How to travel around the Gulf in the meantime
Until the unified visa launches, plan each country separately:
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Step 1: Check each country’s rules for your passport
Visa rules depend heavily on nationality. Use each country’s official visa portal, such as ICP for the UAE or the Saudi eVisa platform.
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Step 2: Use resident-friendly options if you live in the Gulf
Several states offer easier entry to residents of other GCC countries. Kuwait, for example, issues a tourist visa on arrival to GCC residents whose residence permit has at least six months left.
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Step 3: Keep your residency valid
Gulf residents should make sure their home-country residence permit remains valid for the whole trip and any validity buffer the destination requires.
What the unified visa is meant to be
The GCC unified tourist visa, often called the “GCC Grand Tours” visa, is planned as a single visa allowing visitors to travel across all six Gulf states — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait — with one application. GCC interior ministers approved the concept in November 2023.
Officials have described it as aimed at tourists and visitors, including expatriate residents of the Gulf. The detailed eligibility rules have not been published.
Launch timeline so far
The visa was first expected by the end of 2025. In November 2025, Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Al-Khateeb said it would launch in 2026. Officials have cited the need to align six countries’ security systems, link border and immigration databases for real-time data exchange, and pilot the system in stages.
In September 2026, the GCC Secretariat General said the visa would be launched soon, without naming a date. As of 3 November 2026, no launch, fee or portal had been announced.
Confirmed facts versus rumours
Confirmed: the concept is approved, all six member states are participating, and it is not yet available.
Not confirmed: price figures such as USD 90–130, or AED 330–380 for a single country and AED 400–480 for a multi-country visa, validity periods such as 30, 60 or 90 days, and any specific launch month. These figures come from commentary and travel-industry estimates, not from an official fee schedule.
Not the unified visa: the UAE–Bahrain “one-stop” air travel project that lets GCC citizens clear immigration before departure is a separate scheme and does not cover foreign visitors.
Beware of scam sites: any website taking applications or payments for a “GCC unified visa” today is not an official channel.