A Dubai visa costs Indian travellers AED 252 plus 5% VAT for a 30-day single-entry tourist visa and AED 352 plus 5% VAT for the 60-day version, which is about INR 6,864 and INR 9,588 respectively, but almost no Indian pays only that, because a UAE-side sponsor has to file the application for you and the sponsor’s charge sits on top (GDRFA-Dubai, issuance of a single-entry tourist visa, accessed 2026-08-10; INR at 1 AED = INR 25.9405 on 2026-08-10, Exchange Rate API). This page separates the government fee from everything else on the bill, line by line, and marks which lines you can decline.
This guide is maintained by Zurich Kotak General Insurance, an IRDAI-registered general insurer in India and part of the Zurich Insurance Group. It covers fees only. For routes, eligibility and the application walkthrough, start with our guide to the Dubai visa for Indians .
One point of accuracy that matters when you compare quotes: there is no separate document called a Dubai visa. You are buying a UAE visa (commonly searched as a Dubai visa), issued under federal law and administered by GDRFA-Dubai for Dubai and by ICP for the other emirates ( u.ae , where to apply for entry permits or visas, accessed 2026-08-10). That is why the fee is published in dirhams by a UAE authority and every rupee figure, including ours, is a dated conversion.
Fees checked: 2026-08-10.
Travelling to Dubai? Get covered before you fly. A visa buys you entry, not treatment. Private healthcare in Dubai is expensive and billed upfront, which is what travel insurance for Dubai is for.
Dubai visa price at a glance: the official GDRFA fee table
Every Dubai tourist visa fee is set by GDRFA-Dubai in dirhams, and 5% UAE VAT is added to the standard tourist visa fees. These are the published figures, converted at 1 AED = INR 25.9405 on 2026-08-10 (Exchange Rate API):
Visa type | Permitted stay | Fee (AED) | With 5% VAT (AED) | INR (approx.) |
Single-entry tourist visa, 30 days | 30 days | 252 | 264.60 | 6,864 |
Single-entry tourist visa, 60 days | 60 days | 352 | 369.60 | 9,588 |
Multiple-entry tourist visa, 30 days | 30 days per entry | 300 | 315.00 | 8,171 |
Multiple-entry tourist visa, 60 days | 60 days per entry | 500 | 525.00 | 13,619 |
Multiple-entry tourist visa, 5 years | 90 days per visit, max 180 days a year | 3,713.50 total | not applicable | 96,330 |
Sources: GDRFA-Dubai, single-entry tourist visa, GDRFA-Dubai, multi-entry tourist visa and GDRFA-Dubai, 5-year multi-entry tourist visa, all accessed 2026-08-10.
Two footnotes to that table. The 5-year figure is not what it looks like, and the next section but one explains why. And GDRFA’s multi-entry service card states plainly that there is no security deposit on the 30-day and 60-day multi-entry visas, so if a quote shows a deposit line on those, ask what it is.
Visa on arrival is priced separately and is not open to every Indian traveller: GDRFA lists a service fee of AED 253 (about INR 6,563) for the route, and eligibility depends on holding a qualifying visa or residence permit from another country rather than on the Indian passport alone (GDRFA-Dubai, visa on arrival for citizens of India, accessed 2026-08-10). ICP publishes the federal fees separately, at AED 100 for the 14-day visa on arrival, which may be extended once, and AED 250 for a 60-day single-entry version that cannot be extended (ICP media centre, 2026-06-25). Those are two federal products plus a separate Dubai channel fee, not three prices for the same thing, so check which one the channel quoting you is working from. Read the eligibility rules in full on our Dubai visa on arrival for Indians page before assuming the route applies to you.
