Saudi Transit Visa: The Free 96-Hour Stopover Explained

What is the Saudi transit visa?

The Saudi transit visa, officially the Transit Visa for Stop-over, lets passengers passing through Saudi Arabia leave the airport and spend a few days in the country rather than waiting at the gate. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the electronic version in January 2023, and it turned a layover into a short trip.

It is deliberately simple. You do not fill in a separate application, you do not visit an embassy, and you do not pay for it. The visa attaches to your flight booking, gets passed automatically to the Ministry’s national visa platform, and comes back to you by email as a digital visa.

Is it really free?

Yes. This is the part worth being blunt about, because plenty of websites will happily charge you for it.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated it plainly when the service launched: the Transit Visa for Stop-over “is free of charge, and will be immediately issued with the ticket.” There is no government fee for the visa itself, and there is nothing an agency can do to make it arrive faster, because it is already instant.

We handle Saudi visa applications every day, and this is one we tell people not to pay for. If a website offers to process your Saudi transit visa for a fee, you are being charged for something you can get for nothing inside your own airline booking. The only situation where a paid route makes sense is when you do not qualify for the free one, which we cover further down.

How long can you stay?

The visa carries three months of validity from issue, and it permits a stay of four days in the Kingdom. Most travellers and airlines describe this as a 96-hour stopover, which is the same thing expressed in hours.

Four days is generous for a stopover but tight for a holiday. It is enough to reach Makkah and perform Umrah, or to see Jeddah or Riyadh properly, but it does not stretch to touring the country. If your plans need longer, you want a tourist visa rather than a transit visa.

Can you perform Umrah on it?

Yes, and this is the detail that surprises most people.

The Ministry’s announcement is unusually specific on the point. The stopover visa “allows those in transit who wish to enter the Kingdom to perform Umrah and visit the Prophet’s Mosque, in addition to roaming and attending tourism events.” Umrah is named directly, not implied.

Two limits apply. Hajj is not permitted on this visa under any circumstances, and Umrah itself is restricted during the Hajj season, as it is on every visa type. Our guide to performing Umrah on a Saudi tourist visa explains the seasonal timing in more detail, and the same seasonal rules apply here.

Can you visit Madinah?

Yes. The Ministry named the Prophet’s Mosque explicitly alongside Umrah, so a visit to Madinah falls within what the visa allows.

One practical point for planning. Entry to Makkah and to the central sanctuary area of Madinah is reserved for Muslims. The rest of the country, including Jeddah, Riyadh and AlUla, is open to visitors of all faiths, so a non-Muslim traveller on a stopover can still use the visa for ordinary tourism.

Who can get a Saudi transit visa?

The airline is the deciding factor. The free electronic transit visa exists inside the booking platforms of Saudia and flynas, so you need to be flying with one of them on a routing that transits Saudi Arabia.

On nationality, we are going to be careful rather than confident. Reporting on which nationalities can use the stopover visa has changed more than once, and sources from 2025 contradict each other directly on whether the scheme is open to everyone or restricted to a shorter list. We could not settle that against an official source, so we are not going to publish a country list that might be wrong and cost you a booking.

The reliable test is the booking flow itself. When you book with Saudia or flynas, the transit visa option either appears for your passport and routing or it does not, and that gate reflects the current rules in real time. If it does not appear and you are unsure why, ask us and we will look at your situation.

How do you apply for it?

You do not apply separately. That is the whole design of it.

Book your flight with Saudia or flynas on a routing that transits Saudi Arabia, and request the transit visa through the airline’s own platform as part of that booking. The request passes automatically to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs national visa platform, which processes and issues the digital visa, then sends it back to you by email. Applications can be made up to 90 days before travel.

If that process completes, you are done. There is nothing further to arrange and no fee to pay.

What if you don’t qualify?

This is where most travellers actually land, and where the free route runs out.

The transit visa will not work for you if you are flying a different carrier, such as Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, IndiGo or British Airways. It will not work if you want more than four days in the country, and it will not work if you are travelling without an onward ticket, since it is a transit product rather than an entry product.

In those cases the ordinary tourist eVisa is the right route. It runs for a year, allows multiple entries, and covers the same activities including Umrah outside the Hajj season. You can check whether your nationality qualifies in our list of countries eligible for the Saudi eVisa, or look at the visa on arrival route if you hold a valid US, UK or Schengen visa. Our tourist visa requirements guide covers the documents.

When you are ready, start your Saudi eVisa application and track it online while it is processed.