Uzbekistan visa

Entry requirements for Uzbekistan were eased in 2018, and further eased in 2019. More countries get the visa-free treatment, e-visas have been introduced, and more nationalities can enter Uzbekistan without an additional letter of invitation.

Registration is perhaps once again a thing you have to worry about.

Visa-free regime

90 days

60 days

• Kyrgyzstan

30 days

The visa-free rule is valid in airports and on land borders. All questions and updates can be posted in the Uzbek visa-free forum topic.

10 days

For the 10 days visa-free countries, travelers need to enter and depart via air, and need to have an onward flight ticket on arrival. Only certain airlines are possible. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman are also in the list floating on the internet, but IATA does not confirm this.

China, Hong Kong and Macao are the only countries on this list according to our information.

A few tips from a Chinese traveler to others to make this a success:

1. Make sure your flight leaving Uzbekistan is with Uzbekistan Airways, and bought directly with Uzbekistan Airways, with an e-ticket number starting with 250-.
2. Make sure you print out an itinerary and receipt, with your 13-digit ticket number on it, or even better to use a highlighter to make it obvious.
3. Try to avoid travel agents….
4. Learn about basic air travel stuffs, like interline agreement, ticket number, what airline representative can see and cannot see in their system, and be ready to argue when the process isn’t going the right direction…

The 10-day visa-free policy forum thread welcomes your questions.

Visa runs

As far as we know there is no restriction on the amount of times you can exit and re-enter Uzbekistan visa-free. As far as we know there is also no restriction on the amount of time you need to be outside of Uzbekistan before you can return. So same-day visa runs should be no problem.

Data points are collected in the visa runs forum thread.

Visa-free 5-day transit for air passengers

Citizens of the following countries and territories do not require a visa for a 5-day stay if they are transiting through the international airports of Uzbekistan (you need to fly in and out). According to the IATA Timatic the outbound flight from Uzbekistan must be on Uzbekistan Airways (meaning, not the inbound flight). We are looking for updates.

All questions and reports are welcome in the visa-free transit forum topic.

Tourist visa

There are 2 ways to obtain a tourist visa to Uzbekistan: via the e-visa website, or through an Uzbek embassy.

E-visa

Previously, the e-visa was available for 51 countries, but all of these have now been given visa-free status. From 1 February 2019 the e-visa is available for the following 76 countries:

All others need to go through an embassy, and apply for an additional letter of invitation from a tour company as well.

Price and validity

The price is 20$. It takes 2-3 days to issue the visa. The e-visa works at all entry points: land borders and airports. No sticker is placed in your passport, only an entry/exit stamp.

The standard e-visa is single entry, but you can apply for double or multiple entry as well. The duration of the visa is 30 days within a 90 day window of validity. The start date of the visa validity is the date you send in your application, not the date you receive your visa or the date you intend to enter Uzbekistan.

The e-visa form asks when you would like the duration of your 30 days to start. Fill in whatever you like, this is meaningless. You can enter at any point during the 90 days validity.

You do not have to enter on the first day of the visa validity, or leave on the last day of visa validity. You can enter Uzbekistan at any point within the 90-day window and leave at any time within the 30-day duration of the visa, as long as it is within the 90-day window of validity.

As an example, let’s say your visa validity is 1 January – 30 March. If you enter on 15 January, you can stay until 13 February (30 days). But you don’t have to stay 30 days, you can leave earlier.

However, if you enter on 15 March, you CANNOT stay until 14 April. You have to leave at the latest on 30 March.

Multiple entry

Uzbekistan introduced double and multiple entry e-visas in March 2019.

You can also apply for another e-visa once you have arrived in Uzbekistan, same as with the Tajik e-visa. People have done this in the past: it works, and unlike in Tajikistan, it is not illegal, so there is no need to hide it.

It might be possible to apply for 2 e-visas simultaneously if you have double nationality.

Application procedure

This is the official e-visa website where you should apply. Your browser may tell you it’s unsafe to proceed to the website. Don’t worry, you can proceed.

Although people have reported success in receiving the e-visa, the website is still very buggy. Travelers report problems uploading pictures, receiving activation links, payment failures and difficulties printing. It is difficult to predict what the problem (if any) will be for you, and what the solution would be.

Not everyone succeeds in getting their e-visa, some people have to revert to getting it via the embassy or using a third-party operator to do it for them because it simply did not work via the website. Others have ended up paying several times. Apply well enough in advance.

