Iran Visa Application & Requirements

1.1 Introduction

To obtain a visa for Iran, you will need to fill in an application form. There are two ways one can apply for visa for Iran. The first way is to apply for a visa on your own through a platform called E-Visa which is run by the Foreign Ministry of Islamic Republic of Iran. Every visa application needs to be registered through this platform. The second way, however, is to ask a third-party agent, such as Kental Iran Travel, an experienced Iran tour guide agency, to go through the process on your behalf. In this article, we explain different documents that needs to be attached to a visa application form, either by the applicants themselves or the third-party agents on their behalf.

1.2 Visa types

There are various types of visas for Iran. The Foreign Ministry offers each type of visa to applicants based on their purpose in travelling to Iran. These visa types are Tourist, Pilgrimage, Diplomatic, Education, Temporary Work, Transit, Media, Investment, Marital, and Medical. Each of these visa types require the applicant to submit specific documents. In general, the application process is slightly different for each applicant, depending on the type of visa for which they are applying. We will explain specific conditions in detail.

1.3 E-Visa Platform

The Islamic Republic of Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a so-called E-Visa platform through which most application processes take place. On this platform, you will need to fill in a Nonimmigrant Visa Application Form. The officers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran will use the information you put in the application form to evaluate your application.

It is worth-noting that all visa applicants, regardless of the type of visa they are applying for, must submit the Online Nonimmigrant Visa Application.

1.4 Required Documents

There are three vital components of a typical visa application for Iran. All visa applications must contain the following items:

Passport

Digital image of your passport

Digital image of your photo

The last two items must meet certain criteria such as formatting and size. The E-Visa platform has explained the criteria for digital image of your passport and your photo in detail.

For many applicants, the items above will not suffice to obtain a visa for Iran. Other items may include:

Resume or Curriculum Vitae: according the type of visa you are applying for, you may be asked by the E-Visa to submit a resume or Curriculum Vitae which contain information about your current and previous education and work history.

Travel itinerary: in case you want to travel to different cities and provinces in Iran, providing the E-Visa platform with your travel arrangements may be helpful. In case you want a third-party agent, such as Kental Iran Travel, a Tehran-based Iran tour guide agency, to obtain a visa for you, they will provide the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with your travel arrangements, thus saving you time and energy during the application process.

Other than the items mentioned so far, there are other unique items one may need to submit while applying for a visa for Iran though the E-Visa platform. The table below gives information about specific requirements of each of the visa application types[1].

Visa Type	Specific requirements
A-Entry	Valid invitation Possible interviews at the consulate of Islamic Republic of Iran
B-Tourist	Possible interviews at the consulate of Islamic Republic of Iran
C-Pilgrimage	Possible interviews at the consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran
D-Diplomatic	Official diplomatic passport
E-Education	Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status from the Science Ministry, Education Ministry, or an accredited academic institution
F-Temporary Work	Obtaining the labor certificate from a sponsor employer in Iran, approved by the Labor Ministry
G-Transit	Declaring visa to destination
H-Media	Obtaining the permit from the Media & Public Diplomacy Center
I-Investment	Approved letter from the Organization for Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran
M-Marital	Father’s official permission regarding the children’s trip to Iran
T-Medical	Approval letter from one of the authorized medical centers

 

As mentioned above, you may be asked by the Iranian consulate or the embassy in your country, or close to your country, to attend an interview. In this case, the embassy or the consulate will notify you for further steps via an email sent to the email address you wrote in the application form.

However, if you are not required to attend an interview with an officer, you should wait until the status of your visa application changes. You can check you application status on the E-Visa platform. No need to say that E-Visa will notify you with an email whenever the status of your visa application changes.

However, the good news for some applicants is that citizens of eleven countries are exempt from visa requirements. So, if you are a citizen of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Georgia, Armenia, Venezuela, Malesia, or China, your passport will be enough for travelling to Iran.

1.5 Visa Validity

The validity of a tourist visa for Iran is three months. That means you can enter Iran anytime during the three months following the issuance of your tourist visa. When you enter Iran with a tourist visa, you can stay in Iran for 30 days. When this period is over and you are willing to stay in Iran for longer, you can request to renew your tourist visa for 30 days. You can repeat this process for three times.

Unfortunately, though, the citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are not allowed to renew their tourist visas.

1.6 Iran tour guide agencies such as Kental Iran Travel

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, there is another, and a much easier, way of applying for a visa for Iran. Third party agents, such as travel agencies, private and state companies, institutions, organization and universities can ease the visa application process for you. Kental Iran Travel, in particular, boosts your tourist visa application process by doing all paper work on your behalf in a short period of time. You will just need to provide Kental Iran Travel with the most basic documents, such as your passport and photo, and they will do the rest on your behalf. In short, you will not need to visit E-Visa system at all.

1.7 Conclusion

In this article, we explained how one can apply for a visa for Iran. E-Visa is the system through which all visa application processes take place. The applicants have two options while applying for a visa for Iran. The first is to fill in the nonimmigrant visa application form on the E-Visa platform on their own. Above, we explained the process and the documents needed for the process in detail. The second way is to ask a third-party agent, such a Kental Iran Travel, to apply for a visa through E-Visa platform on your behalf. By this way, Kental Iran Travel saves you a lot of time and energy that could otherwise be wasted dealing with the application process on your own.