Iraq Visa Guide: e-Visa, on Arrival & Requirements

Last updated: June 6, 2026 — fees, eligibility and procedures re-verified this week against the official portal, airline databases and current traveler reports.

I keep a folder of screenshots from Iraq travel forums, and my favorite is a March 2025 post from a traveler standing at the Baghdad airport visa desk, $80 in hand, being told the visa-on-arrival he’d read about in five different guides had been abolished four days earlier. He got on a plane home. The internet did this to him — and a year later, half of what ranks for “Iraq visa” would still do it to you.

So here’s the current truth. To get an Iraq visa in 2026, citizens of roughly 37 eligible countries apply online at the official portal (evisa.iq) for a single-entry e-visa costing about $160 including mandatory health insurance, approved typically within one to three days. Kurdistan runs its own cheaper, separate system. Visa-on-arrival for most nationalities ended on March 1, 2025.

This guide walks through every step of the application (including the portal’s genuinely confusing quirks), the full eligibility list, Kurdistan’s parallel rules, what to do if your passport isn’t on the list, the special Arbaeen pilgrim channels, extensions, and the lookalike visa websites taking money for nothing. It’s long because it answers everything — use the jump links.

In this guide: At a glance · What changed · Who’s eligible · Application walkthrough · Fees · Validity & stay · Entry points · Kurdistan visa · Which visa do you need? · Not eligible? · Pilgrimage & Arbaeen · Arrival · Extensions · Rejections · Official links · FAQ

The Iraq visa at a glance (June 2026)

Question	Federal Iraq e-visa	Kurdistan Region visa
Where to apply	evisa.iq (Ministry of Interior)	visit.gov.krd or on arrival
Cost	~$160 / 206,000 IQD (insurance included)	100,000 IQD (~$70–80), card only
Processing	Officially 24–72 hours; allow 1–2 weeks in 2026	Instant on arrival; ~5 days online
Stay	30 days standard (read your approval)	30 days
Entries	Single	Single
Valid for	All of Iraq, Kurdistan included	Kurdistan only — never Federal Iraq
Visa on arrival?	No (abolished March 1, 2025)	Yes, for eligible nationalities

What changed, and why your other guide is wrong

For four years, Iraq ran one of the region’s most surprising open-door policies: citizens of 37 countries simply landed in Baghdad and paid $75–80 for a visa on arrival. Thousands of trip reports, blog guides and YouTube videos were built on that system. Then, with about two days of public notice, the Interior Ministry suspended it — from March 1, 2025, the same 37 nationalities apply online instead. The advice ecosystem has never fully caught up, which is why you’ll still find “bring $80 cash to the airport” published as current on pages that otherwise look trustworthy.

Two refinements since the switch matter. In September 2025, the federal cabinet made the e-visa portal the single national system, formally valid for entry through every part of the country — including, on paper, the Kurdistan Region’s airports. And airline databases began showing visa-on-arrival quietly available again for a couple of nationalities (Sweden and Russia among them) in spring 2026 — reports no official channel has confirmed. Treat both with the same policy I use throughout this guide: plan around the conservative rule, and let any loosening be a pleasant surprise. Get the e-visa before you fly.

Who can get the Iraq e-visa? (The actual list)

Iraq has never published a clean public list on the portal homepage — you discover eligibility in the application’s nationality dropdown, which is half the reason the internet disagrees about whether it’s 37 or 38 countries. Reconciling the official announcements with the portal as of June 2026, the eligible passports are:

• All 27 EU member states — Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
• Europe beyond the EU: United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Russia
• Americas & Oceania: United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
• Asia: Japan, South Korea, China (and Hong Kong SAR per several recent applicant reports)

A few special lanes sit outside that list. GCC nationals (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman) enter without the tourist e-visa under separate arrangements. Iranians travel under a bilateral land-pilgrimage regime — stamped at the border, no advance visa, a system built for the millions who cross for ziyarat. Lebanese citizens have enjoyed simplified entry since 2023. And one profession-shaped exception applies to everyone: journalists and NGO workers are excluded from the e-visa regardless of passport, and must go through an embassy with the appropriate visa class. Getting caught working on a tourist e-visa is the kind of mistake that ends careers in this region — don’t.

