"How much does an Umrah visa cost?" looks like one question. It is three questions tangled together: which route applies to your passport and your country of residence, what the official fee is on that route, and what an intermediary adds on top of it. Most of the numbers circulating in blog posts and community groups mix all three, which is why they look contradictory when they are not. Each one describes a different route, for a different person.
So you will not find a borrowed number in this guide. The conditions, the fees and the processing times for the Umrah visa have changed more than once in recent years, and a figure written into an article today can be wrong within months — and that kind of error does not cost the reader time, it can cost them the trip. What we give you instead is more useful and lasts longer: the method for getting the right number yourself, from the source, plus the distinctions that let you understand what you are reading. If this is your first Umrah, start with our step-by-step guide to performing Umrah, then come back here for the paperwork.
Last reviewed: 29 August 2026. The rules on this page are read from the official sources named throughout; check them again at the source on the day you apply.
What "Umrah visa" means today
The phrase is used with two different meanings, and confusing them is behind most of the questions we receive. The first meaning is the type of permit: the document itself, with its conditions, its validity and the number of entries it allows. The second is the application route: whether you apply yourself through the official platform, or through a licensed agency or office in your country.
These two levels are independent. The type of permit can be identical while the route differs from one country to the next — which is exactly why one person will tell you they got their visa online in a day, and another will tell you it took weeks through an office. Both are telling the truth.
Only the official source counts
The authority responsible for Umrah in Saudi Arabia is the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, and its official platform for pilgrims coming from outside the Kingdom is Nusuk Umrah, at umrah.nusuk.sa — the platform the Ministry has presented as allowing pilgrims to apply for the Umrah permit and book services directly, without an intermediary, through providers licensed by the Ministry. The Ministry's own site, haj.gov.sa/en, carries its announcements and the conditions in force.
That is where the conditions, the fees and the timescales come from. Not from a blog, not from a group post, and not from this article. Our job here is to tell you what to look for and where — and to keep telling you that even after the numbers change.
The practical rule: open the official platform yourself before you pay anything to anyone, and read what it shows for your nationality and your residence. If what you see there differs from what you have read anywhere else, the platform is right and the other source is out of date.
Visa type and application route: settle three points first
Before you ask about price, settle these three, in this order, because the answer to each one determines the next:
- Your passport — the nationality written in it, not where you live.
- Your country of residence — it may open a route your nationality alone does not, or it may require you to go through an office licensed in that country.
- Your status there — permanent resident, student, work-permit holder, visitor. This point is skipped constantly and it is decisive in some countries.
Which routes are actually open — a dedicated Umrah permit, a tourist eVisa that allows Umrah to be performed, exemptions, multiple-entry permits — and which nationalities each one covers is set by the Kingdom and reviewed regularly. Check the routes open to you on Nusuk Umrah and on the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah site on the day you apply. We do not reproduce that list here on purpose: a list of eligible nationalities copied into an article is exactly the kind of content that stays online, keeps ranking, and quietly stops being true.
Requirements and documents
Documents fall into two groups that should never be mixed: the ones asked for on almost every route, and the ones that change with your nationality and your residence. Get the first group ready early whatever your route, and check the second at the source before you book, not after.
Documents asked for on almost every route
- A passport valid for the period the authority requires. This is a precise figure and an application is refused without it, so do not estimate it — read the requirement in force on Nusuk Umrah before you book anything.
- A photograph meeting the specified format (background, dimensions, how recent).
- Proof of accommodation. Whether your route requires a booking documented on the official platform before the permit is issued is a point that has moved in recent years, and it is one of the most frequently misreported items on agency blogs. Check what your own route asks for on Nusuk Umrah — we are not going to tell you it is required or that it is not.
- A return ticket or proof of onward travel.
- A valid international payment method in the applicant's name.
Documents that change with nationality and residence
This is precisely where copying someone else's experience fails. What was asked of a resident of Sweden may not be asked of a resident of Turkey holding the same passport, and the reverse is just as true. The items in this group are usually proof of residence in the country of application, and sometimes proof of family relationship within the travelling group.
On the question of women travelling for Umrah — one of the most asked and most badly reported subjects in this field — there are two separate levels and they must not be merged. The first is administrative: what the Saudi authority requires at the point of issuing the permit. That condition has changed in recent years and it is read from the official platform alone — Nusuk Umrah and the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah — on the day you apply. The second is religious: the ruling on a woman travelling for Umrah, which is a matter of jurisprudence and is asked of a recognised authority for religious rulings. A commercial website does not issue rulings, and an article is not the place for one. We will not merge the two levels, and we will not answer either of them.
