Difficulty Getting An E-Visa for Oman

[Seat0B]

I'm just putting this here to share our recent (December 2024) difficulties getting a 10 day tourist e-visa for a visit to Oman, in the hope that others may avoid the mistakes we made.

What happened?
Basically, the problem was that we had been to Oman previously as tourists 8 years ago in 2016. Our Australian passports had subsequently expired and been replaced, and as is consistent with Australian government practice, the old ones were surrendered. This was too much for the Omani e-visa system.

When we first applied on line, there was a series of questions including if we had ever been to Oman before. We selected yes. It then provided an additional drop down menu asking for the passport number of the passport used for that visit, and the visa number if any. Now of course, we did not have that information as the old passport was long gone. So we just left those questions blank, but the system refused to let us advance until the boxes were filled. Eventually we were forced to select No, never been to Oman (which wasn't true, but we could not move past the page.

There were a couple of other issues too, especially as we were completing this application whilst already overseas. One of these was the requirement to upload a low res photo (less than 512KB) when we only had our apple devices and could not easily get down to that resolution. In the end, the secret was to take a selfie and then take one or more screen shots of the selfie until it got down to the required poor resolution. You're welcome!

We duly completed all the rest of the form and submitted. After a few hours, we both received emails saying that our visas were pending, and more information was required. We checked on the portal, and we were both requested to supply a photo of the passport used previously to enter Oman, and a photo of the previous visa. Of course, this was impossible.

The messages were largely automated, and came in Arabic, with an English translation underneath. We assumed that in the miracle of Google translate, our replies in English would be translated for the border guard, so we replied that we no longer had the passport as it had been surrendered.

We both received another email, and another trip to the portal to find another, similarly worded message wanting a copy of the passport used in 2016. To be extra sure this time, we got our son, who lives in the UAE and is fluent in Arabic, to write us a polite and more detailed explanation in Arabic, explaining that it was not possible and why.

At this point, things got weird. My husband received a new message - his visa had been approved and he just needed to pay. I also received a new message - my visa application would be rejected unless I supplied the proof of my previous visit. Of course I could not provide it, and so my visa application was duly rejected.

In the end, we both managed to get paper visas at a land border crossing a couple of days later, but we were very lucky to get them, and I am quite certain that having an Arabic speaker along with us at that time helped in that outcome. The Royal Omani Police web site is very clear that e-visas are now the expected norm for tourists, and they were quite unsympathetic about any difficulties encountered with the very clunky web interface for applications.

 

[Seat0B]

Lessons Learnt
1. If you have previously been to Oman, and you think that you might ever want to go back there, keep a written record of your passport number from the time of your previous visit and if you got a numbered visa, the visa number. I would also keep record of the exact dates and location where you got the visa. We did not have any of these details, other than the location of entry.

2. I would also keep a photo of the previous passport and the visa as well before you surrender it to get a new one, just in case.

3. The web site says to allow 4 days for getting the e-visa. In retrospect, we were probably a bit casual about that as we did allow only 4 days, 2 of which were effectively unusable as we had international flights. This is especially true if you are unable to provide the details of passport and visa from a previous visit as it will likely take you more than 4 days to get that sorted out. Despite us advising them that, as per Australian Government processes, our old passport had been surrendered and destroyed, they did not seem to grasp that reality, and kept asking us to either fill in the number on line, or send a photo, neither of which was going to be possible.

4. Ideally I would get the e-visa sorted before leaving Australia, as it's much easier to do things when you are not already travelling.

5. Do not rely on the ability to get a paper visa at the border. We were just very lucky that we were at a relatively remote outstation (Musandam Enclave in the far north of the UAE, not Oman proper) which was still using paper forms as a lower priority area that say the main airport at Muscat. They were all very clear that e-visa was the way of the future and that "soon" there would be no paper applications in the moment, all applications would be in advance on-line.

6. It's the Middle East and anything can happen - you may be lucky, or you may not, inshallah. Try to stay calm.

7. Because of the potential for chaos, I would now start the e-visa process much earlier, and if you encounter any issue with getting it but decide to present at the border anyway, or continue with your trip plans in the expectation of getting a visa, be sure to have plenty of local money including some cash to deal with any unexpected costs such as meals or accommodation etc, and try not to have a border crossing with hard deadlines such as international flights etc as things may not run to plan.

