Iran Visa on Arrival

Iran Visa: It could be said one of the main aims of tourism industry is peoples` entrance to other countries. It is their entrance that makes cross cultural understanding; moreover, steps toward global village in order to have sustainable peace or a world without fight and war.

 To reach on this valuably sacred goal of UNWTO, people as tourists need to get a permission to enter a country. This permission called Visa should be definitely issued by governments. The consulate of foreign ministry in each country called MFA has charge of visa issuing for people from overseas. It is while some countries in 1985 on a deck of a ship signed a treaty called Schengen; aftermath, their citizens could travel through other`s countries freely and easily. It means they opened their geographical boarder lines for their people. Some other countries gradually joined to the treaty so that in January 2008; there were 28 countries that could be visited without needing to visa. It was of course possible just for their citizens. There are almost 500,000 people who could travel through Schengen boarder without collecting visa now.

There are some other countries who cancelled visa necessity for their citizens to enter; the recent one was United Arab Emirates treaty with Britain. On the base of this treaty, The UAE people do not need to collect a visa to visit Britain. IRAN has the same treaty with Turkey. But the new action in Iran is visa on arrival. During past years, the visa collecting process for tourists was somehow a difficult task called real bear problem. In around October, 10^th 2004 an accepted enactment made the visa collecting process more convenient. It said that many nationalities are able to get their tourist transit visa while entering to Iran. Some International airports in Teheran (Mehr-Abad and IKA), Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz and Mashhad were authorized to issue the transit visa valid for 7 days. There were almost eight (8) nationalities that could not use this advantage. They were people of Czech Republic, Britain, USA, Canada, Argentina, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Those others who could use this special privilege paid just the visa tariff to state and collected it. This enactment is in practice now.

Now, the agencies can request airport visa or visa on arrival for their customers. They go through the IRAN MFA web site and ask for the visa on arrival. There is a need of three days to issue the visa valid for 3 to 15 days; the reference number is emailed to agency after mentioned time (three days). The tourist(s) can collect their visa on arrival by offering the reference number to airport`s officer in charge. Tourist(s) should pay the tariff there; the agency can pay it already, too. It should be noted that for collecting transit visa when the tourist(s) will change just the flight, no money is demanded. To be clearer, there are some people from abroad who are going to change their flights in Iran airports; e.g. are going from Australia to Iraq via Iran. If their staying time were less than eight (8) hours, no visa is needed; of course, they cannot leave the airport. For more than this connecting time, visa on arrival will be essential. Another point is that visa on arrival saves tourist(s) ` time because there is no need to go to consulate bureau. Sometimes, a phone number of an Iranian who confirms your support is enough. It may be one of the reasons for fashionable couch-surfing business in Iran. It is while the airport officer asks you to give him an Iranian phone number; the owner of number is called by officer. Owner`s confirmation could be your reference number to collect your Iran visa on arrival. Either visa on arrival or visa through consulate bureau, Persia is really worth to visit.

Iran tourism practitioners look presumably forward to hearing more good news from new arrived government in order to facilitate visa on arrival process even for those 8 other nationalities.