Written by Kiran Basnet, Senior Trekking Expert at Manaslu Treks and Expedition. Every season our office answers the same early question from new clients, long before anyone asks about the Larke La Pass or how cold Samdo gets at night. The question is simple. What visa do I need to even enter Nepal. This guide answers that question in full, using the current rules for the Nepal visa on arrival, the e Visa, extensions, and the handful of situations where the rules get confusing. It also explains, clearly, why your Nepal entry visa and your Manaslu trekking permits are two completely separate documents that most first time trekkers mix up.
We update this page whenever the Department of Immigration changes a fee or a procedure, and we have added a verification note at the end of several sections because visa fees and nationality lists do shift from year to year. If you are booking a Manaslu Circuit Trek with us, our Kathmandu office will also confirm your specific visa situation once you send your passport details, so you are never relying on a blog post alone for something this important.
Do You Actually Need a Visa to Trek to Manaslu
Almost every nationality on earth needs a visa to enter Nepal, and the Manaslu region is no exception since you fly into Kathmandu first and travel overland from there. The two major exceptions are Indian citizens, who do not need any visa at all to enter Nepal, and holders of a Non Resident Nepali card, who also enter without a visa regardless of which country issued their passport. Everyone else, including travelers from the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, Canada, and almost all of Asia, needs either a visa on arrival or an e Visa approved before landing.
This confuses people because Nepal is sometimes grouped together with countries that only need a trekking permit and nothing else. That is not the case. The visa is your legal permission to be inside Nepal as a country. The trekking permit, which we cover in detail in our Manaslu Trekking Permits guide, is your legal permission to walk inside the restricted Manaslu region specifically. You need both, they are issued by different offices, and one does not replace the other.
Nepal Visa on Arrival Fees
Nepal sells its tourist visa in three durations, and the fee structure has stayed the same for several years running, which is one of the few genuinely stable facts in this entire guide. All three durations allow multiple entries, meaning you could technically fly out to Lhasa or Delhi partway through your trip and fly back in on the same visa, as long as it has not expired.
- 15 day visa: 30 US dollars
- 30 day visa: 50 US dollars
- 90 day visa: 125 US dollars
Pay close attention to which one you choose. A standard Manaslu Circuit Trek runs between twelve and nineteen days on the trail, but add your Kathmandu arrival day, a rest day before and after the trek, possible delays from landslides or weather on the dirt road sections, and a day or two in case your return flight gets moved, and a 15 day visa gets tight very quickly. Most of our clients choose the 30 day visa even for a two week trek, simply because a few extra dollars is a small price for not having to deal with an extension office in Kathmandu while exhausted from the trail.
The fee must be paid in cash, and United States dollars is the safest currency to bring for this specific purpose. Immigration officers at Tribhuvan International Airport have been known to refuse old, torn, or heavily marked notes, so bring clean bills if you can. Indian rupees and Nepali rupees are not accepted for the visa fee itself, even though both currencies are widely used elsewhere in the country.
What You Need at the Airport
The paperwork for a visa on arrival is lighter than most travelers expect. You need a passport valid for at least six months beyond your travel dates, one passport sized photo taken within the last six months, and the visa fee in cash. Some travelers now complete the arrival form online in advance through the Department of Immigration portal, which saves a few minutes at the airport counter, but it is not required and plenty of trekkers still fill out the paper form on the plane or at the kiosk.
Bring a spare photo even if you plan to use the self service kiosk, because kiosks occasionally go down during busy arrival waves, and the backup process reverts to a manual photo and stamp. We also tell every client to photocopy the main passport page and keep it separate from the passport itself. It will not speed up your visa, but if your passport is ever lost on the trail, a copy saves days of complication with your embassy.
Who Cannot Get a Visa on Arrival
A short list of nationalities cannot use the visa on arrival or e Visa system at all, and must apply directly at a Nepali embassy or diplomatic mission before traveling. Based on current published guidance, this list includes citizens of Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Somalia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Syria. Travelers holding a refugee travel document, regardless of their nationality, are also directed to a Nepali diplomatic mission rather than the airport counter.
