plan.

Some Oman trips start in Dubai, with a drive to Musandam or across the border toward Muscat. The ministry's rules make no distinction between airports and land posts, so carry the same four documents to a road crossing. The UK and Australian advice pages currently carry warnings about regional tensions, so read your own government's page before a border drive. The United Arab Emirates guide covers the other side of the border.

The police portal lists two visa types built for this route. The Dubai / Oman Common Visa is for a person on the list of eligible nationalities who entered Dubai on a tourist visa and travels directly to Oman. The portal shows no fee for it and a stay of 21 days that cannot be extended. The traveler must arrive from Dubai at the Al-Wajajah land crossing, at Muscat airport or at a seaport, and the Dubai visa must still have 21 days of validity on entry to Oman.

The GCC Resident Visa is for foreign residents of Gulf states in approved professions. The portal lists a fee of OMR 5, a stay of 4 weeks with an extension of 1 week, and a requirement that the Gulf residency has at least 6 months left on entry to Oman. If neither type fits, the ordinary rules above apply.

The first mistake is planning 15 nights on a 14-day entry. Count the arrival day and the departure day, and buy the 30-day visa if the total is close. The second is arriving without the paperwork: the hotel booking, the return ticket and the insurance certificate are conditions of the exemption, not suggestions.

The third is a second-group traveler relying on a US, UK or Schengen visa that has expired or will expire before the trip. The fourth is paying a look-alike website several times the government fee. The fifth is a passport with less than six months left, which fails both the exemption and every visa type on the portal. Remember too that a visa is not a guarantee: the portal states that entry is "at the discretion of the Royal Oman Police officer at the port of entry."

In August 2026 Oman wrote the free 14-day stay into its visa regulations. The Foreign Ministry reported on 3 August that a decision by the Inspector General of Police and Customs added "a 14-day tourist visa that may be granted by the competent authority to nationals of countries designated by the authority", listed in the fee schedule as a separate category free of charge. The decision was published in the Official Gazette on 2 August 2026 and took effect the following day.

The same decision allows holders of the new 14-day visa to replace it, before it expires, with one of the other tourist visa categories, subject to the requirements and fees of that category. The ministry's entry visas page, updated in September, still says that the 14 days cannot be extended or transferred. Until the two texts line up, treat a switch inside Oman as something to confirm with the eVisa call centre, and not as a plan. With the entry sorted, the Salalah in 3 days itinerary and the connectivity guide are good next steps.