Health and vaccinations
The Kingdom requires specific vaccinations of pilgrims arriving for Umrah and Hajj. The list is reviewed each season and can differ depending on the country you are travelling from. This is medical information: take it from the health requirements published by the competent Saudi authority — the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah publishes the season's requirements — and from your own doctor or a travellers' vaccination centre, because some vaccines need a lead time before departure to be considered valid.
Start this early. It is the requirement most likely to be discovered too late, and the one you cannot fix at the airport.
How much does an Umrah visa cost?
This is probably the question you came for, and here is the honest answer: the number your friend gave you is not wrong, it is simply not your number. Every figure in circulation bundles three layers of a different nature, and anyone quoting the total without splitting them is quoting something that cannot be compared to anything.
The three layers inside any number you hear
- The official fee. What the Saudi authority charges for issuing the document. This is the only figure that is the same for everyone on the same route.
- What is attached to it compulsorily. Some routes bundle elements you have no choice about. This layer is what makes quoted totals look so far apart.
- The intermediary's service fee. What an office or agency charges for its work. Optional by nature if your route allows a direct application, unavoidable if it does not.
When you ask someone what they paid, ask which layer they are talking about. When you compare two offers, make sure you are comparing the same layer in both. That one habit saves more money than any "trick" for booking a visa.
How to check your own number in ten minutes
This method gives you your figure, not someone else's, and it stays valid however the fees change later:
- Open the official Ministry platform, umrah.nusuk.sa — not an ad at the top of a search results page.
- Start a real application with your nationality and your country of residence, and go as far as the summary screen immediately before payment.
- Screenshot that screen. It shows the breakdown, not just the total.
- Do not complete the payment if you are not ready to. You already have the number.
- Write today's date next to it. A figure without a date loses its value within months.
- If you are going through an agency, ask for the quote itemised: the official fee on one line, their service fee on another. A serious agency does this without hesitating.
On that third layer — the agency's service fee — there is no official figure to look up, and that is not an omission on our part. The Ministry sets what the State charges; it does not set, and does not publish, what an intermediary charges for its work. No authority publishes a range for it, so nobody can hand you that number: you can only put agencies in competition for it. Ask two or three licensed agencies for an itemised quote on the same route, the same dates and the same group size, then compare the service-fee line alone, with the official fee set aside. An agency that will not separate the two lines has told you something, and it is not about the price.
Processing time, validity and length of stay
Three different durations get confused constantly, and that confusion causes more booking mistakes than anything else in this subject. Learn them once and you will read any permit correctly afterwards:
- Processing time — the time between submitting the application and the permit being issued. This is what decides when you must start, and underestimating it is what wrecks trips.
- Validity — the window during which you must enter the Kingdom. If that window closes before you travel, the permit lapses even though you never used it.
- Permitted length of stay — the number of days you may remain after entering. This is not the same thing as validity at all: a permit valid for months may allow only a limited stay per entry.
To those three add a fourth point: the number of entries — single or multiple. Anyone planning to visit a neighbouring country during the same trip needs to settle this before booking, not after.
The actual values of all four are set by the Kingdom, differ by route, and are revised. Read them for your own route on Nusuk Umrah when you apply, and read them again on the permit itself once it is issued. The explanatory distinction above is what stays true; the numbers are what move.
One practical rule that holds whatever the figures are: start your visa process earlier than you think you need to, especially if you are travelling anywhere near Ramadan, when applications pile up and what is normally done in days can take longer.
How much does Umrah cost in dollars?
Very common question, and it has an answer more useful than any figure: do not ask for the cost in dollars — build it in your own currency, then convert. The reason is simple and it changes how you plan.
Why we do not publish a dollar total
The Saudi riyal is pegged to the US dollar at a fixed rate set by the Saudi monetary authority, so the riyal-to-dollar relationship is stable. But the relationship between your currency and the dollar is not, and that is the real variable in your budget. A dollar figure looks fixed while telling you less than the same figure in your own money.
On top of that, the largest items in an Umrah budget — flights and accommodation — are mostly not paid in dollars at all. The ticket is paid in your currency; the hotel may be billed in riyals or in your currency depending on the platform. A dollar total corresponds to nothing you actually pay.
We do not print the value of that peg here either, stable though it is reputed to be, because a rate written into an article is a rate nobody re-checks. The riyal side is published by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA). The rate between your own currency and the dollar is published by your own central bank. Read both on the day you build your budget, and write that date beside the result.
The four-step method
- In your own currency, add up what is paid at home: the ticket, the visa if paid locally, agency fees, vaccinations, getting to the airport.
- In riyals, add up what is paid in the Kingdom: accommodation if not prepaid, internal transport, food, daily spending.
