One month is not enough for you to discover all of Egypt? Don’t worry, we get you. Believe it or not, we spend almost a full year of our last 4 years travelling in Egypt alone. If you want to stay longer in Egypt, you need to think about a visa extension though.
Today, we will be talking about a less exciting, but equally important reality of travelling in Egypt: the visa extension.
Depending on the type of tourist visa you entered Egypt on, you can stay either 15 days or 30 days. For any stay longer than that, you will have to visit one of the immigration office’s to apply for an extension.
In the following, we will be breaking down step by step how to extend Egypt tourist visas, what to pay attention to regarding the different visa types and how much you need to expect to pay.
In our guide, we will be talking about the Sharm El-Sheikh Visa Office, since we processed our extension there, but you can also use these step at any other immigration office in the country.
How to Extend Your Egypt Tourist Visa (TL;DR)
- Check your dates: If you’ll stay beyond the 30-day visa plus 14-day grace period, apply for an extension.
- Visit a Passport Office: Extensions must be requested in person; arrive early to avoid long lines.
- Bring your documents: Take your passport, copies of its photo and visa pages, a recent passport photo, and proof of funds and accommodation if available.
- Complete the application: Fill out the visa extension form at the office.
- Pay the fee: Pay in Egyptian pounds and provide an official exchange receipt.
- Collect your residence card: Keep your application receipt, then return when the office says it is ready. Processing usually takes 1-2 weeks.
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Two Types of Visa: 30-Day Egypt Visa vs 15-Day Sinai Stamp
In Egypt, there are plenty of different tourist visas, from the classic Visa on Arrival (VoA) to multiple entry and multiple year options for frequent visitors.
In this guide, however, we will be focussing on the two most common tourist visas for Egypt: the Sinai stamp and the standard Visa on Arrival.
You need to know these key facts about the Sinai stamp and the Visa on Arrival before extending your stay:
- Sinai-Only Stamp: The South Sinai Resort Permission Stamp is given to visitor travelling to the Sinai Peninsula only. The stamp is free and valid for 15 days. You can get it at Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport (SSH), Nuweiba Port and the Taba Border Crossing. After 15 days, buy a visa sticker at the airport, then visit the Sharm El-Sheikh Immigration Office to extend your stay. For more detailed information, check out our dedicated Sinai stamp guide.
- Egypt Visa on Arrival: The Single Entry Tourist Visa is a Visa on Arrival (VoA) granted to tourists visiting Mainland Egypt. You can also get the single entry visa when entering through the Sinai Peninsula. The visa sticker costs $ 30 at the immigration desk or $ 36 at the self-service counters and permits travel to both Mainland Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. It is valid for 30 days, plus a 14-day grace period. In the following, we will walk you through how to extend this specific tourist visa.
You have neither of these visas? In this guide, we will be strictly talking about the Single Entry Tourist Visa. For Multiple-Entry, Multi-Year or Student Visas, check out the official government pages.
How to Extend Your Tourist Visa in Egypt: Step-by-Step Process
If you have a Sinai stamp, buy a Visa on Arrival sticker at Sharm El-Sheikh Airport and visit the Sharm El-Sheikh Immigration Office to get it stamped. If you have a Single Entry Tourist Visa and plan to stay in Egypt for more than 44 days in total, follow these steps to turn your tourist visa for up to 6 months.
This is how to take care of your Egypt tourist visa extension without wasting time and money along the way:
1. Start on Time.
First, check if you will be staying in Egypt for more than 44 days. Why 44 days, you ask? It includes the 30 days of the Single Entry Tourist Visa and 14 days of grace period, during which you can leave the country without paying a fine.
If you plan to stay in Egypt for 45+ days, start planning your visa extension early on. Processing delays for visa extensions are common, and while you won’t get in trouble as long as you extend your current visa on time, you might have trouble passing checkpoints, like the Suez Canal checkpoint, without an extended visa, laying your travel plans on ice.
2. Find Your Nearest Visa Office.
Begin your extension process by finding your nearest Visa Office, commonly referred to as Passport Office. You cannot extend your visa online.