Here are some tips:

Picture upload and form issues

• When the e-visa form asks for “Preliminary place of residence in Uzbekistan”, you can write a random hotel (name, street address and city). You do not have to stay there.
• Pictures: upload in .jpg format (not .jpeg, not .JPG, but .jpg). Other tips include a perfectly white background, resizing to 413x532px, and cropping so your head takes up almost all of the frame, 300 DPI and less than 1MB. Someone else has reported 35mm at 45 mm. Useful apps are Persofoto, Passport size photo ID and Tinypng.
• Windows and Android have been more successful in uploading pictures than Apple.
• If your photo does not work, try taking another one, just a selfie might do already picture
• If you have troubles with the Captcha it might mean the information you provided in the form is wrong rather than the Captcha itself.
• Home address and workplace address cannot be the same.
• Chrome has been more successful than Firefox or Internet Explorer

Payment and e-mail issues

In the past, only Visa was working. Since April 2019, you can try your luck with Mastercard.

• After filling in the form, some people do not receive an activation code. Not all e-mail domains work: Uzbek support staff recommend a gmail/msn/yahoo email. Some report issues with yahoo and msn as well but gmail has worked well for everyone so far.
• If you are applying for someone else’s visa, use a different e-mail account.
• For some, the activation link does not work. You can just go to the application page and copy/paste the code provided in the application email. Be aware the link expires after 12 hours (perhaps less).
• Others have reported that the link only started to work after 12 hours…
• Once you have received the activation code, you can return to the website to pay. Many people have reported receiving a payment error. In the end, though, it turns out their payment often went through and they received their e-visa after 2 days.
• Your bank may block your payment because they think your account is hacked.
• You may or may not receive a confirmation e-mail after you have paid.
• When you receive the download link to the e-visa and download it, you might still face an issue with viewing the pdf. In this case, go to edit-preference and disable Javascript.

Updates and questions are welcome in the Uzbek e-visa forum Q&A.

Get someone else to do it for you

If you have tried all of the above and it still does not work, or if you simply do not want to waste your time trying, Ivisa is a good solution. You pay 20$ extra and they do the work for you.

Do I need to print it?

Although officially you do not need a hard copy of your visa and can simply have the visa on your phone, it is advised to print it. Border guards know about the e-visa, but might not have the technology to process online visas. Train ticketing agents and police officers do not know about it yet, and might cause trouble.

Keep your e-visa with you until you exit Uzbekistan. It might be needed to buy train tickets, or to show on exit at the border.

Embassy visas

If you cannot apply to the e-visa website, you will need to apply through an embassy. To do this, you might first need a letter of invitation.

Unlike the e-visa, an embassy visa does not have a 90-day window of validity in which you can use your 30 days in the country. An embassy visa is fixed date and valid for 30 days. You fill in the dates you want on your application form, and these are the dates you will be granted to visit Uzbekistan.

Like with the e-visa, you do not have to enter on the first day the visa starts, or leave the last day your visa ends. You can enter Uzbekistan at any point within the 30-day duration of the visa.

But you definitely need to leave before or on the date it ends. Don’t leave after it ends. This means that if you have a 30-day visa but you do not enter on the first day, you cannot stay for 30 days, you can only stay until the end of your visa. That is the meaning of the word fixed-date visa.

As an example, let’s say your visa duration is 1 January – 30 January. If you enter on 15 January, you can stay until 30 January, not until 13 February.

Letter of invitation

In the past, citizens of 15 countries did not need a letter of invitation to apply for their Uzbekistan tourist visa at the embassy.

From February 10, 2018, the list is expanded to 51 countries. All other nationals still need a letter of invitation from a tour company. We no longer provide LOI service ourselves. LOI-free countries are the same countries that can use the e-visa:

Does that mean that from February 2019 the 76 new e-visa countries will also be able to go without a letter of invitation? We assume so.

If you have a LOI, you can usually get the Uzbek visa the same day or the next day (see embassy reports for details of each embassy). If you do not have a LOI (meaning, if you are from a country that does not need one), it will take longer. Previously, 2 weeks was standard, but since 2018, reports indicate a wait of only 3-5 days for travelers without LOI.  It depends on your embassy (again, see below for reports).

It is also possible to apply in one embassy and pick it up in another one – another option to avoid long delays. When picking up the visa in the second embassy, you will have to fill out the application form again. Don’t worry, you are not starting the procedure again, you will get your visa the same day. They just need the paper.

Application procedure and visa requirements

After acquiring the letter of invitation, you can go to the embassy. First, however, you need to fill in a form online and print it. Confusingly, the website where this form is located is also called the Uzbek E-visa website. You cannot get an e-visa through this website, though.

After you fill in your data in the form on the site and print out the form, you take the print-out to the embassy of your choice for your visa application.

For your Uzbekistan visa application you will need to  bring:

• your passport. You need to have at least 2 empty pages left and 6 months validity after expiry of the visa
• a copy of your passport (you can keep your passport during processing)
• 1 filled-out Uzbekistan visa application form
• a letter of invitation if you need one
• 2 passport pictures

Theoretically, you cannot apply more than 3 months in advance. Those 3 months start from the moment you fill in the e-visa form. Many embassies allow you to apply earlier, but some are strict about this, for instance, the London embassy.

