Price of Tourist Visa for Dubai: 2025 Costs Explained

If you're booking a Dubai trip and trying to pin down the actual price of tourist visa for Dubai, the numbers floating online are all over the place. AED 250 here, AED 650 there, plus mystery service fees. Here's the real breakdown — what the government charges, what your agent adds on top, and where you can skip the middleman entirely.

Quick answer

The price of tourist visa for Dubai depends on duration and source. The official ICP (Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security) fees in 2025 are AED 100 for a 30-day single-entry visa and AED 250 for a 60-day single-entry visa, plus AED 100-150 in service and processing charges. Through airlines, hotels, or visa agents, total costs typically run AED 350-650 depending on duration and processing speed. Multi-entry visas cost more. Citizens of visa-on-arrival countries pay nothing.

Check if you even need a paid visa first

Honestly, most clients skip this step and waste money.

Around 87 nationalities get visa-free entry or visa-on-arrival to the UAE. If you hold a passport from the UK, US, EU, Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, or most GCC-adjacent countries, you don't pay anything at immigration for a 30 or 90-day stay [1]. Just walk up to the counter.

GCC citizens enter freely. GCC residents of certain professional categories also qualify for visa-on-arrival, though the rules tightened in 2024 — confirm your job title on the ICP portal before flying.

If your passport isn't on the visa-on-arrival list, you need a pre-arranged tourist visa. That's where the price tag comes in.

The cheapest path is almost always to check your eligibility on the ICP website before paying anyone. Five minutes saves AED 400.

The actual government fees in 2025

The ICP and GDRFA (General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs — Dubai's local immigration authority) publish standard tourist visa fees. These are the base prices before any agent markup.

Single-entry tourist visas:

30-day visa: AED 100 government fee
60-day visa: AED 250 government fee

Multi-entry tourist visas:

30-day multi-entry: AED 200
60-day multi-entry: AED 350
5-year multi-entry tourist visa: AED 650 (allows 90 days per visit, extendable once)

Add the standard service fee of around AED 100, plus a small e-service fee, and you're looking at base costs in the AED 200-750 range straight from the regulator [2].

That's the government's piece. The full bill you pay your agent or airline will be higher. Sometimes a lot higher.

Costs at a glance (2025)
- 30-day single-entry: AED 100 gov + AED 100-250 service = AED 200-350 typical
- 60-day single-entry: AED 250 gov + AED 150-300 service = AED 400-550 typical
- 5-year multi-entry: AED 650 gov + service fees = AED 750-900 typical
- Express processing (24 hours): add AED 100-200
- Visa extension inside UAE: AED 600-1,200

Where you actually buy the visa

You have four realistic options, and the price of tourist visa for Dubai shifts noticeably depending on which one you pick.

1. Emirates or Etihad (if you're flying them). Both airlines run their own visa services for ticket-holders. Emirates charges around AED 350 for a 30-day single-entry visa and AED 650 for a 60-day single-entry. Convenient if you're already booking the flight. Not the cheapest.

2. Your Dubai hotel. Many hotels arrange tourist visas for booked guests. Prices are similar to airlines — AED 350-700 — and processing usually takes 3-4 working days. Useful if your nationality requires a UAE sponsor.

3. A registered visa agent (smartravel, dnata, VFS-affiliated agents). Prices vary wildly. Reputable agents charge AED 300-450 for a 30-day visa. The cheap operators online quoting AED 200 often add hidden fees at the end or use unstable sub-agents. Stick to agents licensed by the Department of Economy and Tourism.

4. The ICP smart services portal directly. If you have a sponsor in the UAE (resident family member, friend, or company), they can apply on the ICP app or website and pay only the government fee plus minimal service charges. This is the cheapest legitimate route — sometimes under AED 250 all-in.

The middleman premium is real. You're paying for someone to upload your passport scan and photo to a portal. Frankly, if you know a UAE resident who'll sponsor you, ask them to do it.

Hidden costs nobody mentions upfront

The sticker price isn't the full price. Watch for these.

Visa security deposit. Some agents and airlines require a refundable AED 1,000-2,000 deposit, returned after you leave the UAE on time. If you overstay or skip the exit-confirmation step, you lose it.

Overstay fines. AED 50 per day from the day after your visa expires [3]. A two-week overstay costs AED 700 on top of whatever exit fees apply. The 10-day grace period that used to apply was removed for most tourist visas in 2022.

Extension fees. Extending a 30 or 60-day tourist visa inside the UAE costs roughly AED 600-1,200 depending on the agent. You can extend most tourist visas twice for 30 days each without leaving the country.

Medical or insurance add-ons. Not legally required for tourist visas, but some agents bundle them. Decline if you don't want them.

Watch out
Agents quoting under AED 200 for a 30-day visa are usually either (a) excluding the government fee, (b) using an unlicensed sub-agent, or (c) running a payment scam. The ICP publishes its fees publicly. Cross-check before you wire anything.

Processing time and what "express" really means

Standard processing for a Dubai tourist visa runs 3-5 working days. Express service — sometimes called "24-hour" or "urgent" — adds AED 100-200 and genuinely delivers within one business day in most cases, assuming your documents are clean.

What slows things down: passport scans under 6 months of validity, low-resolution photos, name mismatches between your passport and ticket, and applications submitted late Thursday (the UAE working week runs Monday to Friday, so weekend applications sit idle).

If your travel date is less than 72 hours away, pay for express. The extra AED 150 is cheaper than rebooking a flight.

Visa-on-arrival vs paid visa: when paying makes sense

Even if you qualify for visa-on-arrival, there are situations where paying for a pre-arranged tourist visa is smarter.

If you're staying more than the visa-on-arrival window (30 days for most eligible nationalities, 90 days for some), a 60-day pre-arranged visa avoids a mid-trip extension run. If you want flexibility to enter and exit multiple times — say you're combining Dubai with Oman or Saudi trips — the multi-entry visa pays for itself by the third entry.

The 5-year multi-entry tourist visa at AED 650 is genuinely good value if you visit the UAE more than once a year. Each entry allows 90 days, extendable to 180. For frequent business travellers who don't want full residency, this is the quiet winner.

For one-off two-week holidays from a visa-on-arrival country? Don't pay. Just fly.

For more on UAE entry rules and residency pathways, browse the visa category on our site.

What to do if your visa application gets rejected

Rejections happen — usually for prior overstays, incomplete documents, or unclear sponsorship. Government fees are non-refundable. Most agents refund their service charge minus an admin fee of AED 50-100.

You can reapply, but address the rejection reason first. Submitting the same application twice gets you the same answer. If the rejection mentions a prior immigration issue, you may need to clear it through GDRFA Amer services before reapplying [4].

A rejected tourist visa doesn't bar you from the UAE permanently. But repeated rejections build a record. Get advice before the third attempt.

The price of tourist visa for Dubai isn't really one number — it's a range shaped by your nationality, your duration, your agent, and how fast you need it. Budget AED 350-700 for a standard tourist visa and you'll rarely be surprised. Pay less, and ask questions. Pay more, and you're funding someone's markup.

Need this checked for your situation? Talk to a UAE-licensed lawyer →

Citations

[1] Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP) — Visa on Arrival country list, icp.gov.ae [2] ICP Smart Services — Tourist Visa Fees Schedule 2025, smartservices.icp.gov.ae [3] UAE Government Portal — Overstay fines and grace period rules, u.ae [4] GDRFA Dubai — Amer services and visa rejection appeals, gdrfad.gov.ae