Egypt Visa and Entry Requirements

Egypt is comparatively relaxed about letting people in. Most nationalities can buy a visa on arrival, and there is an official portal that will sell you one before you fly. The complications are at the edges: one resort has its own rules, one passport requirement is stricter than you might assume, and one of the arrival options is changing.

Who needs a visa

Assume you do. Most visitors to Egypt, American and British passport holders among them, need a visa. The exemptions are narrow and depend on the passport you actually travel on rather than where you live.

There are three routes. The government e-visa portal issues a tourist visa online before travel, valid for up to three months. An Egyptian embassy or consulate will issue one in person or by post. Or you can buy one at a kiosk on arrival at the airport, which is what most tourists do.

The arrival kiosk, and what is changing

The kiosk sits before immigration and sells a visa valid for up to thirty days. It has historically wanted cash in dollars, which is a detail worth arriving prepared for rather than discovering in the line.

Since 1 August 2026 Cairo airport has also offered a digital visa on arrival: you buy it online or at a kiosk in the arrivals hall, pay by Visa or Mastercard, and show the QR code it gives you at passport control. The code is valid for seven days from issue, and for now it works only at Cairo, not at the Red Sea or Luxor airports. The fee is published by the authorities and is deliberately not repeated here, because a figure in prose is wrong the moment it is revised and you would have no way to tell.

The e-visa costs a little more effort and removes the line and the cash. For a first visit, it is the calmer option.

The Sharm El-Sheikh exception

There is one genuine carve out and it catches people in both directions. If you arrive BY AIR at Sharm El-Sheikh, stay under fifteen days, and remain within the listed resort area, you do not need a visa at all: you are given a free entry permission stamp on arrival.

Stay longer than that, or travel outside the resort area, and you need a visa like everybody else. That includes a day trip inland. People do get caught by it, having understood the stamp to be a visa.

Your passport

Egypt wants at least six months of validity beyond your date of arrival, which is the stricter of the two common standards, and at least one blank page. Six months is measured from when you land rather than when you leave, so a passport that would comfortably see you home may still not be accepted.