NEWS

The 96-Hour Stopover Visa Still Runs Through Two Airlines

Saudi Arabia’s 96-hour stopover visa still belongs to Saudia and Flynas, with Nusuk controlling Umrah access and fees on a stamp sold as free.

Published

1 year ago

July 3, 2025

Harry

Only Saudia and Flynas can issue Saudi Arabia’s 96-hour stopover visa, the layover product still sold as a free window for Umrah. The stamp carries no visa fee.

Travelers still pay an application charge and medical insurance, still book a Nusuk slot before Makkah, and still have to be on those two carriers if they want the visa built into the ticket. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs can change the rules.

Only Two Airlines Can Issue It

The stopover visa is not a general transit stamp you pick up at any Gulf hub. It is created during booking on Saudia or Flynas, then sent to the ministry’s national visa platform and emailed back with insurance papers. Saudia’s own guide says holders may stay for up to 4 days, that the visa is valid for 90 days from issue, that it cannot be extended, and that one stopover is allowed per booking.

Saudia also ties a commercial extra to the same flow: one night of free accommodation, claimed through Saudia Holidays after payment. Flynas sells the visa on its site and does not advertise that hotel night. Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways run their own stopover products in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. They do not issue this Saudi e-visa at checkout.

WHO CAN SELL THE 96 HOURS

Route	E-visa in the booking	Hotel night	Umrah and Hajj
Saudia	Yes, through Seats and Extras	One free night via Saudia Holidays	Umrah via Nusuk; Hajj barred
Flynas	Yes, on the Flynas stopover page	None advertised	Umrah via Nusuk; Hajj barred
Other airlines	No; a separate transit visa is required	Not part of this product	Depends on whatever visa is issued

Issuance still does not mean admission. Saudia warns that passport control can refuse entry even after the email arrives. Origin and destination cities have to sit outside the kingdom, with the Saudi stop in the middle. A simple round trip that starts and ends in Jeddah or Riyadh is the wrong ticket.

Saudi 96-hour stopover visa Saudia Flynas Umrah — Saudia Flynas layover visa rules for Umrah transit

What a 96-Hour Stopover Allows

Visit Saudi, the tourism board, describes the visa as a way to leave the airport for tourism, sport, and worship. Religious visitors must book Umrah or Ziyarah on Nusuk.sa before they head to Makkah or Madinah. Flynas says the same thing in plainer language, and it draws a hard line on the Hajj season.

WHAT THE STOPOVER IS FOR

Tourism: Holders may enter and move around Saudi cities for up to 96 hours on a single entry.
Umrah and Ziyarah: Both are allowed only after a slot is booked on Nusuk.sa or the Nusuk app.
Hajj: Flynas states the visa may not be used for Hajj travel.
Timing: Applications may be filed up to 90 days before travel; Visit Saudi says the booking-time form takes about 3 minutes.

A passport valid for at least six months, a confirmed onward ticket, and a visa or residence permit for the final destination if that country requires one, are the basic papers. Saudia’s FAQ also asks for a square photo at 200×200 pixels, no larger than 20KB. If the visa is cancelled, the fees stay with the ministry. Passenger details cannot be edited after issue; a new visa is required.

Flynas Adds a Country Filter

Visit Saudi’s FAQ says anyone booking Saudia or Flynas can apply. Flynas publishes a tighter gate on the same product. Its English and Arabic FAQs limit the e-stopover visa to passengers transiting from or to a named list: Canada, the United States, Austria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Malaysia, the Maldives, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, and Mauritius. That is 19 entries. Applicants must also show a valid visa for at least one of those countries.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, and the UAE do not appear on that Flynas list. Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt were the leading sources of Umrah visa arrivals in the Pilgrim Experience Program’s 2025 report. Gulf residents still show up in carrier marketing as a target market, and GCC citizens already enter Saudi Arabia under Gulf rules. The gap sits on the low-cost side of the product, where Flynas has written a filter that the tourism board’s FAQ does not repeat.

WHERE THE RULES DIVERGE

Visit Saudi FAQ: Anyone booking a flight with Saudia or Flynas can apply.
Flynas FAQ: The e-visa is limited to the 19 listed countries, plus proof of a visa for one of them.
Ministry control: Both carriers say validity and conditions follow Ministry of Foreign Affairs rules and may change.

Saudia’s public transit page does not reprint that 19-country list. For a traveler on the low-cost carrier, the FAQ on flynas.com is the document that matters, not a tourism-board summary.

Nusuk Holds the Makkah Appointment

The July 2025 wave of visa explainers treated the stopover as a way to reach the Haram without a separate Umrah visa. That is only half of the paperwork. The stopover gets a person out of the airport. Nusuk is what times the tawaf. Without a booked slot, a 96-hour stamp is a tourism visa with a short fuse.

That permit layer sits inside a much larger flow of worship traffic. On August 3, 2026, the Pilgrim Experience Program, a Vision 2030 body, said that in 2025 more than 19.5 million pilgrims and Umrah performers arrived from abroad, including 18.03 million Umrah performers from abroad and 1.5 million Hajj pilgrims. Umrah from abroad was up 114% from 2022. The same report counted 15.03 million visas across Umrah, visit, and other categories, with Umrah making up 83% of the total.