Banned outright: Israeli nationals may not enter or even transit Iraq. Travelers carrying Israeli stamps or Israeli-issued visas in their passports report refusals; if your passport has them, get a clean replacement passport before applying. This applies in Kurdistan too — older advice that Erbil admits Israeli passports is out of date.

Nationality quick notes

Americans: fully eligible, no extra hurdles beyond the Level 4 advisory’s insurance headaches. Britons: identical process; FCDO advice affects insurance, not eligibility. Indians and Pakistanis: outside the e-visa list for individual tourism — the operator route or pilgrimage channels are your doors, and both are well-trodden. Chinese citizens: eligible, with Mandarin-speaking operators multiplying in Baghdad since 2024. Filipinos and Indonesians: operator route; Manila and Jakarta missions also process embassy applications. Dedicated walkthroughs for each are coming to this visa hub over the next weeks.

How to apply for the Iraq e-visa, step by step

The application takes 20–30 minutes if you have your documents ready. The portal works, but it has quirks that generate most of the panic in Iraq travel forums — I’ve numbered them into the steps where they bite.

1. Prepare three files first. A clear color scan of your passport bio page with all four edges visible (6+ months validity, one blank page); a passport-style photo on a white background, shoulders visible, no glasses, JPEG; and your first hotel’s name and address (a refundable booking is fine — nobody calls the hotel).
2. Go to evisa.iq and click through to the application system at eservice.evisa.iq. Accept no substitutes — see the lookalike-site warning below.
3. Don’t be thrown by the button label. Thanks to a quirk nobody has fixed, the application path on the official portal is labeled “Visa on Arrival” even though what you’re applying for is the pre-arrival e-visa. Yes, really. Click it.
4. Create your account. The one-time password arrives from an address at a misspelled domain (noreply@…evissa.iq) — check spam, and don’t let the typo convince you it’s phishing; that’s genuinely them.
5. Fill the form carefully. Name, passport number and dates must match your passport exactly — data mismatches are the most commonly reported rejection trigger. For “purpose,” tourism is tourism; don’t get creative.
6. Write down your application number the moment it appears. If your session dies later, this number is the difference between resuming and starting over.
7. Pay by card — and expect drama. The fee (~$160, insurance included) is payable online only; no cash option exists anymore. Many European banks block payments routed through Iraq: traveler consensus as of recent months is that Wise cards fail, Revolut cards work, and several people needed a second bank card or a VPN before the payment page cooperated. Do not close the window mid-payment — a broken payment link locks the application for 24–48 hours until it expires and you can reapply.
8. Wait — currently longer than advertised. Officially approvals land in 24–72 hours, and quiet weeks still deliver overnight. But processing has run slow and uneven since the spring 2026 regional tension (the Interior Ministry publicly denied the system was suspended — accurate, but telling). Apply two weeks before flying and you’ll never think about this again.
9. Print everything, twice. The e-visa approval PDF and the health-insurance certificate that comes bundled with it. Airlines ask at check-in; Iraqi immigration wants paper, and a dead phone battery is not an acceptable document format. Two color copies of each, one in your day bag.
10. Keep the approval with your passport for the whole trip. Checkpoints between cities occasionally ask for it alongside the passport — covered in our main Iraq travel guide.

