We entered Kuwait a couple of days before New Year’s 2025–⁠2026. On December 22nd 2025, the government of Kuwait increased its visa fees from 3 KWD to 10 KWD. This applies to both visa on arrival (VOA) and the Kuwaiti eVisa. Here’s our experience getting the visa on arrival in Kuwait

Late 2025 Visa Costs Increase in Kuwait

When Jonas and I reunited in the Netherlands after Christmas on the 26th of December, we rechecked the visa situation in Kuwait. I’d written down the cost of the Kuwaiti eVisa and VOA in our spreadsheet as roughly €10 per person. Jonas rechecked the requirements to enter Kuwait, and found out it now costs 10 Kuwaiti Dinars (€27.86 or US$32.56) instead of 3 KWD. The article stated the new price went into effect on the 22nd of December, just a few days ago.

One of the sources, the Times of India. Gulf News mentions the same.

Shit, that’s 333% of the old price. That sucks quite a bit. But we have booked the tickets and paid for the apartment, so what can you do? Suck it up, that is.

Jonas checked if the price of the eVisa had also changed, but even if it had stayed at 3 KWD, it was simply too late for us to apply for a Kuwaiti eVisa at this point. Most people say it takes about three days to receive it, (or a rejection).

Why didn’t we arrange an eVisa for Kuwait well in advance? Because there we concerning reports about it in the EPS group. Someone had their Kuwaiti eVisa on processing for more than a week. And then the authorities asked for extra documents. Documents of the very niche kind, not something most people have easy on hand. Finally, the people with an eVisa still had to go through the same visa hall experience as the visa on arrival travelers, except they’re a bit quicker.

In short, there seemed to be no advantage. So we chose to go the visa on arrival route. Had we known of the price hike, we would have done the eVisa in the window from when the news was announced in late November before it all changed.

At my mom’s we still printed out some documents we might need to enter Kuwait (or the countries we’ll visit after Kuwait), such as my health insurance policy, bank statement, proof of accommodation in Kuwait, onward flight, and a few extra passport copies, just in case. When you’re traveling to Kuwait as a (hetero) couple, make sure to also bring a copy of your marriage certificate.

We managed to arrive at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS) well in advance. We asked some staff at the start of the check-in queue if we needed to show any documents or prove we can receive a visa on arrival in Kuwait. But they just told us we can go to the gate since we traveled hand luggage only and had done our online check-in. However, at the gate, our names were called because we hadn’t gone via check-in. There, they swiped our passports through some system. I’m not sure what for. Jonas thinks it’s to check if we have an entry ban for Kuwait. It was all fine and we were allowed to board.

They played a pre-recorded Islamic prayer over the intercom and the airplane screens before departure. That’s a first for me

Visa Hall: Filling in Forms + Waiting

After deplaning, we had a short bus ride to the arrivals at Kuwait International Airport. Inside, we turned left to Visa Hall 1. All Kuwaitis and GCC citizens took a right turn to the passport control booths, forming a long queue. It was 23:20 local time. There were some people already inside the waiting area, of which I only recognized a handful from our plane. I found the display of forms, which were called ‘request for tourist entry visa’ with the Kuwaiti emblem above it.

I grabbed my short pen and told Jonas where to find my other pen in my backpack. We both filled in the forms. The requirements for this form weren’t outrageous in the least (name, passport number, address in Kuwait, flight number, departure date, etcetera.). From previous experiences, I know they could ask real oddball questions, such as the names of my parents or employer’s phone number.

I had it filled out quickly. When Jonas was ready, we walked to the booth and gave it to the first uniformed man who showed interest. He added it to a stack. There were a total of three or occasionally four guys behind the counter.

As we were waiting and waiting, I realized how nice it was to be traveling hand luggage only. Imagine still having to do this lengthy visa process and your luggage is just making circles and circles on the baggage carousel unattended, until an employee inevitably takes it off and you’ll have to ask for it when you finally get through immigration. Or worse, someone takes your luggage and now you’re also straight up not having a good time.