UMRAH TRAFFIC IN 2025

From abroad: More than 19.5 million Hajj pilgrims and Umrah performers, per the Pilgrim Experience Program.
Umrah share: 18.03 million Umrah performers, against 1.5 million Hajj pilgrims.
Visas issued: 15.03 million across categories, with Umrah at 83%, led by Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt.
Hajj line: This stopover visa is the wrong paper for Hajj, which has its own Umrah visa and entry deadlines.

Hajj satisfaction in that report was 91%, and Umrah satisfaction was 94%. Al-Rawdah Al-Sharifah recorded more than 16 million visits. Those figures explain why a four-day layover is useful to the state: it adds short stays to a machine already measured in tens of millions, without opening a Hajj-scale permit.

The Free Stamp Still Carries Fees

Visit Saudi prints the contradiction in one block. The visa fee is free. Then come the charges that are not. Saudia and Flynas listings on that page both quote an application fee of about SAR 39.50 (USD 10.50) and medical insurance from SAR 13 (USD 3.45). Added together, the floor is SAR 52.50, or about USD 13.95, before any hotel, train, or Nusuk-related cost.

The visa is single-entry. It is valid for 90 days, which Visit Saudi also calls 3 months. The stay inside the kingdom is still capped at 96 hours. That is not a substitute for a tourist e-visa if the plan is a week in AlUla or a Red Sea resort. It is a layover product with a worship option, priced like a service fee, sold by two airlines.

The Product Opened in January 2023

The stopover was not born in July 2025. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working with Saudia and Flynas, launched the electronic service on January 30, 2023. Saudipedia records the same design that is still on sale: a free digital visa, three-month validity, a stay of up to four days, issued with the ticket and mailed to the passenger.

On February 2, 2023, Tawfiq al-Rabiah, then and now a central voice on Hajj and Umrah policy, posted the official pitch.

Stopover (transit) Visa is now available free of charge. Anyone can visit Saudi for up to 4 days. Muslims can perform Umrah and visit the prophet’s mosque.

Tawfiq al-Rabiah, Minister of Hajj and Umrah, on X

Welcome to Saudi Arabia

Stopover (transit) Visa is now available free of charge. Anyone can visit Saudi for up to 4 days. Muslims can perform Umrah and visit the prophet’s mosque.

It is issued instantly for those arriving by air via @saudi_airlines or @flynas pic.twitter.com/gvZjFyAcYb

— توفيق الربيعة (@tfrabiah) February 2, 2023

He added that it is issued instantly for people arriving by air on Saudia or Flynas. Replies under that post already asked whether other airlines could be used, and whether a transit under 12 hours still needed a visa. The carrier lock was the first objection, not a later footnote.

HOW THE STOPOVER VISA WAS ROLLED OUT

January 30, 2023: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs opens the electronic stopover visa on Saudia and Flynas platforms.
February 2, 2023: Tawfiq al-Rabiah posts that the visa is free, lasts up to 4 days, and is issued instantly on those two airlines.
May 14, 2023: The U.S. International Trade Administration records the launch with the Saudi Tourism Authority and the kingdom’s aim of 100 million annual visitors by 2030.
July 2025: The same 96-hour product is circulated again as an Umrah layover for Gulf and other international passengers.
August 3, 2026: The Pilgrim Experience Program publishes 2025 counts that put foreign Umrah in the tens of millions.

July 2025 explainers called it new, or spoke of a return. The terms on the airline sites match the 2023 design: 96 hours, 90 days, two carriers, Nusuk for the Haram. What changed was the packaging, not the owner of the pipe.

Some Paid Bookings Still Sit Pending

The 2023 line was instant email. Through August and September 2026, travelers on Saudia itineraries were still writing the airline and the ministry about stopover visas they had already paid for. One thread described a visa still pending more than two weeks after application and payment, with the flight weeks away. Another described a 21-hour Jeddah layover taken specifically for Umrah, then no visa and no hotel. Multi-city tickets with Jeddah sits of almost 89 hours, built from Dhaka toward Europe, were being walked into Saudia care queues before payment, because passengers could not tell if the extra days counted.

People are also trying to bolt Umrah onto ordinary long-haul tickets that merely touch Jeddah, including India-Europe and India-Gulf routings with 12 to 21 hours on the ground. That is a rational reading of the marketing. It collides with a pipeline that still runs through airline extras pages, a photo that must be 20KB, a ministry check, and a Nusuk appointment that is a separate clock.

The stopover visa remains a useful four-day door for anyone already willing to fly Saudia or Flynas, pay about SAR 52.50 at the floor, and book Nusuk before they leave home. It is still not a general pilgrim visa, and it is still not the product other Gulf airlines can print at their own gates. MOFA can rewrite it. Until it does, the 96 hours belong to two carriers and a permit app, not to the layover itself.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on published visa terms and related pilgrimage figures, and it is for information only. It is not legal, immigration, or travel advice, and it does not tell any reader to buy a ticket, apply for a visa, or perform Umrah. Rules, fees, eligible countries, and Nusuk slots are set by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the airlines, and the Nusuk platform, and they can change without notice. Check the carrier booking flow and official ministry pages, and consult a qualified immigration lawyer or licensed travel agent before you spend money or change an itinerary, because statuses and prices in this piece reflect the cited pages and posts and may already have moved.