The document checklist, exactly as the portal wants it

Item	Spec	Where it trips people
Passport scan	Color, bio page, all four edges visible, readable MRZ	Cropped corners and glare; rescan on a dark background
Passport itself	6+ months validity beyond arrival, 1+ blank page	Renew first if you’re inside seven months — processing eats margin
Photo	Passport-style JPEG, white background, shoulders visible, no glasses	Phone selfies against beige walls get bounced
Accommodation	First hotel name + address	A refundable booking satisfies it; nobody verifies your whole route
Card for payment	Visa/Mastercard that tolerates Iraq-routed charges	Have a backup card before you start, not after the decline
Email access	OTP and approval arrive by email	Check spam for the misspelled sender domain

What the Iraq visa costs (and what’s hiding in the fee)

The headline number is about $160 — 206,000 Iraqi dinars — and unlike most countries’ visa fees, it’s a bundle. Since February 2025, every applicant is required to hold Iraqi health insurance for the visit, purchased automatically through the e-visa platform as part of checkout. That’s why you’ll see the fee reported anywhere from $155 to $165 depending on the applicant’s nationality, exchange-rate timing and how the insurance component was counted. You’ll also see $250-and-up quotes from third-party “processing services” — that’s the same $160 visa with a middleman markup.

Two legitimate discounts exist. The Arbaeen season e-visa drops to around $55 for pilgrims (details in the pilgrimage section), and children on family applications are commonly charged reduced or no fees depending on age — the portal calculates this at checkout. There is no same-day premium service; anyone selling “rush processing” for the Iraqi e-visa is selling air.

What the bundled health insurance actually is

The insurance lashed to your application since February 2025 is an Iraqi domestic policy, issued through the state’s electronic insurance platform during checkout — not a substitute for real travel insurance. It exists to guarantee Iraqi hospitals get paid for emergency treatment of foreigners; coverage amounts are modest, claims involve Iraqi paperwork in Arabic, and medical evacuation — the coverage that actually matters in a country with limited critical care — isn’t its concern. Carry the printed certificate because immigration checks it, then insure yourself properly on top: a policy that explicitly covers Federal Iraq despite the advisories. The distinction between the two documents confuses arriving travelers weekly; one satisfies a border officer, the other satisfies a medevac coordinator.

Validity, length of stay and entries — untangled

This is the single most contradicted fact on the internet about the Iraq visa, so let’s be precise about why. The e-visa is single entry. The standard tourist grant is a 30-day stay. Separately, the approval document carries a validity window — commonly 60 days from issue — within which you must enter. Guides that say “the visa is valid 60 days” and guides that say “you get 30 days” are describing two different numbers on the same PDF, and travelers occasionally receive approvals with other combinations entirely.

The operating rule: your printed approval outranks every blog, including this one. Read the stay duration and the enter-by date on your own document, and plan inside them. If your trip needs longer than the granted stay, see extensions — don’t improvise with overstaying in a country where your paperwork gets checked at highway checkpoints.

Where you can enter Iraq with the e-visa

Entry point	Type	Notes
Baghdad (BGW)	Air	Main gateway; smoothest e-visa processing
Basra (BSR)	Air	Good for southern itineraries; Gulf connections
Najaf (NJF)	Air	Pilgrim hub; busiest around ziyarat seasons
Erbil (EBL) / Sulaymaniyah (ISU)	Air	Formally covered by the federal e-visa since the Sept 2025 unification — but traveler confirmations are still thin; if your route starts in Kurdistan and continues south, verify with your airline first or enter via a federal airport
Trebil / Al-Karamah (Jordan)	Land	Open; slow, with occasional escort requirements through Anbar
Safwan (Kuwait)	Land	Straightforward in 2026; shuttle between posts
Mehran, Shalamcheh & others (Iran)	Land	Heavily used pilgrim corridors; have the approval printed
Arar (Saudi Arabia)	Land	Open, busiest in pilgrimage seasons
Ibrahim Khalil (Turkey)	Land	Kurdistan entry — pairs with the Kurdish visa, not the federal e-visa
Syria crossings	Land	Closed to foreign travelers

You don’t need to exit where you entered — flying into Baghdad and out of Basra (or leaving overland to Kuwait) is routine with the single-entry visa, since you’re not re-entering.

The Kurdistan visa: same country, different door

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq runs its own immigration system, and for travelers it’s the friendlier of the two: cheaper, faster, and still offering the on-arrival option Federal Iraq abolished.