- Convert both totals into one currency using a reference rate from a central bank, not a travel app, and write the date of the conversion next to the result.
- Add a contingency margin on top: an extra night, private transport you had not planned, medication.
And one practical tip that saves more than it looks: when paying by card inside the Kingdom, choose to be charged in riyals, not in your own currency. When the terminal or the platform offers to convert the amount into your currency on the spot, the rate used is usually worse than your bank's. That difference repeats at every payment for the whole trip.
When to go: the cheapest and quietest windows
Umrah can be performed at any time of year — that is its fundamental difference from Hajj. But cost and crowding vary enormously between one period and another, and three windows govern the whole year.
The peak: Ramadan
Ramadan is the highest-demand season, and the last ten nights are the peak of the peak. Everything rises at once — airfare, accommodation, crowding inside the Haram — and late booking does not rescue you however flexible you are. Ramadan 1448 is expected to begin around 8 February 2027 according to the Umm al-Qura calendar; the official start is announced after the moon sighting and the usual variation is one day. Anyone planning for it starts months ahead, not weeks.
The quieter periods
The months furthest from Ramadan, from the Hajj season and from school holidays in the countries that send large numbers of pilgrims are usually the calmest on both price and crowding. Against that, summer in Makkah and Madinah is hot to a degree that belongs in your planning rather than in your commentary: anyone travelling with an elderly relative, someone unwell, or small children weighs that before weighing the price.
And the most reliable rule in the whole subject stays this one: booking early lowers both flights and accommodation, the two largest items, and it does more for your total than choosing the month.
The Hajj-season window
Umrah services are organised differently as the Hajj season approaches: dates are set by which pilgrims travelling on an Umrah permit must have ended their stay before the season begins, after which Umrah resumes. This is an annual moving window, because it follows the Hijri calendar, and anyone planning a spring Umrah needs to check it before booking.
The dates for a given season are announced by the Ministry — check them on haj.gov.sa/en and on Nusuk Umrah before you book anything non-refundable in the spring. The mechanism described above stays true every year; the dates do not.
For planning inside the Hajj season itself, and for what a Hajj package is actually made of, see our Hajj cost breakdown.
Umrah by country of departure
Everything above is common to all pilgrims. But three things change with your country of departure, and they are what actually moves your budget:
- The administrative route — your country of residence may open a direct application to you, or require you to go through a locally licensed office.
- Flights — which airports are available, how many stops, and where the miqat falls on your particular routing.
- Connectivity charges — what your home operator bills for using your phone in the Kingdom, which varies enormously from one country to another.
Detailed guides by country of departure:
More countries are being added to this list.
Staying connected during your Umrah
This is the one chapter of this guide where we speak in our own name rather than pointing you at an official source: we sell mobile data. We are not a travel agency and we do not issue religious rulings. It is also the chapter most writers on visas skip, even though connectivity has become part of the procedure itself rather than a comfort on top of it.
Why you need data before you reach your hotel
Umrah procedures now run through official apps on your phone: bookings, permits, services inside the two Holy Mosques. Those apps need a data connection at the moment you need them — at the arrival gate, in the transfer vehicle, at the door of the Haram — which is hours before you reach your hotel's Wi-Fi.
So the rule is: install the required apps and sign in to them while you are still at home, not at the airport and not after landing. First registration is the heaviest step, and the worst place to do it is a crowded arrivals hall on a slow public network.
Which official apps are actually required or useful, and for what exactly, is set by the Ministry and changes: these apps have been renamed and merged more than once. Check what is current for your route on Nusuk Umrah and on haj.gov.sa/en before you travel, and install them at home. We deliberately do not print a list here that would be stale by the time you read it.
Roaming or a local plan
You have two routes. Each has a price you can know in advance if you look it up, and a price you will not know if you do not.
Route one: stay on your home plan in international roaming. Saudi Arabia sits outside any shared roaming area with Europe or North America, so your usage there is billed at a separate international roaming tariff set by your operator alone. Do not rely on a figure someone else quotes: open your operator's official tariff page before you travel, look specifically for Saudi Arabia, for the price of data outside any bundle, and for the automatic spend cap if there is one. You will find operator-by-operator detail in our guides by country of departure above.
Route two: a local Saudi data plan as an eSIM, bought and installed before departure while you are on Wi-Fi, then activated on arrival. It runs on the STC, Mobily and Zain networks — the same networks residents of the Kingdom use. The practical benefit is that you walk out of the arrivals hall already connected: maps work, the official app works, and the message home arrives before you do — with no queue at the airport and no local registration to complete while you are in ihram.
