Last Updated: October 1, 2023
Egypt is an awesome country to visit, with so many Ancient Egyptian Sites to explore and a wide variety of areas to discover.
We highly recommend not just heading to the tourist spots for short duration, but to stay a while and unearth all of the hidden gems Egypt has to offer.
With this in mind it’s worth thinking about entry requirements and how long you can and want to stay for. There are a few different options in terms of entry and visas. And you might even want to consider extending your visa to stay even longer.
It can be a little confusing about which route is best. So we’ve tried to unpick all the various options and give some advice on what we learnt from our long term stays in Egypt.
Disclaimer: The below is not official advice, but is advice from our own personal experiences. Whilst we strive for accuracy, official requirements can differ and change regularly at short notice. Please check your country’s and Egypt’s official governing body for the official exit/entry and visa requirements.
Covid-19 Requirements for Entering Egypt
Egypt removed all of it’s Covid-19 entry requirements. So you will no longer need to show a negative test or proof of vaccination or fill in a declaration form as previously required.
Covid-19 requirements can come back at short notice, so ensure you check Egypt’s and your country’s official governing bodies to ensure they have not returned before you depart.
Entering Egypt On a Visa Waiver
For most areas of Egypt you will likely need a visa. The exception to this the South Sinai Red Sea Resorts, such as Sharm El-Sheikh. These allow a 15 day entry stamp, without the need for a visa.
This applies to most U.S, Canadian, European and Australian passport holders amongst a number of other countries.
You can only stay in the South Sinai area if you go down this route though, and must leave before your 15 days are up. If you do change your mind and want to stay longer or move around, you may have to apply for a visa at the Sharm El Sheikh airport.
Entering Egypt with a Visa on Arrival
If you are heading to another area of Egypt and/or want to stay longest than 15 days, then you will normally require a tourist visa. This applies to most countries. There are a handful of countries that are exceptions, that you can check out on the visa page (link below).
For the single entry visa, this can be done on arrival (for most countries) at the main airports. Such as Cairo, Luxor, Alexandria, Hurghada, Marsa Alam and Sharm El Sheikh.
This allows one visit for up to 30 days. The cost is currently 25 USD and ideally you should pay in U.S Dollars, although they may allow other currencies.
Some people may approach you to try to ‘help’ you with the visa application acting as an agent. But just walk on by and head straight to the official kiosks to get the documents and instructions to fill in.
Entering Egypt with an e-Visa
The alternative to doing a visa on arrival is getting an e-visa, which can be done online before you leave on the Egypt e-Visa Portal.
This is certainly the method we would advise. Doing the e-visa means you don’t have que up and sort the visa when you land. And if, on the off chance, your visa on arrival is rejected you might have to turn around and head back, wasting an expensive flight!
The e-Visa gives the same length of time you can stay in the country (30 days).
Don’t get confused with the validity of the visa. The e-Visa will state it is valid for 90 days, this does not mean you can stay in Egypt for 90 days. It just means you can apply in advance for the e-Vis as it is valid for 90 days to be used. But one you enter the country you still only have 30 days to stay, or up to when you’re e-Visa validity expires, whichever is sooner.
In addition to the single entry e-visa you also have an option for a multi-entry e-Visa. Multi-entry allow for multiple visits over a 180 day period for up to 30 days each visit. The multi-entry visa can only be done online before travel, there is no option to do it on entry for this one.
It’s pretty straight forward to do the e-visa. You fill in the usual basic info upload a photo and pay your fee which is the same as the visa on arrival at 25 USD. Most foreign debit and credit cards work no problem.
Uploading the attachments can sometimes be tricky, as there is a very low limit on file size. So try to reduce any image file sizes using some photo software if you can.
The result usually comes back in a day or two, but give yourself a week to be sure.
All passengers (including children) will need the e-visa or visa on arrival.
