Applying for an Umrah / Tourist visa for Saudi Arabia

By Halal Xplorer City Guide Saudi Arabia December 8, 2022

Getting the visa for Umrah or even generally just tourism in Saudi Arabia has become so easy now. Gone are the days where you are in the hands of a travel agent. You can literally do it yourself from the comfort of your own home and receive the VISA via email in the time it takes to read this post (it’s that quick and easy). Today, I will go through the step by step process to applying for an Umrah/Tourist visa for Saudi Arabia.

A couple of disclaimers before we start: 1. This guide is for British citizens only and if you are a citizen of another country, please do your own research as to the process and 2. The prices are correct as of November 2022.

Website: https://visa.visitsaudi.com/

Step 1: login

Firstly, you’ll need to make an account on their VISA website (above). Then, login using your credentials and then they’ll send you a verification code to your email address. This they will do every time you login.

Step 2: apply for individual

I’m not sure what the difference is between applying for individuals and applying for a group, but I managed to apply for 3 different individuals using the “apply for an individual” option.

Step 3: the photo (the most difficult part)

Before you complete the application form (of which most if not all of it is self explanatory, so I will not bore you by explaining it), you’ll have to upload a photo of yourself. This is the most trickiest and fiddliest part of the application process. This took me the longest to do and this is where most get stuck and frustrated. But not to worry, I have found a way to get round this trickiness. Why is it tricky? Essentially, they require the photo to be in a very specific format and size (i.e. passport photo) and that is difficult to get if you’re doing this application process online. Even if you got yourself a passport photo, to then upload it in the required size is mission impossible.

So, the image needs to be 200 x 200 px and the size must be from 5 to 100 Kb (i.e. passport photo). Take any picture of yourself, whether it’s an official passport photo or one you took on your phone (just ensure the background is white or something), and transfer it to your device. Then you need an application or a website that will convert that photo into the required format and this was hard to find. But after a bit of searching I found the perfect one. Go to this website: https://safeimagekit.com/resize-image-to-200×200# and upload your photo. And bish bash bosh, your photo has now become the right size and format. You must do this as if you don’t then, your photo will be rejected and you will not be able to continue with the application.

Step 4: complete the remainder of the application

The remainder of the application is just personal details you’d typically require when traveling abroad. So, it should be fairly straight forward.

Things to note:

You can do umrah with the tourist visa

When Saudi Arabia introduce the tourist visa a few years back, there was this grey area where it was unclear whether one can do umrah with that VISA or not. Now, it has been made official. You most definitely CAN do umrah with this visa. In fact in the application process you’re asked whether you’ll be using the tourist visa for umrah or tourism or both. At the airport when we passed customs, a lady did approach us and ask us if we have an umrah visa and for some strange reason she assumed an umrah visa is different to the tourist visa, but we corrected her and she retracted within seconds. I’m assuming she was a confused individual. Nonetheless, this was not an issue, it was just a matter of seconds of confusion. Be confident in knowing that you can do the umrah on a tourist visa – it is the same VISA!

Medical insurance

Medical insurance is needed and is done as part of the visa application process (costs 180 SAR); it is automatically included in total price.

Practical information about the VISA itself

It is a multiple entry visa (you come in and out of the country as many times as you like) and it is valid for a year from the date of application/acceptance. Also, for each stay you are allowed to stay for duration of 90 days.

How long does the approval take?

We literally got our VISA within a couple of minutes of completing the application. It gets sent to your email. The longest part was the photo, but other than that the application was simple and easy and the wait was literally non-existent. 2 minutes I kid you not!