Eligible nationalities (broadly the same Western/East Asian list as the federal e-visa) can either apply online at visit.gov.krd or simply land at Erbil or Sulaymaniyah airports and get a 30-day visa on arrival for 100,000 IQD — about $70–80, paid by Visa or Mastercard only; the cash window is gone. Arriving overland from Turkey at Ibrahim Khalil or from Iran at Bashmaq and Haji Omaran works the same way. In one of those bureaucratic wrinkles I refuse to explain because nobody can, some nationalities can even get a 60-day visa on arrival at Kirkuk airport — a quirk worth knowing only if Kirkuk is genuinely on your route.

Nationalities outside the eligible list aren’t shut out of Kurdistan: they apply through a guarantor — a sponsor registered with the regional Interior Ministry (hotels, tour companies and law firms do this routinely) — and approvals come back within about five business days. Only a short blacklist of eleven nationalities, Israel included, can’t use this route at all.

Now the rule that catches someone every single week: the Kurdish visa is valid only inside the Kurdistan Region. It does not permit travel to Baghdad, Mosul, or anywhere in Federal Iraq, the internal checkpoints between the regions enforce it, and the penalties for trying include fines, deportation and entry bans. There is no visa desk at the internal boundary because, from Baghdad’s perspective, it isn’t a border at all. The reverse, happily, works fine: the federal e-visa covers Kurdistan completely. One more asymmetry to respect, and a longer discussion of how the two Iraqs differ in practice lives in our complete Iraq travel guide.

Which Iraq visa do you actually need?

• Baghdad, the holy cities, Babylon, the marshes — the classic Iraq trip: Federal e-visa. No alternative.
• The whole country, north and south, one trip: Federal e-visa — it covers Kurdistan too. Enter via Baghdad/Basra/Najaf to be safest, exit anywhere.
• Kurdistan only (Erbil, Suli, the mountains): Kurdish visa on arrival — cheapest, instant, zero paperwork beyond the card payment.
• Kurdistan now, Federal Iraq someday: Two separate trips, or upgrade your ambitions now and take the federal e-visa from the start. You cannot bolt Federal Iraq onto a Kurdish visa later.
• Ziyarat / Arbaeen pilgrimage: The pilgrim channels below — often cheaper and group-organized.
• Working as a journalist or for an NGO: Embassy visa in the correct class, full stop.

Not on the list? Your three real routes

If your passport isn’t among the eligible 37-or-so — common cases being Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indonesian and most African passports traveling outside pilgrimage groups — you have three legitimate paths, and conflicting blog advice about all of them. Reconciled:

1. The authorized-operator route (most used). A licensed Iraqi tour company applies for ministry approval on your behalf — budget around $250 in fees, up to four weeks of waiting, and a guided itinerary as part of the deal. This is the modern descendant of the old invitation-letter system, and post-2025 it’s the practical standard for tourists. Operators advertise it openly; vet them through the Iraqi Travelers Café community before paying.
2. The embassy route. Iraqi embassies and consulates still issue visas the classical way — application forms, supporting documents, sometimes an interview, timelines that vary wildly by mission. It’s the required lane for journalists and NGO staff of any nationality, and a fallback for everyone else.
3. The in-country sponsor route. An Iraqi individual or company petitions the Ministry of Interior from inside Iraq. Real, but mostly used for business and family visits — as a tourist you’d only land here if routes one and two failed.

Pilgrimage and Arbaeen visas: the system nobody writes about

Here’s a number that reframes everything: the largest visitor flow into Iraq isn’t tourists at all — it’s the 20+ million pilgrims who converge on Karbala for Arbaeen (falling around August 12–13 in 2026) and the millions more visiting Najaf, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Samarra year-round. Iraq runs dedicated visa plumbing for them, and almost no English-language guide explains it.

The pieces, as they stand for the 2026 season: Iranian pilgrims cross visa-free under the bilateral arrangement — passports stamped at the border, no advance application. For other nationalities, Iraq has been running a discounted Arbaeen e-visa at roughly $55 — same portal, seasonal pricing, aimed at the pilgrimage window. Pilgrims from countries outside the e-visa list (Pakistan above all, with its enormous zaireen flow) travel through licensed group operators coordinating with Iraqi missions — group manifests, escorted buses from the border, the works. Arrival pressure concentrates on Najaf airport, Basra, and the Iranian land crossings, all of which run extended operations during Safar.