Some of the most conveniently located visa offices for tourists are:
- Sharm El-Sheikh Passport Office (Nabq Bay)
- Hurghada Passport Office (El-Nasr Street)
- Abbassia Passport Office (Cairo Headquarters)
- Mall of Arabia Passport Office (6th of October City)
- New Cairo Passport Office (Gardenia Heights)
While you can extend your tourist visa at any of these offices, we recommend avoiding the Cairo Headquarters since the get really busy. Instead, stop by one of the lesser frequented ones in 6th of October or New Cairo, or avoid Cairo altogether, if you plan to stay on the Red Sea anyways.
We handled our visa extension at Sharm El-Sheikh Passport Office, since we were staying in Dahab long-term.
3. Get Your Headshots Taken & Make Copies.
As part of your visa extension, you will apply for a foreign residence card that grants an extended stay of up to 6 more months in Egypt, providing you can present the following documents:
- A valid passport
- 1x recent passport-sized photo
- 3x copies of photo page and visa sticker page in your passport
- Proof of funds
- Proof of residence
While some Passport Offices, like the one in Sharm El-Sheikh, have cameras to take passport photos on the spot, we generally recommend just getting them taken in advance to avoid problems, in case the cameras are out of order.
The same goes for the passport copies. Get them handled beforehand, the copy machines at the offices are frequently broken. Do not leave anything up to chance.
4. Exchange USD or EUR for EGP.
The visa extension of up to 6 months currently costs 7,100 EGP, payable at the time of applying for your visa extension. The extension fee is to be paid in Egyptian Pound (EGP) along with an exchange receipt. You cannot simply show up and pay the fee with the cash you already have.
Instead, visit an official exchange office, exchange the amount for the visa extension from USD or EUR to EGP and ask for a receipt for your visa extension. The staff will ask for your full name and passport number and issue the receipt for your visa run. Do this up to 15 days before extending your visa.
If you are staying in Dahab, we recommend exchanging your money at the Al-Ahly Exchange in Lighthouse.
5. Plan Your Transportation to the Visa Office.
Got all your documents in order? Then it’s time to arrange your transportation to and from the Passport Office. In larger cities, such as Cairo, you can simply order an Uber to get to your respective passport office. In Sharm El-Sheikh, the Police Complex is located far from the centre, complicating things a little.
From Sharm El-Sheikh, get a taxi to the visa office and agree on a price for them to wait and take you back once you are done. Otherwise, you will have a hard time finding a taxi to take you back. From Dahab, you can join one of the visa runs organised in a dedicated WhatsApp group leaving at 7 AM. The earlier you arrive, the better.
6. Bring along Your Documents.
On the morning of your visa run, make sure that you have all documents on you: your passport, all passport copies, your passport-sized photo, the cash for the visa extension fee as well as the exchange receipt issued at the exchange office.
If you can, also bring along some proof of funds and a proof of residence, though we have never been asked for that at the Sharm El-Sheikh Visa Office. Usually, they just ask you where you are staying, since it’s will be shown on your residence card, but they don’t ask you to present any proof.
7. Fill out Your Visa Application.
Once you arrive at the visa office, you enter the building, pass the security screening and explain ton the staff that you intent on extending your tourist visa. You will be shown to a desk where you will be given your visa application. Take a seat and fill out your visa application form.
The visa application form is both in Arabic and in English and ask for personal information as well as details regarding your stay, such as the purpose of your visit and the address of your residence in Egypt, e.g. your hotel in Dahab. Once you have filled out all the details, present yourself at the desk again.
8. Pay the Visa Extension Fee.
After handing in all your documents and taking your head shots, if you haven’t done so already, all that remains for you to do is paying the visa extension fee. To pay your visa fee, you will be shown to a separate desk where you pay the fee in cash and present your exchange receipt.
After payment, you will receive a confirmation slip that you give to the lady processing your visa application. The lady will add the receipt to your file, hand you a receipt and note in your passport that you have applied for a visa extension.
