To get a tourist visa for Yemen, you have to book with a tour agency, who will help you get the permissions and security clearances. You will then receive your visa at your point of entry.
The permissions needed for your visa must be obtained before beginning your trip. It is not possible to get these documents at the border and you will be turned away. If you are joining a Saiga Tours tour to Yemen, we will handle your visa.
*Please note that to obtain the visa, your passport cannot have any evidence of travel to Israel.
At the current time, it is only advisable to visit the eastern part of Yemen (Hadramout). There have been tourists that have successfully obtained permissions to travel to Sana’a, however many of these people have been arrested due to permissions not being recognised by local authorities. We’re not saying it is impossible to do that if you want to and are willing to take the risk, but there is a very high chance that you will be faced with a lot of issues, and for the moment we will not be going there on our tours. This situation in the future may change, but for now it is not considered safe to travel.
This visa for mainland Yemen is completely different from the visa for Socotra.
Citizens of 11 countries can technically visit Yemen visa free for up to 3 months. These countries are: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia , Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and UAE. This policy existed prior to the war however, so even though this is still technically the rule, it is unlikely that in practise this is still the case for all of these country. Security permissions must still be obtained to travel through Yemen, even if you are from one of these countries.