Your original number stays in the phone for your bank's verification codes, because an eSIM is added alongside your existing SIM rather than replacing it.
What to do before takeoff
Check that your phone supports eSIM and is not locked to an operator — the list is on our device compatibility page. Then look at the current plans and prices on the Saudi Arabia eSIM page. And whatever you decide, turn off data roaming in your phone's settings before takeoff, and only turn it back on once you have settled how you are going to connect.
If you choose an unlimited plan, you are entitled to know its limits before you buy rather than after: 2 GB per day at full speed, then the connection continues at 1 Mbit/s until the end of the day, and the allowance resets the next day. Nothing is cut off and no overage is billed. That speed is enough for messaging, maps, voice calls, email and browsing; it is not enough for high-quality video streaming. We say it this plainly because the sentence that goes unsaid before the purchase gets said in the review afterwards.
10% off the Saudi Arabia eSIM. If that is your choice, enter the code UMRAHESIM at checkout on the Saudi Arabia eSIM page and 10% comes off.
Visa checklist
- You have identified the route that applies to your passport and your country of residence, from the official platform, not from an article.
- Passport valid for the period the authority requires, with a digital copy on your phone and in your email.
- Photograph in the required format, ready as a file.
- Accommodation booked and documented in writing, with the address in Arabic and English.
- Return ticket booked, and the baggage policy read rather than assumed.
- The official fee separated from the agency fee on the written quote in front of you.
- Required vaccinations completed with the necessary lead time, certificates in hand.
- Validity and permitted length of stay read off the permit itself, not assumed.
- Official apps installed and signed in before departure.
- Connectivity settled: roaming tariff known as a number, or an eSIM installed and ready to activate.
- Bank card enabled for international use, plus a small amount of cash for emergencies.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the Umrah visa issued from officially?
From the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah in Saudi Arabia, through its official platform umrah.nusuk.sa, or through an office or agency licensed by the Ministry if your route requires that. It is not issued by an unlicensed intermediary site, and its conditions are not taken from a blog or a group post. The Ministry's own site is haj.gov.sa/en.
Why do the prices I hear for the visa differ so much?
Because every quoted figure bundles layers of a different nature: the official fee, what is compulsorily attached to it on some routes, and the agency's service fee. And because the route itself differs by nationality and country of residence. When you compare two offers, make sure you are comparing the same layer in both.
What is the difference between a visa's validity and the length of stay it allows?
Validity is the window during which you must enter the Kingdom; if it expires before you travel, the permit lapses even though you never used it. Length of stay is the number of days you may remain after entering. A permit valid for months may allow only a limited stay per entry. Read both on the permit itself, and check the values for your route on Nusuk Umrah.
How long does the visa process take?
Processing time varies by route and by season, and you check it on the official platform at the moment you apply. The practical rule that does not change: start earlier than you think you need to, especially if you are travelling near Ramadan, when applications pile up.
Do I need a licensed agency, or can I apply myself?
It depends on the route that applies to your passport and your country of residence, and this is a point that changes and must be checked at the source when you travel — Nusuk Umrah is where you check it. An agency buys you coordination and reassurance for a service fee; applying directly saves that fee at the cost of your time and your responsibility for mistakes.
Can Umrah be performed at any time of year?
Yes, and that is its fundamental difference from Hajj, which falls on fixed days. That said, Umrah services are organised differently as the Hajj season approaches, with annual moving dates that follow the Hijri calendar. If you are planning a spring Umrah, check the current window on haj.gov.sa/en before booking anything non-refundable.
When is the cheapest time to go for Umrah?
The months furthest from Ramadan, from the Hajj season and from school holidays in the countries that send large numbers of pilgrims. But booking early remains the strongest single factor in lowering the cost — stronger than the choice of month itself.
How do I work out the cost of Umrah in dollars?
Do not start from dollars. Add up in your own currency what is paid at home, and in riyals what is paid in the Kingdom, then convert both with a reference rate from a central bank and record the date of the conversion. And when paying by card inside the Kingdom, choose to be charged in riyals rather than your own currency: the on-the-spot conversion offered by the terminal is usually worse than your bank's rate.
Will my phone work in Makkah and Madinah?
Yes, coverage is good. The question is not whether it works but at what tariff: on your home plan you are in international roaming at a rate your operator sets alone, and with a Saudi Arabia eSIM you are on a local network at a price you knew before you left.
When should I install the eSIM and the official apps?
Before you travel, on Wi-Fi at home. First registration in the official apps is the heaviest step and the worst place to do it is a crowded arrivals hall. The eSIM is bought and installed before takeoff and activated on arrival; buying it after landing assumes you are already online, which is the problem you are trying to solve.