In all cases above (including if you do the visa waiver) you will need 6 months validity on your passports for every traveller (adults and children). So make sure you check them all before you jet off!
Extending your Egyptian Visa
If you want to stay in Egypt longer than 30 days, then you will need to extend your visa whilst in Egypt. You cannot do this online unfortunately, and it can be a tedious process. But it’s well worth the effort if you want to stay in Egypt for a long duration.
You will need to do it at one of the Egyptian Passport and Immigration Offices. These offices are found in most major areas.
You may need to take multiple trips for the process over a good couple of weeks, so you will need to stay in one place for a reasonable length of time or head back there for each stage of the process.
You must start the extension process before your visa runs out. Ideally a good week or so before it does so you can get it finalised before your expiry date.
New Rules as of the 15th September 2023
Egypt has recently bough in some quite annoying new rules for long term stays. This is still very confusing at the moment, but we’ve done a lot of research on this and we also did a visa extension after the new rules came into place and here’s what we discovered;
1. To pay for the visa extension, you have to change US Dollars, Euros or equivalent into Egyptian Pound at a bank first before you apply.
You will pay in Egyptian pound at the visa office, but you have to have a receipt with you name and passport number on it to show you have used foreign currency to gain the Egyptian Pound to pay for the visa. This receipt should be no older than 2 weeks.
The Egyptian government seems to want foreign currency circulating in the banks, hence whey they have added this step. You have to go into a bank with your passport and foreign currency to do this, simply getting a receipt from an ATM will not suffice.
You need to get an official receipt with the one of the Egyptian Banks such as National Bank of Egypt, CIB or Banque Misr. Make sure they stamp it and your name and passport number is clearly on the receipt. Do not take no for an answer from the bank on this. Even if they say ‘you don’t need a name or passport number’ or an ‘ATM receipt is ok’, it is not! We saw many people being turned away from the visa office on this basis.
2. The fines are increasing up to and over 1,000 USD if leaving Egypt without an in date visa.
Often people don’t bother with the process of extending the visa if they are only overstaying their initial 30 day visa by a few weeks or even months as often the fine you pay at the airport is about the same price and quicker than doing the visa process.
The Egyptian government wants to clamp down on this and so they are increasing the fines roughly ten fold with additional fines for lengthy overstays.
However, there does seem to be an ambiguous grace period of 3 months from when the new rules came in that means this won’t be enforced for a while to allow everyone to get things sorted. But, as with all grace periods, they can be revoked, so probably better to sort the visa out before you get to the airport if you can.
3. You need to pay in foreign currency at the airport for the overstay fines.
Similar to the new rule for the visa extension, if you overstay and need to pay a fine you will need to change foreign currency such as USD or Euros into EGP, get a receipt and then pay the Egyptian pounds at the desk to pay the fine. This can all be done at the airport. If you are going to pay at the airport, take some foreign currency with you or do the exchange before you get there and have your receipt, or better yet both!
Extending your Egyptian Visa in Luxor
So, after looking at these new rules, which are applied everywhere, we can take a look at how to extend your visa in variace places once you’ve jumped through the initial hoops.
Luxor can be a good choice for carrying out the process.
Luxor is an incredible place to visit with so many things to do, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t want to say a while here whilst you carry out the visa process.
Stage 1 – Getting the Passport Stamp
The first bit of the process is to head to the Egyptian Passport and Immigration Office, which is located at khaled ibn El Walid Street, on the East Bank of Luxor. Not far from the Nile. Once you head in just tell the advisor that you need to extend your visa and want a 6 month (or you can try for a year if you want longer) extension.
They may ask a few questions so just answer them sensibly and then they should ask for your passports.
On this first day all you will do is get a stamp in your passport. It will go next to your entry stamp and just adds an additional date to show when your visa expires.
It’s an annoying formality, but you need it before you head to the residential office, which will be the next stage.
Stage 2 – Acquiring Residential Contract
The next stage will require you to get a contract for your residence to show where you will stay for the duration of your stay.
