The GCC Grand Tours visa has not launched — here is what is actually on record

The GCC unified tourist visa has not launched. As at 9 October 2026 no Gulf state — Oman included — issues it, there is no application portal, and no GCC body has published a fee, a validity period, an eligibility rule or a launch date. If you are planning a trip to Oman now, you need one of Oman's own visas or its visa exemption, which are live and have published terms.

It has not launched, and no date has been set

The scheme often called the GCC Grand Tours visa is meant to let a visitor travel between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on a single authorisation. Every source agrees on the six countries. Beyond that, almost nothing is official: there is no decision text setting out how it works, and no member state has created it in its own visa law.

The most recent official statement came from the GCC Secretary-General, Jasem Albudaiwi, at a conference in Riyadh in early September 2026, reported on 10 September 2026. He said the unified visa will strengthen Gulf integration and make it easier for visitors to move between member states, and that it would be launched soon. He gave no date, no fee, no validity period and no eligibility rule.

What has officially been decided, and when

Read together, the record says this: the visa was approved in principle in late 2023, and the job of making it work was handed to the interior ministers in December 2024. It does not say how the visa will work. The silence in the December 2025 communiqué is notable after two years of mentions; no official source explains it, and we are not going to guess.

What ministers have said since

• May 2024, Arabian Travel Market, Dubai: the name GCC Grand Tours used publicly; the UAE economy minister said it would make travel to the region more convenient and affordable.
• July 2025: after a meeting of GCC passport directors, the Secretary-General said passport departments were holding joint technical meetings; he was reported as targeting launch before the end of 2025.
• Late September 2025: the UAE's minister of economy and tourism said a pilot was expected in the fourth quarter of 2025, with full implementation later.
• 7 November 2025: Saudi Arabia's tourism minister, Ahmed Al-Khateeb, said it would be launched in 2026.
• September 2026: the Secretary-General said it would be launched soon.

None of these statements came with a decision text, a fee or a portal, and none has been followed by one. They tell you the project is alive; they do not tell you when you can use it.

Where Oman stands

Oman has been close to the project from the start. It chaired the tourism ministers' meeting of 5 October 2023, and the interior ministers adopted the project at their meeting in Muscat on 8 November 2023.

Oman is also the member state whose minister has been most candid about the delay. According to Gulf News, Oman's Minister of Heritage and Tourism, Salim bin Mohammed Al Mahrouqi, said in March 2025 that the project was still in a research phase, with discussions continuing on security and data sharing. In June 2025 the Oman Observer reported him citing security concerns and differing perspectives among GCC countries. Those are the most specific official explanations for the delay that we found anywhere.

What Oman does not have is anything to issue. No Royal Oman Police decision creates a unified visa category, and neither the ROP eVisa portal nor the gov.om service catalogue lists one. Oman has added new visa types by published decision when it has wanted to — the free 14-day tourist visa in August 2026 is the latest — so a unified visa would be expected to appear the same way.

What has not been published

• A launch date. Only statements of intent.
• A fee. No GCC body and no member government has published one.
• A validity period, number of entries or maximum stay.
• An eligibility rule — whether it is for residents of the Gulf, for tourists generally, or for particular nationalities.
• An application portal or an issuing authority.
• A legal instrument in Oman adding the category to the visa regulations.

Until those exist, any page that quotes a price, a validity period or a list of documents for this visa is guessing — including the ones that look official.

Who would it be for? The sources disagree

No official text settles it. Our reading — and it is only ours — is that a first phase for Gulf residents followed by a wider scheme would fit every version, but no source says so. Two points are not in dispute: citizens of the six GCC states do not need it, because they already move freely; and a June 2025 report mentioned reservations about certain nationalities from unstable regions without naming any, so no one can tell you yet whether your passport would qualify.

Sites that look official but are not

Search for this visa and you will find several sites built around its name: gcctouristvisa.com, gccgrandtours.com, gccgrandtoursvisa.com, gccvisa.com and unifiedgccevisa.com, among others. None of them is a government site. The one we could open, unifiedgccevisa.com, describes itself as an independent information hub and says the portal is coming soon, but carries no prominent statement that it is unofficial.

What to use if you are coming to Oman now

Oman's own entry routes are single-country, they are live, and their terms are published. Our guide to visit visas and the eVisa covers them in full; the ones most travellers need are these:

If you live in another Gulf state, the GCC residents' visa is the closest thing that exists today to what the unified visa promises. You need a valid GCC residence permit in an approved profession and must arrive directly from that state or in transit through another GCC state. The approved-professions list is not published. Separately, the Foreign Ministry's exemption list — last updated 22 September 2026 — lets nationals of its second group in without a visa if they hold GCC residence in an eligible profession.

If what you actually want is to live in Oman rather than visit, a tourist visa of any kind is the wrong tool; see every route to residency in Oman, and for a comparison with the UAE and Qatar, where residency in each country leads.

What to watch for

• An announcement from the GCC Secretariat General that names a launch date and an application portal.
• A Royal Oman Police decision, published in the Official Gazette, adding the category to Oman's visa regulations.
• A fee on gov.om or the ROP site — the point at which a figure becomes real.
• A published eligibility rule saying who can apply.

We will update this page, and the verification date at the top, when the Secretariat General or the Royal Oman Police publishes something concrete. Until then our office in Al Ghubra can help with Oman's existing visas and residence files, which are the routes that actually work today.