Practical counsel if Arbaeen 2026 is your purpose: apply early (processing strains as the season peaks), book accommodation months out or embrace the free roadside mawakib hospitality, and expect the $55 visa pricing and border procedures to be re-announced — with tweaks — in the weeks before Muharram. If you’re a non-Muslim traveler curious about witnessing Arbaeen: it’s permitted, profoundly welcoming, and logistically the hardest fortnight of Iraq’s year. Our walk-by-walk Arbaeen guide is coming later this summer in the pilgrimage section.

Special cases the forms don’t explain

Dual nationals: apply with the passport you’ll travel on, and use the same one end-to-end — entering on one nationality and exiting on another creates exactly the database mismatch Iraqi checkpoints exist to notice. If one of your passports is on the eligible list and the other isn’t, the choice makes itself.

Iran, Lebanon and Gulf stamps: completely fine. Iraq’s neighbors-stamp anxiety runs in only one direction — Israeli evidence is the sole disqualifier. Your Iranian visa from that overland trip is, if anything, a conversation starter at checkpoints.

Transit passengers: Iraq has no formal transit-without-visa scheme. If your itinerary requires clearing immigration in Baghdad between flights — separate tickets, bag re-check, an overnight — you need the full e-visa. Same-plane or sterile-transit connections are rare birds in Iraqi aviation; check your routing assumptions before booking the cheap fare.

Business travelers: a separate visa class through embassies and sponsors — typically around $190 in government fees plus weeks of lead time, with documents including the Iraqi sponsor’s national ID and your employment proof. The tourist e-visa does not cover work meetings in any formally defensible way; companies sending you have a fixer for this, and you should let them use one.

Residents applying from abroad: the portal cares about your passport, not your address — a German citizen living in Dubai applies like any German. Where you’ll feel residence is the payment step, since Gulf-issued cards have their own Iraq-blocking habits.

How we got here: Iraq’s visa whiplash, 2021–2026

Understanding the timeline explains why the internet is so confused — and why this page carries a verification date:

• March 2021 — Iraq stuns travelers by granting visa-on-arrival to 37 nationalities. The “$77 at the airport” era begins; a generation of guides gets written.
• March 2023 — the Kurdistan Region ends its own visa-free entry, introducing the 100,000 IQD visa and the visit.gov.krd portal.
• April 2024 — the federal e-visa platform launches alongside VoA, 30-day grants, Kurdistan-valid.
• February 2025 — mandatory health insurance bolts onto every application via the portal.
• March 1, 2025 — visa-on-arrival suspended for the 37; the e-visa becomes the only door for tourists, with about two days’ notice.
• September 2025 — the cabinet declares the federal e-visa portal the single national system, formally covering entry via every region, Kurdistan’s airports included.
• Spring 2026 — regional escalation slows processing; the Interior Ministry publicly denies the system is suspended; airline databases whisper about VoA returning for a few nationalities, unconfirmed.

Five policy regimes in five years. When an Iraq guide doesn’t show its date, that’s not a style choice — it’s a warning.

What happens when you arrive

With a printed e-visa, arrival at Baghdad is anticlimactic in the best way: passport control checks the approval against their system, takes fingerprints and a photo, prints an electronic visa sticker into the passport (the handwritten ones retired with the old system), and waves you through — typically inside twenty minutes. Keep the insurance certificate reachable; officers ask for it sporadically, and “it’s on my phone, which is dead” has ruined better mornings than yours.

Two arrival notes worth carrying from our main travel guide: first, the lingering airport scam where someone official-adjacent requests a ~$50 “hotel registration” or “rebooking” cash fee — it is not a real fee; ask politely for a receipt and a supervisor and it dissolves. Second, ride-hailing apps can’t pick up at the Baghdad terminal, so use the fixed-rate taxi desk (~40,000–45,000 IQD to the center) or the shuttle-bus-then-Careem maneuver. Both are explained in detail there, along with the current safety picture that the visa process is only step one of navigating.