9. Wait for the Visa Application to be Processed.
Usually, the staff at the Passport Office will tell you when to come back to collect your residence card when handing you the application receipt. In our case, the lady told us that our residency card would be ready for pickup in two weeks. Generally, we recommend checking in with the office after 1-2 weeks.
We didn’t receive any separate notification that our temporary residence cards were ready, but simply booked another visa runs from Dahab two weeks later to pick up our foreign residence card with our fingers crossed that the plastic card would actually be there.
10. Pick Up Your Temporary Residency Visa.
Picking up your residency visa is quite straightforward. Visit the Passport Office again and bring along your passport and the confirmation slip the lady handed you when you applied for the extension. Present yourself at the desk, show the confirmation slip and wait for the lady to locate your residence card.
Upon receiving your residence card, you may be prompted to confirm that all information on the card is displayed correctly and give a final signature. Congratulations! With this, you have successfully converted your tourist visa into a temporary residency visa for you to stay up to 6 months more.
From now on, you can present this plastic card at checkpoints, though some officers may still ask for your passport, and breeze through checkpoints like it’s nothing.
Staying in Egypt for a little longer? Find your next stay among the best cheap hostels in Dahab, right on the sandy shores of the Red Sea.
How Much Does it Cost to Extend Your Egypt Visa?
As of October 2026, the cost for the traditional visa (and e-visa) of up to 6 months costs 7,100 EGP, which comes down to about $ 128 (or 115 €). Bear in mind that you need to pay the visa fee in Egyptian Pounds (no foreign currency accepted), along with a receipt of an official exchange office.
Additionally, you may factor in the transportation cost for two Passport Office trip, one for the application and one for the pickup of the residence card, as well as the cost for new passport photos and photo copies of your passport and visa pages. Overall, you can expect to pay a little less than 10,000 EGP to extend your Egypt tourist visa.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. We are merely sharing our experience extending our tourist visas in Egypt. For legal advice, talk to a lawyer or reach out to the Passport Office of your choice directly.
The Bottom Line
Okay, this all might seem a little overwhelming at first glance, but we assure you that the tourist visa extension in Egypt is not complicated at all. Just follow our three personal rules: 1.) Go to a tourist-heavy Passport Office, 2.) Sort your documents out a week in advance, 3.) Arrive early.
At the Sharm El-Sheikh Passport Office, for instance, the staff is well-used to tourists coming to extend their visas. They guide you through every step of the process, speak good English and generally don’t give you a hard time. Overall, extending your visa will cost you no more than a day’s work.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many times can you extend your tourist visa?
There is no strict limit on how many times you can extended your tourist visa in Egypt. There is, however, a limit on how long you can stay in the country as a tourist cumulatively. According to this rule, your extended stay in Egypt can last up to 6 months in total.
How long can tourists stay in Egypt?
The free Sinai-only stamp permits stays on the Sinai Peninsula of up to 15 days. After that, you can upgrade it to a regular 30-day visa. This classic tourist visa, in turn, can be upgraded into a temporary foreign residence card granting up to 6 additional months in the country.
How much does it cost to extend a tourist visa?
Currently, the visa extension in Egypt costs 7,100 EGP, which comes down to around $ 128 (or 115 €). If you got the Sinai-only stamp first, you only need to buy the Egypt visa sticker for $ 30 and get it stamped at the nearest Passport Office.
Can I extend my visa after it expires?
Yes, you can extend your Egypt tourist visa after its expiry date. After the 30-day period, a grace period of an additional 14 days applies, during which you can either leave the country without paying a fee or apply for a visa extension without any extra costs.
Hey! We are glad you are curious about travelling the Middle East.
We are Nancy & Elias.
Over four years of backpacking and digital nomading made us fall in love with the Middle East. We have lived on the Red Sea coast in Egypt, lived in a Bedouin Camp in Jordan and travelled 6+ Middle Eastern countries overland.
As we continue to travel, we share our battle-tested travel advice on this blog, from travel reports and transfer guides to accommodation recs and saving hacks.
