Where the visa stands
On 6 September 2026 the GCC secretary-general said the visa would arrive soon, without naming a date. A separate UAE and Bahrain scheme, running since February 2026, pre-clears GCC citizens. It is not this visa.
What it costs to hop between them
| Gulf city | Return from | Flight time |
|---|---|---|
| RiyadhSaudi Arabia | USD 108 | 1h 55m |
| DohaQatar | USD 450 | 1h 15m |
| ManamaBahrain | USD 321 | 1h 30m |
| Kuwait CityKuwait | USD 177 | 2h 00m |
| MuscatOman | USD 216 | 1h 10m |
| Gulf city | Return from | Flight time |
|---|---|---|
| DubaiUnited Arab Emirates | USD 108 | 1h 45m |
| DohaQatar | USD 192 | 1h 25m |
| ManamaBahrain | USD 198 | 1h 10m |
| Kuwait CityKuwait | USD 164 | 1h 20m |
| MuscatOman | USD 231 | 2h 00m |
| Gulf city | Return from | Flight time |
|---|---|---|
| DubaiUnited Arab Emirates | USD 276 | 1h 10m |
| RiyadhSaudi Arabia | USD 207 | 1h 25m |
| ManamaBahrain | USD 318 | 1h 00m |
| Kuwait CityKuwait | USD 228 | 1h 20m |
| MuscatOman | USD 233 | 1h 30m |
| Gulf city | Return from | Flight time |
|---|---|---|
| DubaiUnited Arab Emirates | USD 294 | 1h 15m |
| RiyadhSaudi Arabia | USD 165 | 1h 15m |
| DohaQatar | USD 191 | 0h 55m |
| Kuwait CityKuwait | USD 142 | 1h 10m |
| MuscatOman | USD 278 | 1h 45m |
Kuwait City is the cheapest of the other five, from USD 142 return.
| Gulf city | Return from | Flight time |
|---|---|---|
| DubaiUnited Arab Emirates | USD 168 | 2h 15m |
| RiyadhSaudi Arabia | USD 187 | 1h 20m |
| DohaQatar | USD 185 | 1h 20m |
| ManamaBahrain | USD 142 | 1h 15m |
| MuscatOman | USD 223 | 2h 00m |
Manama is the cheapest of the other five, from USD 142 return.
| Gulf city | Return from | Flight time |
|---|---|---|
| DubaiUnited Arab Emirates | USD 214 | 1h 10m |
| RiyadhSaudi Arabia | USD 247 | 2h 30m |
| DohaQatar | USD 231 | 1h 40m |
| ManamaBahrain | USD 232 | 1h 45m |
| Kuwait CityKuwait | USD 221 | 2h 25m |
Every pair of Gulf capitals is flown nonstop, so a second country is a short hop rather than a second trip. Nothing on the board is longer than 2h 30m in the air.
Who it is for
Much of the point is the people already here: the visa targets the Gulf’s millions of foreign residents. Citizens of the six are out of scope, because they already cross freely. A resident of one Gulf state still applies to each of the others separately today.
Nothing official has been published. Expect to be asked for:
- A passport with at least six months left on it
- Somewhere to stay, booked
- A return or onward ticket
- Travel medical insurance
What to do until it launches
Apply to each country separately, as you do now. The UAE portal and the Saudi eVisa platform cover most travellers. Rules differ sharply by nationality, so check your own passport. Our comparison with the national eVisas has more.
Questions
When will the GCC unified tourist visa launch?
No launch date has been set. On 6 September 2026 the GCC secretary-general said only that it would come soon. Earlier reports of a late-2026 pilot referred to a different scheme.
How much will the GCC unified visa cost?
No fee has been published. Figures circulating in the region, usually quoted as roughly USD 90 to USD 130, have never been confirmed by any GCC government, so treat them as unofficial.
I live in the GCC. Will this cover me?
That is the intention. Officials have said the visa is aimed at visitors and at expatriates resident in a member state, so a resident of one Gulf country would use it to visit the other five on a single permit.
Is the UAE and Bahrain travel scheme the same thing?
No. The One-Point Air Travellers project, live between Abu Dhabi and Bahrain since February 2026, lets GCC citizens clear immigration before departure. It does not cover foreign visitors and it is not the tourist visa.
Which countries will it cover?
All six GCC members: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. Every one of them has signed up to the scheme in principle.
Sources
- Khaleej Times, the secretary-general’s 6 September 2026 remarks and the distinction from the pre-clearance project, retrieved 9 September 2026.
- Gulf Today, the February 2026 launch of the UAE and Bahrain pre-clearance pilot, retrieved 9 September 2026.
- UAE Government Portal, current UAE entry and visa requirements, retrieved 9 September 2026.
- Saudi Tourism Authority, the official Saudi eVisa platform, retrieved 9 September 2026.
- Gulf News, that the visa targets foreign residents in the GCC and the UAE economy minister’s remarks on resident mobility, published 22 September 2025, retrieved 9 September 2026.
- Wego flight search, sampled 9 September 2026 in USD.
How these figures were produced
- Thirty searches, every ordered pair of the six GCC capitals, run on 9 September 2026 for a three-night economy return departing 10 November 2026, one adult. Each search was polled until it settled.
- Only nonstop flights were counted. Searching by price alone surfaces coach-and-flight products that leave from a city bus station rather than the airport, and connections that take a day or more between cities under two hours apart. Neither is a real option for this trip, so both are excluded.
- Each origin was searched on its own market site and priced in one currency at search time rather than converted afterwards. That is why a route can differ by direction: the same pair is quoted to a departing traveller in each market.
- The window is a sample, not a recommendation. Because the visa has no launch date, no date is carried into any link on this page: every fare link opens a live route search you can set your own dates on.
- Fares are the lowest return found at the moment of sampling and will have moved since. They price the flight only, and say nothing about what any visa will cost.
Disclaimer: We’ve worked hard to make sure the information in this article is as accurate and up to date as possible at the time of publishing. Travel details such as prices, schedules, visa rules, and entry requirements can change at short notice, so it remains your responsibility to verify the current details with official sources before you book or travel. Wego accepts no liability for any loss or inconvenience arising from the use of this content.