This list is genuinely one of the only parts of Nepali immigration policy that has changed in recent memory, with at least one nationality reportedly added to the restricted list within the past year. Because of that, if you hold a passport from any country that has experienced recent diplomatic friction with Nepal, or any country near the ones listed above, we strongly recommend contacting your nearest Nepali embassy directly before you book flights. Do not rely on this page, or any other blog, as your final answer on this specific point. Immigration officers at the airport will not make exceptions for a traveler who arrives without the correct advance visa, and being turned back at Tribhuvan International Airport is a genuinely miserable way to end a long flight.
Free and Discounted Visas
Several groups of travelers either pay nothing or pay a reduced rate, and it is worth checking whether any of these apply to you or someone in your trekking group before anyone assumes the standard fee is unavoidable.
- Indian citizens need no visa at all to enter Nepal
- Children under ten years old generally receive a free visa, though this exemption has reportedly not been applied to children traveling on United States passports, so check if this affects your family
- Non Resident Nepali card holders enter free regardless of their current citizenship
- Citizens of the People’s Republic of China are currently issued a gratis visa under a reciprocal arrangement
- Citizens of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, as fellow SAARC members, can receive one free 30 day visa during their first visit to Nepal within a calendar year
Afghan citizens are technically part of SAARC as well, but current guidance also places Afghanistan on the restricted nationality list mentioned earlier, which means this group should expect to need prior clearance from Nepal’s Department of Immigration rather than assuming the SAARC exemption applies cleanly. If this is your situation, please contact the embassy directly rather than guessing.
Entering Through a Land Border Instead of by Air
Most of our clients fly directly into Tribhuvan International Airport, but a smaller number combine their Manaslu trip with overland travel from India or Tibet, and the visa on arrival process works at several land crossings as well, not only at the airport. Published crossing points where a visa on arrival is available include Kakarbhitta in the east, Birgunj and Bhairahawa in the central and western lowlands, Nepalgunj further west, and Gaddachowki near the far western border, along with Rasuwagadhi on the Tibet side. Gautam Buddha International Airport near Bhairahawa and the airport at Pokhara also process visas on arrival for travelers flying in directly rather than through Kathmandu.
If your plan involves crossing overland, confirm the current operating hours of your specific border post before you travel, since land crossings do not run the same twenty four hour schedule as a major international airport, and a border post closed for the night with no visa counter open is a frustrating way to end a long bus journey. We also recommend having the exact fee in cash before you reach the border, since currency exchange facilities at smaller crossings are far less reliable than what you would find at the airport.
Traveling as a Family or a Group
Groups add a layer of coordination that solo trekkers do not have to think about, and a few points are worth planning ahead of time if you are organizing a Manaslu trip for family or friends. Each traveler needs their own passport, their own visa fee, and their own passport photo, even children who qualify for the free visa exemption, since the exemption affects the fee rather than the paperwork itself. If your group includes a mix of nationalities, remember that the free and discounted categories described earlier apply individually, so one person in your group might pay nothing while another pays the full fee, and that is completely normal rather than a mistake at the counter.
We suggest appointing one person in the group to hold a printed list of everyone’s passport numbers, visa durations, and emergency contact details, purely so that if the group gets briefly separated at a busy immigration counter, someone has the full picture rather than everyone individually trying to remember details under a bit of travel fatigue. Our airport representative will also be waiting just past the immigration hall with a sign bearing your group’s name, so even a slightly chaotic arrival sorts itself out quickly once you are through the counter.
Large groups traveling together, such as a family reunion trip or a university alumni group, sometimes ask whether they can apply for visas as a batch to save time. In practice each traveler still goes through the counter individually, since the visa is tied to an individual passport rather than a group booking, but having everyone’s paperwork organized in advance makes the whole line move noticeably faster, and our ground staff are happy to help coordinate this on arrival day if you let us know your group size ahead of time.