A US American guy showed up to the counter and had a conversation with the guy who took our form. He asked what to fill in for his work visa. The immigration officer assumed military, but the American was ready for that assumption and said “Not military.” So as the lurker I am, I assumed he would still say what he was there for, but he didn’t. So it’s probably oil.

I connected to the airport WiFi and did some other things, such as adjusting my watch and my phone to Kuwait’s time zone. Jonas had his global eSIM activated for Kuwait so we don’t rely on a SIM card shop to be open in the arrivals hall at this ungodly hour.

Answering the Visa Officer’s Questions

After 20 minutes, we were called by one of the immigration officers. He asked Jonas to say his last name while another guy tried to listen and type. He had to repeat it a bunch of times. I expected them to ask the same of me, since my last name is much trickier. But no, they only wanted to hear BREUER on repeat. The man not typing things up said that they needed to transliterate it into Arabic.

I could have helped with that. This transliteration thing happened to us once before in Belarus while buying a SIM card in Brest. I found it odd back then, and I still don’t see the usefulness in it today. Especially because when we finally got our Kuwaiti visas on arrival, they had botched Jonas’ name in a spectacular way.

We had to sit back down. Meanwhile, Jonas went out to try the ATMs in this purgatory between real spaces. The ATMs (NBK) didn’t accept any of his cards. A young girl was running around all the waiting area chairs on repeat, laughing and giggling.

The people ahead of us were making some progress. There was this one Dutch couple who was invited to pay for their visas. They tried many cards, but each time the payment failed. When they finally had success, I asked them what type of card finally worked for them. They said a VISA credit card.

After another while, it was our turn to pay. We couldn’t pay for both our visas on arrival in one transaction, which was a pity. However, Jonas’ VISA credit card worked without problems.

We had to sit back down while our passport went into a large stack. There was a five-minute session of stamping noises and names being called. When it was our turn, we received our passports with the Kuwaiti entrance stamp close to the middle on an empty page, not very evenly spaced for future stamps. The paper read Electronic Visa in the header.

Damn, we waited an hour just to make a Kuwaiti eVisa on the spot? Also, it took so long that we entered Kuwait on the 29th of December.

Fingerprinting + Iris Scan

The main immigration man pointed to an area in Visa Hall 2. That’s where we had to give them our biometric data.

The guy told me to sit down and started up the finger print machine. Jonas sat down in a parallel booth and did the same. The guy was trying to multitask by getting our data at roughly the same time, so he ended up running a lot back and forth and yelling a lot about thumbs in between.

He also needed an iris scan. Bright lights in my eyeballs this early in the new day. He was eventually satisfied with the results. Now we could leave.

Though Immigration + Arrivals Hall + Taxi Stand

The walk from the visa halls to the actual immigration booths was still full of potential surprised. The long queue from our plane’s arrival had dissolved completely. In fact, most of the officials were also gone, or they’d sat down and were chatting with their colleagues.

We assumed one of the guys would sit down in the passport control booth to check over our Kuwaiti visas again, but we just showed our papers to any uniformed guy who was just making his way elsewhere. We passed the unmanned booths and walked to the bag scan. In Kuwait, women do the bag scanning. They were also involved in conversation and barely looked at the x-rays.

Past the empty baggage carousel, we finally took our time to read our eVisa visa on arrival. What the hell happened to Jonas’ name?

From there, we walked past the customs check and through the arrivals hall. Jonas tried a few ATMs and had success with the NBK one to get some cash for the taxi ride and our apartment deposit. The NBK bank didn’t charge a fee for the withdrawal.

Kuwait International Airport is the cleanest one I’ve ever seen, at least at this time of night. There’s just so many people busy cleaning the floors until they sparkle. You could probably eat off of them.

One visit to the toilet and the water fountain, and then we made the long march from the arrivals hall to the taxi stand past many more friendly airport employees. It was 0:47 in the morning. I still asked at the information booth if there were buses at this time, but the very friendly guy could only answer “I don’t know” for any question I asked.

