Traveling to Iraq has certainly gotten both easier and more importantly safer over the past few years. From Erbil to Basra, travellers can explore the wonders of Mesopotamia like never before. Previously, exploring southern Iraq (Federal Iraq) was very difficult due to an unstable security situation and an extremely difficult and expensive visa.
Then things got easier! Visa on arrival was introduced for 30 countries mainly from the EU, USA and Australia. And while it didn’t include everyone, it was absolutely a step in the right direction to opening up Iraq for tourism! This visa on arrival was $75 and didn’t require any preplanning or documents to obtain the visa at the airport. This visa was also able to be used for a journey to the whole of Iraq, including Kurdistan.
Note that if you did arrive in Kurdistan, you were limited to that region, and could not venture to the south.
Sadly on March 1, 2025 the Ministry of Tourism announced that they were suspending the visa on arrival program.
So what does this mean?
Well, thankfully this does not mean that no one can go to Iraq anymore. Instead you will have to apply for an E-visa through their new government portal. The E-visa will be available to all nationalities who previously were able to get the visa on arrival and you still won’t need any additional documentation. You simply need to fill in the form and pay the fee. If you do plan on spending more than 15 days in the country, you will also be required to fill in a health declaration form.
The applicable countries are:
- All EU member states
- Australia
- Canada
- China
- Japan
- Lebanon
- New Zealand
- Malaysia
- Norway
- Russia
- South Korea
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States
From when can I apply?
This service is now operational and you can apply straight away. This is a new system however so don’t expect it to be perfect right off the bat. These things take time to perfect.
How much does it cost?
The current fee for the new E-visa is 206,000 Iraqi Dinar which is approximately $160 USD.
How long does it take?
It can be received as quickly as 12 hours, but for most it will take a day or two to come through.
What are the current issues?
The website at the moment has a few teething problems so here are some things that we have found.
- When you create a username and password, write it down! At the moment, there doesn’t seem to be a “forgotten password” section to recover it if it’s lost.
- You may receive random OTP codes to your inbox even if you didn’t click anything in the site.
- If you log in and your details are incorrect, you will have to reload the page before you can re-enter details. You can’t simply try and re-enter them.
- Some of the nationalities mentioned are interesting. When you get through to the registration details it will have a drop-down menu with all nationalities. British is mentioned 7 times and one of the options is also “African”.
How about other nationalities?
For the nationalities that could not get the visa on arrival, you will still need to go through the same process, whereby you get a supporting document from a tour company, you will then have to apply online through the portal as well. How this exactly will work is still a work in progress, however we should know in the next few weeks once the bugs in the system are worked out.
Why did they do this?
So, while the visa on arrival was nice as you didn’t have to think too much about it, it was creating unnecessary airport congestion at immigration. Officials have quoted this as one of the main reasons to make arrival more efficient and streamlined. So, in the end definitely a good move. Personally, we didn’t really like waiting for up to 2 hours at immigration while they stuck a visa in our passports in a back room.
Is it safe to travel to Iraq?
Yes it definitely is. To know more about this read our
2025 safety in Iraq blog
.
If you would like to come and explore the wonders of Iraq and see the history of one of the world’s most ancient regions then check out our
Iraq tours
on our website. If you’d prefer to go on a private tour let us know and we can also make this happen for you. To sign up for our Iraq tours, send us an email to [email protected] .
