Iran Visa on Arrival and E-Visa for Iran

1.1 Introduction

When you are granted a visa to enter Iran, there are two ways you can physically collect your visa. The first is through embassies and consulates in or near your country of residence. The second way is to collect your visa at an international airport in Iran upon your arrival. In this article, we first briefly describe the E-Visa application process and then explain how you can physically acquire your visa on arrival.

1.2 E-Visa for Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s 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 an Online Nonimmigrant Visa Application Form. The officers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran and in consulates and embassies will use the information you provide in the application form to evaluate your application and issue your visa.

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 Form. However, if you are applying for a tourist visa, you can exempt yourself form this process by applying for a visa through Kental Iran Travel’s service. Kental Travel, an Iran tour guide operator based in Tehran, will do all the E-Visa application process on your behalf, thus saving you a lot of time and energy that could be wasted dealing with the visa application process on your own.

1.3 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 required. In case you want an Iran tour guide operator, such as Kental Iran Travel, 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.

Again, you can easily lift off the heavy burden of dealing with the main E-Visa platform. By providing Kental Iran Travel, a highly experienced Iran tour guide operator in Tehran, with some basic documents, such as the digital images of your passport and photo, Kental Iran Travel will do all the paper work for you, thus exempting you from the E-Visa application process.

1.4 Visa on Arrival

After you apply for a visa for Iran, you will need to wait for about 10 business days for the visa issuance process to take place. When your visa is ready, you will receive an email from Kental Iran Travel, if you apply through Kental Iran Travel service, or from the E-Visa platform, if you apply through the main platform, indicating that you have been granted a visa to enter Iran.

1.5 Where and how to acquire an issued visa?

There are two ways you can physically acquire you visa. The first is through embassies and consulates in or near your native country. The confirmation email will explain where you can collect your visa. The second way is to collect your visa at an international airport in Iran.

The Visa on Arrival method is suitable for both independent tourists who can handle their accommodations, visits, and trips on their own and those who apply for visa through third-party agents such as the Kental Iran Travel service.

Unfortunately, though, the citizens of some countries are not allowed to obtain a tourist visa on arrival at international airports. So, if you are a citizen of the United Kingdom, the United States, Afghanistan, Columbia, Bangladesh, Somalia, and India, you will need to apply for a tourist visa through an Iran tour guide operator, such as Kental Iran Travel.

1.6 How does Visa on Arrival work?

There are three steps to take in order to collect your visa at an international airport in Iran.

• You need to apply for an electronic visa (E-Visa) through either the main E-Visa platform or the Kental Iran Travel service. After you have done this, you will have to wait for the issuance of your visa. When the visa is issued, you may be given a Grant Notice to Visa on Arrival.
• When you arrive at an international airport, you will need to submit the hard-copy of your Grant Notice to Visa on Arrival.
• Finally, you will have to pay the visa fee in euros through banking terminals at international airports.

It is worth-mentioning that in all cases, your passport must be valid for at least six months, since the time of your landing, until it expires.

1.7 Conclusion

In this article, we first described the E-Visa application process for Iran. Then we explained how one can physically acquire their visa. As mentioned above, there are two ways one can apply for a visa for Iran. The first method is to apply for visa for Iran through the E-Visa application platform, a system run by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The second, and by far the easier, way to obtain a visa is to fill in a visa application form on third-party platforms, such as the Kental Iran Travel service. By doing the latter, one is essentially lifting off the burden of dealing with the E-Visa platform; in fact, Kental Iran Travel do the paper work on their behalf.

 

When you receive an email indicating that you have been granted a visa to enter Iran, you will have two options to collect your issued visa. The first way is through embassies and consulates in or near your country of residence. The second way is to collect you visa upon your arrival at an international airport in Iran. Details about each of these methods will be sent to you by the Kental Iran Travel service, if you decide to apply through Kental Iran Travel.