How This Fits With Your Travel Insurance
Visa paperwork and travel insurance are separate documents, but immigration and permit offices increasingly ask trekkers heading into restricted areas like Manaslu to show proof of valid travel insurance alongside their permit application, so it is worth having your insurance certificate printed and accessible alongside your passport and visa paperwork rather than buried in an email inbox with poor signal to check it. Make sure whichever policy you buy actually covers trekking at altitude, since a generic travel policy bought for a beach holiday will often exclude mountain trekking entirely, or cap coverage at an altitude well below what the Larke La Pass requires. Our separate Travel Insurance for the Manaslu Circuit Trek guide walks through exactly what to look for in a policy, including helicopter evacuation coverage, and is worth reading in the same sitting as this one since both documents tend to come up together during your final pre departure checklist.
The e Visa Option
Nepal now also runs an e Visa system alongside the traditional visa on arrival, and the two systems operate in parallel rather than one replacing the other. The e Visa fees match the visa on arrival fees exactly, so there is no cost saving either way. The main appeal of the e Visa is speed at the immigration counter, since your passport copy and photo are already uploaded and approved before you land, usually within about a day of applying. The e Visa must then be used within six months of its issue date, so apply reasonably close to your actual travel dates rather than months in advance.
You can check the status of either application type through Nepal’s Nepaliport immigration system using your application reference number or passport number. We suggest doing this the night before you fly if you applied for an e Visa, simply for peace of mind, since a failed upload or a typo in your passport number is far easier to fix from home than from the departure gate.
Step by Step at Tribhuvan International Airport
Most of our clients fly into Kathmandu through Tribhuvan International Airport, so here is the actual sequence of events you will walk through after your plane lands, based on what our office hears back from trekkers every season.
- Follow the signs for visa on arrival, which are separate from the immigration line for travelers who already hold an approved e Visa or a resident visa.
- Use the self service kiosk to scan your passport and take your photo, unless you already submitted a photo online in advance.
- Move to the cashier counter and pay your visa fee in cash, ideally in clean United States dollar notes.
- Hand your passport and payment slip to the immigration officer at the final counter.
- Receive your visa stamp, then continue down to baggage claim.
During the peak trekking seasons, which run roughly from March through May and again from September through November, this entire process can take anywhere from twenty minutes to well over an hour simply because of how many flights land within the same short window each evening. If your connecting arrangements in Kathmandu depend on a tight schedule, build in extra time, and let your guide or our office know your flight number so someone can track delays on our end while you are still in the air.
Passport and Photo Specifications Worth Double Checking
A surprising number of avoidable airport delays come down to a photo that technically does not meet the requirement, or a passport that is closer to expiry than its owner realized. Before you fly, check your passport’s expiry date against your planned return date and make sure at least six months of validity remains, since several countries, including Nepal, apply this rule strictly rather than as a guideline. If your passport is close to that line, renew it before you travel rather than hoping it will be fine.
For the photo itself, a standard passport style photo taken within the last six months is what immigration expects, meaning a plain light background, no hat or sunglasses, and a neutral expression facing the camera directly. Many travelers now simply take this photo at a passport photo kiosk or pharmacy before leaving home and carry two or three printed copies, since you may also need a spare photo later for your trekking permit application, which our guide collects from you once you arrive in Kathmandu.
Extending Your Visa if the Trek Runs Long
Treks get delayed. A landslide closes the dirt road between Soti Khola and Machha Khola for a day, a client gets mild altitude symptoms and needs an extra rest day in Samagaon, or a domestic flight gets grounded by weather on the way back to Kathmandu. If your visa is about to run out while you are still inside Nepal, the fix is a visa extension, handled entirely through the Department of Immigration offices in Kathmandu or Pokhara. Extensions are not available at the airport, and they are not available out on the trail, so this is something to plan for before your visa expiry date arrives, not after.
An extension currently costs around 45 US dollars for the first fifteen additional days, then roughly 3 US dollars for each additional day beyond that, and processing generally takes anywhere from one to a few working days depending on how busy the office is. Your total stay within Nepal, combining your original visa and any extensions, can reach up to 150 days within a single calendar year running from January to December. Bring your passport, a passport photo, a completed extension form, and the fee in cash. If you want to keep multiple entry privileges on your extended visa, a small additional fee may apply on top of the base extension cost.
