By the time you read this, booking a Dubai holiday from Kuwait could involve one less phone call to a travel agent. That’s the end result of a change Dubai announced on Sunday, 1 November: you can now apply for a tourist visa right on Visit Dubai, the emirate’s official tourism website, the same place people already use to book attractions, buy tickets and plan trips.
But to understand why this matters, it helps to go back to how the change actually came together, because it’s really two announcements rolled into one, and it says something about where Dubai wants its tourism sector to go next.
- Visit Dubai now offers applications for single-entry and multiple-entry tourist visas, alongside existing channels like airlines and travel agents.
- Fees start at Dh200 (about KD 15) for a 30-day single-entry visa, excluding VAT, with processing typically taking three working days.
- The General Directorate of Identity and Foreigners Affairs – Dubai (GDRFA Dubai) still reviews and issues every visa, regardless of where you apply.
- A second initiative, Dubai Access Club, offers an invitation-only membership with perks for repeat visitors.
How it started: two announcements in one
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, announced both initiatives together as part of a push to strengthen Dubai’s tourism sector.
The first is the visa service now built into Visit Dubai. The second, Dubai Access Club, is a members-only programme designed for people who visit Dubai often, giving them exclusive benefits and experiences across the city. Details on how someone gets invited to join haven’t been spelled out yet.
For anyone in Kuwait who treats Dubai as a regular weekend or holiday spot, this sits alongside other recent moves across the Gulf to make cross-border travel smoother, like Saudi Arabia’s new digital entry app for GCC residents.
So what exactly changed for tourists?
Before this, if you needed a prearranged tourist visa for Dubai, you’d typically go through government channels, an authorised travel agency, or an airline such as Emirates or flydubai. That hasn’t disappeared. Visit Dubai is simply an additional channel, not a replacement.
A dedicated visa information section already sits on the Visit Dubai website. It lists the different visa categories, what each one costs, what documents you’ll need, and how long processing usually takes. According to the site, that 30-day single-entry visa starting at Dh200 (plus VAT) is typically processed within three working days, which is useful if you’re booking a trip on short notice.
GDRFA Dubai will keep handling the actual review and issuing of every visa, no matter which channel you apply through. Lieutenant General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, Director General of GDRFA Dubai, said enabling visitors to apply through Visit Dubai is
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