So if you are renting an apartment you will need to speak to your landlord/owner as they will need to come to the Residential Office with you to get the contract and sign it.
They may charge a fee for this or may not. Most are pretty happy to just agree a 6 month or 1 year contract without you having to actually commit to it. So then you can still move on if you decide not to stay in that place the whole time.
The Residential Office is a completely separate entity to the passport office and so the building will not be in the same place. Depending on where you are staying will determine where you head. We were staying on the West Bank so the residential office we required was on the west side of the Nile for us. Again, your landlord should know where to go.
You will also need to take an Translator with you. This doesn’t mean just finding someone off the streets who can speak English. They need to be a registered translator with an ID card to show this. Your landlord will likely have a contact, but if not you can get in touch with us and we will try to help you out. Again, it’s just a formality, they don’t really do much other than sign the form.
Once you have your contract sorted it’s now time to go back to the Passport Office with the contract in hand.
Stage 3 – Paperwork, Fingerprints and Photos
This second visit to the passport office will require a fair bit more admin. You will fill out yet more paper work and have fingerprints and phots taken. You will need copies of your e-visa, the photo pages of your passport and the Egypt stamps page of the passport.
There is a photo copies and printer in the Passport Office that you can get copies and print things for a small fee if you don’t already have them.
This bit of the process can take a good few hours, especially if the passport office is busy. You sometimes have to be a bit pushy to get it done. So be firm, but fair when you are at the office.
Once they say it’s complete you will pay the fee and then get a reciept for your visa when you return. Do not lose the slip!
They will tell you when to head back, which is usually a week or two.
Stage 4 – Collection
Finally, you will return to actually collect your visa.
Handover the slips and you will receive your visa cards, with a potentially horrendous photo on it like mine!
And that’s it, you’re done. You’re now officially a resident of Egypt! (all be it a temporary one). The visa expiry is on the back of the card so check this so you know when it runs out.
Extending your Egyptian Visa in Cairo
Confusingly, the process does seem to differ a little from place to place.
Cairo seems to be more lenient with the formalities.
For example, it’s sometimes accepted to have a booking confirmation printed out of your hotel or Airbnb as your ‘residence’ when applying without having to go through the residential contract stage.
But there is no guarantee on this. It will likely need to be in Arabic, so change the language on the web browser, if possible, when you print it.
So if the residential contract stage is going to add a a complication for you then it might be better to try the extension in Cairo.
Extending your Egyptian Visa in Hurghada
Hurghada also seems to be a little easier in some aspects.
You don’t need to the additional stamp before you get the residential contract, but you will still need a formal residents contract. Which can be obtained from the residence office.
Speak to your landlord as they can usually supply this without you having to head to the residence office without an translator etc.
So you can essentially do the process all in one day (bar the collection) by getting the form from your landlord and heading straight to the Visa Office to carry out the process.
Egypt Visa Extension Cost
The cost seems to change occasionally, and vary dependant on the type and length of visa. But you’ll be looking at about 1,800 EGP for the one time extension visa an then going upwards from there. This is the amount you will need to exchange at the bank from the equivalent currency (USD/Euros). Always go a bit over what you think you need just in case.
You’ll then need to add any additional costs like if your landlord/interpreter etc. are charging a fee and any transport costs. Plus if you don’t have all the documentation you ay need to pay a small fee for photo copes etc.
Children don’t usually need to do the visa extension. Although, this doesn’t seem to be officially stated anywhere and has become more unclear since the new rules came in. But at the moment it still seems to be that minors under 16 don’t need the visa extension. As seems to also be the case with people over 60. But double check this in the visa office when enquiring.
Ensure you keep your card very safe. This will need to be handed to the immigration officer when you leave the country, along with your passports.
An added bonus is this card can also get you ‘resident’ prices for some attractions. So if you take it with you whenever heading to a tourist site, you might save some pennies.