Overstay Fines
If your visa expires while you are still in Nepal and you have not extended it, you are now overstaying, and a fine accrues for every day past your expiry date, including the day you actually fly out. Current guidance puts this fine somewhere in the range of 3 to 5 US dollars per day, though this is exactly the kind of figure that shifts over time, so confirm the live rate at the immigration office rather than assuming our number is still accurate by the time you read this. Beyond the 150 day yearly limit, Nepal’s rules allow for more serious consequences, including deportation and a formal entry ban, so this is not a fine worth testing deliberately.
In practice, almost none of our clients ever come close to this situation, because a standard Manaslu trek with a buffer week on either side fits comfortably inside a 30 day visa. The trekkers who do run into overstay fines are usually the ones who extended their trip on a whim after falling in love with the mountains, which, to be fair, happens to more people than you would expect.
Visa Versus Trekking Permit, a Common Point of Confusion
We mentioned this earlier, but it deserves its own section because it is genuinely the single most common misunderstanding we hear from first time clients. Your Nepal tourist visa, the one covered in this entire article, gives you legal permission to be present in the country of Nepal. It says nothing about where inside Nepal you are allowed to travel.
The Manaslu region is a restricted area, which means trekking there additionally requires a Manaslu Restricted Area Permit, an Annapurna Conservation Area Permit for the section of the route that overlaps with it near Dharapani, and a Manaslu Conservation Area Permit as well. These three permits are entirely separate from your visa, cost separately from your visa, and are arranged through a different office using a different process, which our team handles for every client as part of booking a trek with us. Our full breakdown of what each permit costs and how the paperwork actually moves is in our Manaslu Trekking Permits guide, and our Manaslu Conservation Area guide goes deeper into why this region is restricted at all and what that means for independent trekkers who hope to walk it without a guide.
One more detail worth knowing. A standard tourist visa does not, by itself, grant permission to enter the Manaslu region, the Everest region’s restricted zones, Upper Mustang, or several other protected areas of Nepal. The visa and the permit work together, and immigration checkpoints along the Manaslu route, including at Jagat, will ask to see both.
Mistakes We See Trekkers Make Before Arriving
After arranging travel for hundreds of trekkers heading into the Manaslu region, a few visa related mistakes show up again and again, and almost all of them are easy to avoid once you know to watch for them.
- Choosing the 15 day visa for a trek that, with travel days and buffer days included, actually needs closer to three weeks
- Arriving with only large or worn United States dollar bills, which some counters are reluctant to accept
- Assuming a tourist visa also covers restricted area trekking, then being surprised at the permit checkpoint in Jagat
- Forgetting that a passport needs at least six months of remaining validity, and discovering this only at check in for the outbound flight
- Not photocopying the passport, then facing a much harder embassy process after losing it somewhere between Samagaon and Samdo
- Leaving an e Visa application until the day before the flight, with no time left to fix a typo or a rejected photo
A Short History of Why Nepal’s Visa System Works This Way
It helps to understand why Nepal runs its visa system this way at all, rather than treating it as an arbitrary set of rules to memorize. Nepal opened to mass tourism relatively late compared with many countries, with the modern trekking industry really taking shape from the 1960s onward, and the visa on arrival system grew directly out of a practical need to let independent travelers and trekkers into the country quickly, without forcing every visitor through an embassy appointment in their home country first. That openness is part of why Nepal became such an accessible base for Himalayan trekking in the first place, including regions like Manaslu that were only opened to foreign trekkers in the 1990s.
The restricted area system, which produces your separate trekking permit, grew out of a different set of concerns entirely, mostly tied to border security near Tibet and to protecting fragile high altitude communities and ecosystems from unmanaged tourism growth. Manaslu sits close enough to the Tibet border that this restricted status has stayed in place for decades, and it is a major reason the region still feels less crowded than Everest or Annapurna despite having comparably dramatic scenery. Understanding this background makes it easier to see why the visa and the permit are handled by entirely different parts of the Nepali government, each solving a different problem, rather than being two versions of the same form.
