GCC Unified Tourist Visa to launch trial in 2025: Everything you need to know
The Schengen-style visa, which will officially be named 'GCC Grand Tours', will allow freedom of movement between residents in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
Countries included in the system are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.
In July 2025, Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, the UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism, said that a pilot run of the visa will be launched in the final quarter of 2025.
The trial phase will come in the final months of this year before a full implementation of the visa at a later date.
Visa-free travel is already available for citizens of GCC countries across the region, but the GCC Grand Tours Visa will enable the millions of foreign nationals living in the region to travel freely.
It will simplify the process of getting visas and will likely have a longer validity period and lower overall costs compared to obtaining six separate visas.
Plans for the new GCC Unified Tourist Visa were officially approved late in 2023 following a unanimous vote by ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council at a meeting in Oman.
The visa is aimed at encouraging tourism within the region and growing each nation's tourist economy.
When can we get a GCC Unified Tourist Visa?
Doha
According to the latest update in July, the visa looks set to be launched initially as a trial in 2025 before a wider rollout.
Ministers representing the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries met in Riyadh back in June 2025 to discuss the unified tourist visa project.
The nations are working closely together to keep pace with technological developments across the world and to meet the security requirements of each country.
For now, UAE residents have different conditions for travelling within the GCC, so the introduction of the new GCC Unified Tourist Visa will allow for more consistency. It's expected to greatly streamline the process when travelling across the region.
Applicants will likely be able to choose between one-country or six-country access and the validity period of the visa may be between 30 and 90 days.
Current visa rules for GCC travel from the UAE
UAE citizens do not need a visa to enter Saudi Arabia and can stay for up to 90 days but people just living in UAE do require a visa.
In Bahrain, it's a similar story as UAE natives don't require a visa to enter, but passport holders of other countries who reside in the UAE need either an eVisa or a Bahrain on-arrival visa.
Riyadh (Credit: Supplied)
Oman is open to UAE citizens without the need for a visa, but residents in the GCC currently need to be on a list of approved professions or be accompanied by someone who is in order to get an unsponsored visa.
Citizens of GCC countries can enter Kuwait without a visa by presenting a valid GCC ID card, but those who are non-nationals will need an eVisa or visa-on-arrival.
Qatar allows citizens of more than 100 countries to enter visa-free, including those from the UAE. Lengths of stay vary, and conditions will be different depending on your nationality.
And, people travelling to the UAE from other GCC countries are allowed entry for a period of no longer than 30 days, which can only be extended once with an eVisa.
What do you need for a GCC Unified Tourist Visa?
As the details of the visa have not yet been fully ironed out, the requirements to get your hands on one are also not yet confirmed.
However, it has previously been hinted by the UAE Minister of Economy Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri that the visa will apply to residents within the GCC rather than just passport holders.
Kuwait (Credit: Supplied)
In November 2023 he said: 'Hopefully, we are going to see something around a pan-GCC visa which will allow easier mobility of people within the GCC.
'A resident of Saudi, for instance, can enter the UAE and vice versa. I think that's where we see the future of GCC tourism.'
This could mean that your Emirates ID is about to become even more powerful than it already is.
What will the GCC Unified Tourist Visa mean for UAE?
While the UAE is arguably the best prepared of the six GCC nations to welcome large swathes of tourists, the country is going to make some changes to make travelling easier.
For visitors to the UAE, the Emirates Tourism Council say they are working on a tourist route within the country which will interconnect the seven emirates.
Infrastructure projects such as the Etihad Rail passenger train should make travel around the UAE easier (Credit: WAM)
The new Etihad Rail passenger train is set to start operations in 2026 should also make travel around the UAE much easier.
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