Extensions, overstays and exit

The standard 30-day grant can be extended by roughly another 30 days in-country, through the General Directorate of Residency in Baghdad — and here’s a detail that makes the official system look almost modern: the e-visa portal has a companion appointment-booking service (reservation.evisa.iq) precisely for residency-office transactions. Travelers who’ve done it describe a half-day of queues, photocopies and tea; bring your passport, the printed visa approval, and patience. Start the process several days before your stay expires, not the morning of.

Overstaying is the wrong economy. Iraq doesn’t publish a tidy per-day fine schedule the way Gulf states do, and that ambiguity is exactly the problem — resolution happens at an airport desk, on an official’s terms, possibly involving a missed flight while a fine is computed and paid in cash. With checkpoints examining paperwork between every major city, an expired visa also turns each highway stop into a coin flip. Extend or leave; the country is single-entry anyway, and a fresh e-visa for a return trip costs less than the headache.

Why applications get rejected (and how not to)

• Data mismatches — a transposed passport digit, a name spelled differently than the bio page. The single most reported cause. Copy, don’t type from memory.
• Bad document files — cropped passport edges, photos with glasses or busy backgrounds, files that aren’t JPEGs. The portal’s checker is pickier than the instructions admit.
• Israeli stamps or visas in the passport — get a clean passport first; this isn’t a gamble worth taking at $160 a spin.
• Profession honesty traps — listing “journalist” routes you out of the e-visa system entirely; listing something false while carrying a camera bag full of press gear creates a worse conversation later. Media travelers: embassy route, press visa.
• Payment failures masquerading as rejections — a declined card can strand an application in limbo until it expires. If the status hangs without a payment confirmation, that’s usually what happened; wait out the 24–48 hour lock and reapply with a different card.

The official portals — and the lookalike problem

Search “Iraq evisa” today and the top result is frequently not the Iraqi government — it’s commercial sites with official-sounding domains, government-ish design, and the word “Official” sprinkled across pages that charge $250+ for the $160 visa, or collect your passport scan for nothing at all. Some are merely overpriced middlemen; none are the portal.

The complete list of links that matter, bookmark-ready:

• Federal e-visa: evisa.iq — Ministry of Interior; the application system lives at eservice.evisa.iq and the residency appointments at reservation.evisa.iq. Anything else “evisa-iraq”-flavored is a third party.
• Kurdistan e-visa: visit.gov.krd — the .gov.krd suffix is the tell.
• Your government’s advisory: US State Department / UK FCDO — for the security context, which we unpack honestly in Is Iraq Safe to Visit?

Iraq visa questions, answered straight

How much does the Iraq visa cost in 2026?

About $160 (206,000 IQD) for the federal tourist e-visa, with the mandatory health insurance bundled into checkout — reports range $155–165 by nationality and exchange timing. The Kurdistan-only visa costs 100,000 IQD (~$70–80). Arbaeen-season pilgrim e-visas have run around $55. Quotes above these numbers are middleman markup.

How long does the Iraq e-visa take?

Quiet-period approvals land in 24–72 hours, sometimes overnight. Since the spring 2026 regional tensions, processing has been slower and lumpier — the ministry denied suspension rumors, but two-week waits happened. Apply at least two weeks before flying and the question stops mattering.

Can I still get a visa on arrival in Iraq?

In Federal Iraq, no — that ended March 1, 2025, for the previously eligible 37 nationalities, despite what older guides say. In the Kurdistan Region, yes: 30 days at Erbil and Sulaymaniyah airports for eligible passports. Airline databases hint at federal VoA quietly returning for a couple of nationalities, but nothing official confirms it — don’t build a trip on it.

Can I visit Baghdad with a Kurdistan visa?

No. The Kurdish visa stops at the Kurdistan Region’s internal boundary, checkpoints enforce it, and penalties scale from fines to entry bans. The reverse works: the federal e-visa is valid throughout Iraq, Kurdistan included. Want both regions? Federal e-visa, one trip, done.