For a transit visa, proof of onward travel is needed.

What to fill in on the form

People tend to get confused about the Uzbek application form.

• Inviting party: if you need a LOI, fill in the company who gave you the LOI. If you do not need a LOI, fill in ‘not applicable, a dash or something similar.’
• Accompanied persons: children if you have any traveling with you. If not, ‘not applicable.’
• Address in Uzbekistan: name of a hotel you are staying, or pretend to be staying at. Hotel bookings are not usually checked at the embassy.
• Passport picture: there is no need to upload a picture to the form, you can simply bring a passport picture to the embassy.
• Address: if you do not have an address, fill in an address of somewhere you used to live. Nobody checks.
• Employment: if you do not have a job, fill in a job you used to work. Nobody checks your references.

Multiple-entry visa

It is possible to get a double entry visa simply by paying 10$ extra. The two entries are on the same visa for the 30 days, not two separate 15 day visas as was the case in earlier times.

This means you get 30 days to visit Uzbekistan, for instance from 1st of January until 30th of January. In this time you can exit and re-enter Uzbekistan, but you must make sure to exit Uzbekistan before the 31st of January.

Questions and reports in the multiple entry visa forum topic.

Price

The cost for the tourist visa has officially been lowered to 40$ in December 2017, with double entry 10$ extra. Usually, though, price at embassies tends to be 55$. Americans and Israelis pay 120$ to 165$, Japanese go for free.

Apply in one embassy, pick up in another

It is possible to apply for a visa in one embassy, and pick it up in another one, similar to the Turkmen visa. Generally a simple and easy-going process and recommended for people on the go who cannot wait around.

Visa on arrival

It is possible to get a visa on arrival in Uzbekistan, but only at the airport of Tashkent (perhaps Termez, but not certain). Single or double entry is possible. There are several requirements though.

• You need to have a letter of invitation stating you will get the visa at the airport.
• There is no Uzbek embassy in the country where you are coming from (where your airplane is coming from, not your country of residence)

Also, the info provided to airlines says you need two passport photos, so bring them to ensure you can board the plane to Tashkent.

When entering from a land border into Uzbekistan, visa on arrival is not possible.

If you normally do not need a LOI, you will still need one for the visa on arrival. If you make a small stopover in a country where there is an Uzbek embassy (but not long enough to reasonably get a visa), you can still apply for the visa on arrival.

Basically, once you hold an LOI with a stamp from the MFA saying the visa will be issued in Tashkent, you will be allowed on the plane, and you will not be turned back at Tashkent airport for having departed a country with an Uzbek embassy.

Questions and reports are welcome here.

Other visa types

These visas are not electronic for now, you will need to get in touch with an embassy to get one of these.

Transit visa

All info has moved to this page: transit visa for Uzbekistan.

Business visa

Since July 2018 you can apply for a business visa and stay up to 1 year in Uzbekistan. You will need a business letter of invitation which is valid for 3, 6 and 12 months, but no other documents.

Consular fees are:

• For single-entry business visa:
  • 3 months: 80$
  • 6 months: 120$
  • 1 year: 160$
  • 10$ for each additional entry
• For multiple-entry business visa:
  • 6 months: 150$
  • 1 year: 250$

Visa for children

Children under 16 don’t need visa to travel to Uzbekistan. They should be registered in the visa application of their parents.

Vatandosh

A 2-year visa for natives of Uzbekistan and members of their families. An invitation from a relative permanently residing in Uzbekistan is required.

Student and academic visa

A student visa is a 1-year visa for foreign students enrolled in educational institutions in Uzbekistan. An academic visa is issued for a period of 3 months to 2 years for foreigners conducting research and teaching activities in Uzbekistan.

Medical visa

A visa for up to 3 months for foreign citizens who enter Uzbekistan for treatment at the invitation of a medical institution.

Pilgrim visa

A pilgrim visa is issued for up to 2 months to foreigners to study the cultural, historical, religious and spiritual heritage and traditions of Uzbekistan. You will need an invitation from a tour agency or the Committee on Religious Affairs.

Registration in Uzbekistan

When travelling in Uzbekistan, you need to be registered. If you fail to do so, you might have to pay a fine. Read all about it: Registration in Uzbekistan.

Visa extensions

In 2018, we heard of someone extending their visa for the first time in many years. So it is possible, but you will need to have a good reason. We do not know how to extend the visa.

Tashkent OVIR
Tchehova street 22, Tashkent
Tel.: +998 712 569586 or +998 712 569614

Overstaying your visa

Previously, this was a big problem. With the new tourist-friendly rules, we do not know. You can probably get away with it.

Embassy reports

If you still need to use the services of an embassy, you can find embassy reports in the forum threads below

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More Silk Road visas

More on Uzbekistan

• The basics
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  • Things to do
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  • Visas & border crossings
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