From July 15, 2018 Uzbekistan is starting the electronic online visa system, where the client wanting to visit Uzbekistan for tourism purposes can apply for visa from, and get the answer to their request in 3 days’ time in the longest. This shortens the amount of time waiting for the invitation letters, and the time and finances spent to get to the Consulate / Embassy of Uzbekistan in cities and obtain the visa. The system will start operating from July 15, 2018 as per the order signed by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Mr. Shavkat Mirziyoev on July 4th 2018.
Online visa is paid by directly by the person who is filling out the application at the moment of applying for the e-visa, the e-visa fee is 20 USD per visa for SINGLE entry visa to Uzbekistan, valid during the 90 days period from the date indicated by the person as the entrance day to Uzbekistan, with the possibility of staying in Uzbekistan up to 30 (thirty) days in total. Currently only VISA card is accepted for payments, and later on other debit cards and other forms of payment are planned to be added to the system. The e-visa is only and only SINGLE (1 / one) entry and is valid for one entry to the country. No multiple entries option is available at the moment. Online visa is only for TOURISM, and no other types (business, investor visa and etc) available at the moment.
Specifically passport holders of what countries are allowed to apply for online visa, and what countries still need to get visas as before with invitation letters at then Embassies / Consulates of Uzbekistan can be checked on the https://e-visa.gov.uz/main portal directly. Once the country of citizenship is chosen on Stage 1, the system will give the information on whether the tourist can apply for online visa or if s/he needs to contact the Consulate and / or local travel companies for an invitation letter.
Important note: once the online visa form is filled out and submitted, it cannot be edited, so if the tourist makes a mistake (mistype of names, passport numbers and etc) it cannot be changed and the visa won’t be valid even if issued with the wrong information, as it will not match with the information shown on the passport upon arrival at the border. In this case the pax will have to re-apply with the correct information, and the payment of 20 USD will be charged once again, as this fee is not for the e-visa and is only for processing the visa application form, which does not guarantee the issuing of the visa itself if there are mistakes, missing information and other reasons.
For those who prefer the previous method, they are more than welcome to apply for invitation letter via local travel company in Uzbekistan, and apply for visas at the Embassies of Uzbekistan where available. In this case, the cost of the visa will stay as it was previously, as the 20 USD visa fee applies only to the e-visa.
Starting from July 15th, also, the passport holders of 101 countries will not need to obtain visa to Uzbekistan if their visit to Uzbekistan is shorter than 5 days, but only if the entrance to Uzbekistan is via International Airports (not land borders) and the arriving tourist can prove his/her short stay by showing his/her valid flight ticket to the next destination from Uzbekistan.