Is the Iraq e-visa single or multiple entry?

Single entry as standard. Leave and you’ll need a new visa to return — relevant if you’re tempted by a side trip to Kuwait or Iran mid-itinerary. Multi-entry approvals exist mostly in business categories. Plan Iraq as one continuous chapter of the trip.

How long can I stay in Iraq on the e-visa?

The standard tourist grant is a 30-day stay, inside a validity window (commonly 60 days from issue) during which you must enter. Your printed approval states both numbers — read it, because traveler documents vary and the PDF outranks every blog, including this one. Extensions of ~30 more days are possible in Baghdad.

Can I enter Iraq overland with the e-visa?

Yes — the e-visa is accepted at the major crossings from Jordan (Trebil), Kuwait (Safwan), Iran (Mehran, Shalamcheh and others) and Saudi Arabia (Arar). The Turkey crossing at Ibrahim Khalil delivers you into Kurdistan, where the Kurdish visa applies instead. Syria’s crossings remain closed to travelers.

My card was declined on the visa payment — what now?

You’re in the club. Many banks block Iraq-routed payments: traveler consensus says Wise fails, Revolut works, and a VPN or a second card solves most cases. If the payment died mid-process, the application locks for 24–48 hours until it expires — then reapply. There’s no cash alternative anymore.

Do children need their own Iraq visa?

Yes — every passport holder applies, including minors, through the same portal as part of the family’s applications. Fees for young children are commonly reduced or waived at checkout depending on age. Carry birth certificates for border questions if surnames differ across the family’s passports.

Will an Iraq visa cause problems for US travel later?

For Visa Waiver Program nationals (UK, EU, Japan, Australia and friends), yes, mechanically: an Iraq visit ends ESTA eligibility under US law, and future US trips need a standard B1/B2 visa interview. US citizens and green-card holders are unaffected. Full discussion in our complete Iraq travel guide.

Do I need a tour company to get an Iraq visa?

If your passport is on the eligible list: no — the e-visa is a direct, personal application, no invitation letter, no sponsor, no tour booking. Tour companies become necessary only for non-eligible nationalities (the ~$250 ministry-approval route) or if you simply want guided travel anyway, which is a separate decision.

Is there an Iraq transit visa?

No formal transit-without-visa arrangement exists. If you must pass immigration between flights in Baghdad or Basra — separate tickets or an overnight layover — you need the standard e-visa. Israeli nationals can’t transit at all, even staying aboard the same aircraft. Structure connections to avoid entering, or budget the $160.

The two-minute recap

• Eligible passport? Apply yourself at evisa.iq — ~$160, two weeks out, print approval + insurance twice.
• Kurdistan only? Land in Erbil, pay 100,000 IQD by card, done.
• Both regions? Federal e-visa covers everything; the Kurdish visa covers only Kurdistan.
• Not eligible? Licensed operator (~$250 + tour) or embassy.
• Pilgrimage? Seasonal discounts and group channels exist — use them.
• Never overstay; extend in Baghdad if the marshes seduce you into a longer trip.

Final thoughts: the paperwork is the price of being early

Every generation of travelers gets a few countries where the visa process is the moat — annoying enough to filter out the casual, simple enough that anyone who reads instructions gets through. Iraq in 2026 is exactly that: a slightly cranky web portal, a card payment that may need two tries, two printouts — and on the other side, Babylon without crowds, shrines of staggering beauty, and a country that treats the visitors who made the effort like minor celebrities. The $160 isn’t a fee so much as a filter. Fill the form carefully, apply two weeks out, print everything twice, and the hardest part of your Iraq trip will be over before you pack.

Photo credits

All images via Wikimedia Commons: Alireza Vasigh Ansari (CC BY 4.0); Droark42 (CC BY-SA 4.0); EIA Airport (CC BY 4.0); Kushared (CC BY-SA 4.0); Safa.daneshvar (CC BY-SA 4.0).