UAE Visit Visa Fees 2026: Official Fee vs Agency Price, Line by Line (AED)

GDRFA Dubai publishes AED 252 for a 30-day single-entry tourist visa. A GDRFA-partner Amer centre publishes AED 650 for the same trip. The gap is AED 398. No page ranking for uae visit visa price explains what sits inside it. This one does, and every figure here carries the date we checked it.

What each visa costs: official fee, agency price, and the gap

A 30-day single-entry tourist visa costs AED 252 in GDRFA fees. Add AED 10 Knowledge Dirham and AED 10 Innovation Dirham. That is AED 272 in total government charges. The same visa sells all-in at AED 650 through amer247, an Amer centre partnered with GDRFA. Both figures checked 20 July 2026.

Read the price comparison table below as agency fee vs official fee. There is no single price.

The GDRFA fee figures come from its service cards, read on 20 July 2026. The transit visa fee figures come from etihad.com, read the same day. That page states transit fees cannot be extended and carry no refund policy. Amer-centre prices come from amer247.com, captured 20 July 2026.

ICP, the federal authority, prices the same idea again. Its card Issuance of a Visa sets an ICP service card fee of AED 100 to apply. Add AED 100 a month for single entry, or AED 200 for multiple entry. So ICP starts at AED 200 where GDRFA starts at AED 272. Which one applies depends on the channel that filed for you, not on the visa you think you bought.

An Amer centre publishes AED 650 for the same 30-day trip GDRFA prices at AED 272; the gap is service, not fraud

What the official fee covers, and the four things it does not

AED 500 is the first cost the government fee does not include. GDRFA adds it when you file from inside the UAE. The fee itself buys the entry permit and nothing else. Three more charges sit outside it. They reach your invoice only if someone itemises them. The service or typing-centre charge. VAT on that charge. Any express surcharge.

The express visa fee is flat, not a percentage. At amer247 the 14-day visa goes from AED 650 to AED 750 for express. The 30-day visa does the same. That is AED 100 both times. The surcharge buys staff priority. The state charges nothing extra for speed.

Insurance is the fifth cost. u.ae states the 5-year multiple-entry tourist visa needs UAE health insurance valid for 180 days. Some agencies bundle it. Regal Tours publishes AED 1,200 for 60 days “including UAE Government’s mandatory travel insurance”. Others quote it apart. That alone can split two honest quotes.

Why one Amer centre quotes AED 686.75 for a 90-day visa and another AED 1,900

Both are GDRFA-partner Amer centres. Amer Bab Al Falah publishes AED 686.75 for a 90-day single-entry visit visa filed from outside the country. That price sits on its family-visit-visa list. amer247 publishes AED 1,900 for its 90-day tourist visa. That is a 2.8-fold spread between two licensed centres. Neither is overcharging. The two prices are not the same government product. That is most of the answer.

Here is the mechanism. A “90-day visit visa” is not one government product. GDRFA runs at least four cards whose market names read the same in English. A single-entry tourist visa costs AED 252 for 30 days. A relative-or-friend visit visa costs AED 200. A multiple-entry tourist visa costs AED 300. A visit visa for exploring opportunities costs AED 200 for 60 days. Quote the family route and you start AED 52 below the tourist route, before any service charge.

The arithmetic on Amer Bab Al Falah’s own list shows the rest. Its 90-day price is AED 686.75, its 60-day price AED 556.75. The difference is exactly AED 130.00, and the fractional tail is identical. So its service component does not grow with visa length. Only the government fee moves. Where a quote climbs steeply with duration, the climb is margin, not the state.

That answers a question this market keeps asking. A reader on r/UAE paid USD 370 through an online agent for two people, then asked whether he had paid above market. The dirham is pegged at AED 3.6725 to the dollar, so that is AED 679 each. That is 2.5 times the AED 272 in government charges. It is also within 4.5% of the AED 650 an Amer centre charges over the counter. He paid the going rate. The going rate is about two and a half times the state’s rate, and the difference is service, not fraud.

The security deposit: what we could verify, and what we could not

We found no security deposit on any ICP or GDRFA service card as of 20 July 2026. One agency page, Regal Tours, lists AED 5,000 for the 5-year multiple-entry visa plus AED 3,000 as a deposit. u.ae lists no such deposit. Khaleej Times reported on 10 November 2024 that an expat sponsoring a parent for a year pays a deposit per parent. That is a residence-track rule, not a visit-visa one.

So treat a deposit the way the state does. Before you pay one, ask the centre for the government receipt line, apart from its own service invoice. A deposit that lives only on an agency invoice is not a government deposit. Its refund policy is the agency’s alone. We will print a figure when a primary source does.

Extension, transit and overstay: the costs outside the visa fee

Overstay runs at AED 50 per day. Gulf News reported the standard Dh50 daily rate for visit, tourist and residence visas on 8 August 2023. The law firm Ahli reported on 29 June 2026 that ICP guidance still confirms AED 50 a day. Agency blogs also circulate AED 100 a day, AED 200 for the first day, and a separate AED 100 service fee. None of those matched a primary source we could open.

The 2026 story is not the rate. It is the waiver on top of it. Gulf News reported on 4 March 2026 that ICP waived overstay fines for travellers hit by an airspace closure. Then fines came back retroactively. A traveller on r/dubai wrote on 20 May 2026: “I called GDRFA and they said the fines got updated on May 13 for everyone but they are not sure what the reason was.” Gulf News then reported a 30-day grace period and a Philippine embassy advisory on exemptions in June 2026. Put together: the AED 50 daily rate held steady throughout. What moved, with no published reason, was whether the waiver still covered days already counted. If you are mid-stay, check your balance on the ICP fines enquiry before you book a flight.

Extension pricing is the least settled number here. ICP’s “Visa Extension” card lists AED 50 to extend an entry permit before you arrive. That is a different service from extending a stay you are already in. For a 30-day extension inside the country, HHS Lawyers reported AED 750 via the UAEICP smart app in January 2025. The Economic Times published a breakdown on 3 December 2025. It lists AED 600 base, VAT 5%, AED 500 inside-UAE processing, AED 10 Knowledge and AED 10 Innovation. That stack totals AED 1,150. amer247 lists an on-arrival extension at AED 1,100 with VAT included. The counter price and the computed stack back each other up. The AED 750 figure fits neither. We have left it visible rather than averaged it away.

Last checked: sources, dates, and what moves without notice

Every figure above carries its own check date. Two are already contested. Google’s AI Overview says add 5% VAT. u.ae publishes no fee figure at all. Fee pages go stale in weeks. Check the date on this one before you use it.

Google’s AI Overview for uae visit visa price tells you to expect an extra 5% VAT. The GDRFA card it cites holds no VAT line at all. It lists the fee, AED 10 Knowledge Dirham and AED 10 Innovation Dirham. Meanwhile u.ae’s own page headed “Visa fees and fines”, updated 13 July 2026, publishes no figure at all. It says charges “are stated on each service card on the websites of ICP and GDRFA-D”, and stops. A dozen sites quote a dozen numbers because the state publishes them one card at a time and nobody adds them up.

So verify any uae visit visa price this way. Open the GDRFA or ICP card for the exact product name your centre quoted, not for the words you used. Ask for an invoice that splits government fee, service charge and VAT 5%. Then check the date on any fee page you read. The figures above held on 20 July 2026. They can move the same week, as the 13 May 2026 fine change showed.

Found something out of date, or a receipt that contradicts us? Write to us at contact. We will re-check the source and publish a dated correction. Definitions of entry permit, Amer centre, typing centre and grace period sit in the glossary. The route-by-route overview sits on uae visa.

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