What If Your Flight Is Delayed or You Miss Your Connection
International travel to Kathmandu often involves at least one connection, and delays happen often enough that it is worth planning around them rather than hoping they will not affect you. A missed connection that pushes your Kathmandu arrival back a day generally does not create a visa problem on its own, since your visa clock starts when you actually land and get stamped in, not on some date you originally planned. The real risk is losing a day of your trekking window, which matters more for a 15 day visa than a 30 day one, which is yet another reason we lean toward recommending the longer visa even for travelers confident in their original schedule.
If a delay is severe enough to affect your permit paperwork or your guide’s planned departure date, contact our office as soon as you know your new arrival time. We build a small buffer into every itinerary specifically for this reason, and our team in Kathmandu can usually adjust permit dates and trailhead transport without much trouble, as long as we hear about the change before you land rather than after.
What We Tell Every Client Before They Fly
Our office has walked clients through this exact process for years, across dozens of nationalities, and the advice that actually prevents problems is almost always the boring, practical kind. Choose the 30 day visa unless your trip is genuinely short and tightly scheduled. Bring clean United States dollars for the fee, in a small denomination that is easy for the counter to make change for if needed. Keep a digital and paper copy of your passport’s main page somewhere other than your passport itself. And once you land, keep your visa receipt and stamped passport page somewhere accessible, because our guide will need to confirm your visa details against your permit paperwork before you leave Kathmandu for the trailhead.
None of this is complicated once it is laid out clearly, which is really the point of this entire guide. The visa process trips people up mostly because nobody explains it properly before the trip, not because it is actually difficult.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I get a Nepal visa before I arrive instead of at the airport
Yes. The e Visa system lets you apply and get approved before you fly, using the same fees as the visa on arrival. Approval typically takes about a day, and the e Visa must then be used within six months of being issued.
Does my Nepal visa cover entry into the Manaslu region
No. Your tourist visa lets you enter and stay inside Nepal. Entering the restricted Manaslu region separately requires a Manaslu Restricted Area Permit along with conservation area permits, which our guides arrange and carry for every client.
What currency should I bring for the visa fee
United States dollars, in clean and undamaged notes. Indian rupees and Nepali rupees are not accepted for the visa fee itself, even though they are widely usable elsewhere during your trip.
How long can I stay in Nepal on a tourist visa in total
Combining your original visa and any extensions, the maximum is currently up to 150 days within a single calendar year, from January through December.
What happens if my visa expires while I am still trekking
An overstay fine accrues daily, currently in the range of 3 to 5 US dollars per day, counted through the day you actually depart. If you suspect your trek might run close to your visa’s expiry date, extend it in Kathmandu before heading to the trailhead rather than dealing with it afterward.
Are children charged the same visa fee as adults
Children under ten years old are generally issued a free visa, with the notable exception of children traveling on United States passports, who are charged at the standard rate. Confirm your child’s specific situation with the embassy if this applies to your family.
I am an Indian citizen. Do I need any of this
No visa is required for Indian citizens entering Nepal. You will still need the separate Manaslu trekking permits covered in our permits guide, since those apply to all nationalities equally.
Can I pay the visa fee by card instead of cash
Cash remains the standard and most reliable method at the visa counter, with United States dollars strongly preferred. Card payment options have been piloted at times, but availability is inconsistent, so plan to bring cash rather than relying on a card working on the day you arrive.
Do I need travel insurance to get a Nepal visa
Travel insurance is not checked at the visa counter itself, but it is increasingly expected when you apply for your restricted area trekking permit for the Manaslu region, so arrange a policy that covers high altitude trekking before you leave home rather than after you land.
If anything in your personal situation falls outside the common cases above, especially around nationality restrictions, please reach out to our team before booking flights. We would rather spend ten minutes confirming a detail with you now than have you discover a problem standing at the immigration counter in Kathmandu. This is also exactly the kind of question our past clients ask us directly through email long before their trip, and we genuinely do not mind answering the same question a hundred times a season if it means someone arrives prepared rather than stressed. And once your visa and permits are sorted, the only thing left to plan is the trek itself. Our Manaslu Circuit Trek Packing List and our Best Time to Trek the Manaslu Circuit guide are both good next stops.