 

[zainman]

Thanks for sharing your experience

I'm surprised you don't have a copy or photo of your previous passport? Surely in some email somewhere you would be able to find it? The first thing I do when I get a new passport is to take a picture of it so I don't have to go and find it in the draw if I'm booking flights/applying visas etc...

I have travelled to Oman on this E-visa back in 2017 and it was pretty smooth from memory. I am used to applying for visas though so did it well in advance. Never crossed the land border though, we flew in to MCT.

I suppose all is well that ends well!

 

[SYD]

I actually have most of my old passports. Normally you don’t “surrender” them, they just cut a chunk off the old one.

But since you were already OS, you probably wouldn’t have had the old one with you anyway.

Hint for shrinking photos: email them to yourself. There’s an option then to resize the file.

 

[Seat0B]

I'm surprised you don't have a copy or photo of your previous passport?

@zainman I have never taken a copy of an old passport, because in more than 50 years of travelling, I have never, ever, been asked for a copy of an expired passport! No other country has ever cared about my old passport - they have only wanted to see my current travel documents. And for security reasons, I avoid putting my passport number in emails. That is a lesson I have learnt now, the hard way. And I just want to save people the problems we had!

I will be going back to Oman as it's a beautiful destination, so for sure I will take a photo of all future passports and visas.

 

[Seat0B]

I actually have most of my old passports. Normally you don’t “surrender” them, they just cut a chunk off the old one.

But since you were already OS, you probably wouldn’t have had the old one with you anyway.

Hint for shrinking photos: email them to yourself. There’s an option then to resize the file.

So @SYD I too have some of my old passports from back in the day, including my first ever passport from when I was 15, and yes with the corners cut off . But when I applied for renewal at my local post office, the last twice they have required me to hand over the old passport - maybe it will be different when I get my next one, which I expect will be that newer electronic auto renewal process that Mr Seat 0A did for his most recent renewal. YMMV .

And as you say, even if I had my old passport, it would have been at home. So another lesson learnt - but the real learning for me was that anyone, anywhere, would ever care about my expired travel documents! I mean they obviously had all the details of my previous trip in their system somewhere, as they knew to ask me about it, so I don't really know why it was such an issue. And why my explanation, which was identical to Mr Seat 0A's was rejected, when his was accepted .

Re the email trick, I tried that but it didn't seem to work for sending a selfie using an iphone? Is there some magic setting that I need to find?

 

[Happy Dude]

I keep a scanned copy of my passport (visa pages, personal info page) in the cloud or web-based email in case I lose the real thing, together with other important documents like driver's license, TI policy/pds. Especially important when travelling. I also keep the same copies on an external drive at home which gets updated as things get renewed (expired docs get moved to a "superseded" folder). Over time, a historical record is created and is easily accessed for whatever purpose.

 

[Seat0B]

I keep a scanned copy of my passport (visa pages, personal info page) in the cloud or web-based email in case I lose the real thing, together with other important documents like driver's license, TI policy/pds. Especially important when travelling. I also keep the same copies on an external drive at home which gets updated as things get renewed (expired docs get moved to a "superseded" folder). Over time, a historical record is created and is easily accessed for whatever purpose.

yes great idea @Happy Dude - we have started to do that too with OneDrive and it has been very useful, especially for travel insurance. Unfortunately would not have saved me this time, because I did not keep any details of my earlier passports. Which is a very important lesson I have learnt from this experience!

 

[SYD]

Re the email trick, I tried that but it didn't seem to work for sending a selfie using an iphone? Is there some magic setting that I need to find?

No magic. Take the photo and then open your photos. Click on send button (Square with arrow) and the “Mail”.

When you press send, it prompts to resize the attachment.

 

[Seat0B]

Thanks @SYD - I see the problem. I use Outlook for email, not Mail and it does not offer that option.

 

[RooFlyer]

When you press send, it prompts to resize the attachment.

I think that’s only iPhones, isn’t it?