At the taxi stand, there were a few Khaleeji men in full garb. We approached one of them and asked to drive to Al Salmiya neighborhood. He said the price is 8 KWD, which is the official rate from the airport to Al Salmiya as seen on the airport website. Pretty neat that there’s no hustling.

While loading up our backpacks, he asked me to type in the address, which was the last of his English. He switched the keyboard from Arabic to English and I found it easily. Then he showed me he pressed navigation, and said yalla. We got in the back, found working seatbelts, and we drove through the night over highways and intersections past typical Kuwaiti water towers to our neighborhood. It doesn’t seem easy to hitchhike here. It also doesn’t seem easy to be a pedestrian here. I guess we’ll see how and what we’ll do in our ten days in Kuwait.

We only arrived at the serviced apartment at 1:10 in the AM…

Our Advice: Get the Kuwaiti eVisa

Since for the visa on arrival they just use the same system as the eVisa system, but on the spot, there’s no reason to not try getting the Kuwaiti eVisa first. As long as you have enough time to let them process it! I recommend applying for the Kuwaiti eVisa 14–10 days before your trip.

When applying for the eVisa, you have to pay the 10 KWD online. I haven’t done it myself, but I assume you can pay for it with a VISA credit card. However, in EPS, there were many people who did the eVisa and received it without paying for it. They also weren’t asked for it when they arrived in Kuwait. Their nationalities were Italian and British. Perhaps this is a loophole in the system they still have to close, or perhaps these two countries are better allies of Kuwait than we all thought.

If the eVisa system is taking too long or throwing a fit over extra documents, I would probably just forget about it and try the visa on arrival route. If you’re doing the visa on arrival, I hope you’ll have a faster time than we did. The stories online about getting either of the tourist visas for Kuwait diverge a lot from each other. Some people had to pull a number and got their VOA within 15 minutes and had to use a scanner device themselves to pass. Some eVisa visitors still had to queue with the VOA people and were only slightly prioritized. And these stories are all from 2025.

Some people were even asked for their biometric data upon exiting Kuwait via the airport. That’s diabolical.

In short, it seems like there’s no standardized process for the visa to Kuwait. It will 100% depend on the experience and efficiency of the crew on shift at the time of your arrival. So just be chill. Have your documents in order. Hope for the best.

Our Departure from Kuwait

Ten days later, we departed Kuwait via the airport again. After taking a Careem from our Al Salmiya apartment, we first exchanged all our Kuwaiti Dinars into Bahraini Dinars. Jonas did this at the first exchange office inside Terminal 5 (the Jazeera Airways terminal). They only took home 0.5% of the value. We’ve never seen such an honest currency exchange. Could this be because of Islamic law (riba) against taking of interest? Does it apply only between fellow Gulf currencies (dinars for dinars) or also to external currencies (dinars to rupees)?

Anyway. We printed our boarding passes at a machine and continued our journey upstairs.

Before going through immigration, there was a guy taking away water bottles. We chugged our water and then went through. One lady with a scale and a baggage dimension thing stood in the snaking stanchions, but she was busy on her phone. At the immigration booth, we handed over our boarding passes, passports, and Kuwaiti visas. They stamped us out and kept the Kuwaiti visa on arrival. So, take a photo of it before you leave Kuwait.

Security was a mess with people jumping the queue and going in between Jonas and I. Security demanded us to open up our laptops and turn them on. They didn’t search them, just wanted to see them turn on. I have no idea why.

Edit: it’s because their scanner tech is just 2D instead of 3D. Turning it on proves it’s just a computer and not some nefarious shit.

The rest of our stay at Kuwait International Airport was hell since all Jazeera Airways flights were delayed and the space at the gates is very small and crowded. We also had a gate change. Our short flight to Bahrain finally departed more than two hours later. It again started with an Islamic prayer while taxiing to our runway.

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