Why the government fee is never the whole bill
A Dubai tourist visa cannot be self-filed the way a Vietnam or Thailand e-visa can: GDRFA requires a UAE-side sponsor to apply on your behalf, and the sponsor’s service charge is the structural reason an Indian pays more than the published fee. GDRFA’s own guidance is explicit: “Your visit visa has to be applied for by a sponsor, who is a person or organization who will be responsible for you while you are here”, and it names a hotel or tourist company as the sponsor that applies for a 30-day tourist visa on your behalf (GDRFA-Dubai, how do I apply for a visit visa, accessed 2026-08-10). The single-entry service card carries the same restriction, noting that only accredited tourism offices in the emirate can issue this type of visa.
u.ae describes the same picture from the applicant’s side, listing the channels as ICP, GDRFA-Dubai, and “airlines, licensed travel agents, or hotels” ( u.ae , tourist visa, accessed 2026-08-10). So you have a genuine choice of channel, and you are not obliged to use any particular Indian agency, but you do need someone on the UAE side attached to the application. That is a real difference from corridors where the traveller files directly with immigration and the agent adds nothing but convenience.
The practical consequence shows up when you compare two quotes. The government fee underneath them is identical, so what actually differs is the sponsor’s service charge, the insurance line and the processing speed. That is a different exercise from spotting a padded price, and it changes which questions are worth asking.
Dubai visa cost breakdown for Indians, line by line
Applying for a 30-day single-entry visa, only the GDRFA fee and its VAT are fixed by the government; the insurance, the service charge, the speed tier and the Ok to Board update are all separate lines, and two of them are genuinely optional. All INR figures convert at 1 AED = INR 25.9405 on 2026-08-10.
Cost item | AED | INR (approx.) | Compulsory? |
GDRFA visa fee, 30-day single entry | 252 | 6,537 | Yes, government fee (GDRFA) |
5% UAE VAT on the visa fee | 12.60 | 327 | Yes, government charge |
UAE-valid medical insurance | 40 to 150 observed | 1,038 to 3,891 | The cover is a stated condition of the visa; the price is a market price, not a government tariff |
Sponsor or agent service charge | 100 to 250 observed | 2,594 to 6,485 | In practice yes, because a UAE sponsor must file; the amount is negotiable between providers |
Express, super-express or instant processing | varies | +4,600 to +12,100 over the standard tier | No. The standard tier exists and works |
Ok to Board update in your PNR | not applicable | about 1,000 to 1,200 per person | Only if your airline and passport type require it |
Photograph to specification | 0 | 0 | You can produce it yourself at no charge |
Card foreign-currency markup, if you pay in AED | 1% to 3.5% plus GST | roughly 70 to 240 on a 6,864 charge | Only when the charge is billed in dirhams |
The service charge, insurance and Ok to Board rows are observed seller prices rather than published fees, read on 2026-08-10; the Ok to Board figure in particular should be re-observed before publish, because the listing it came from has since gone offline. The card markup band is the 1% to 3.5% plus GST that Indian issuers publish in their own schedule of charges, so read the schedule for the card you plan to pay with rather than assuming a rate.
Ok to Board deserves a line of its own because it catches Indian travellers out. It is an airline-side verification that stamps your visa details against your booking, and where it is required, boarding can be refused without it even though the visa itself is valid. It is not a visa fee, it is not collected by GDRFA, and whether you need it depends on your airline, your passport category and whether you are carrying an e-visa printout rather than a stamped visa. Ask your airline directly, before you pay anyone to arrange it.
Government fee versus what Indian agents actually charge
At the standard processing speed, mainstream Indian agency prices for a 30-day single-entry Dubai visa sit only about INR 1,000 above the all-in government fee, which is close to the market price of the insurance line; the large markups appear on the speed tiers and on multiple-entry visas. Observed on 2026-08-10 at two of the larger Indian sellers:
Visa (one adult) | GDRFA fee incl. VAT (INR) | Observed Indian agency price (INR) | Gap |
30-day single entry, standard | 6,864 | 7,899 | +1,035 |
30-day single entry, express (3 days) | 6,864 | 11,499 | +4,635 |
30-day single entry, instant (1 day) | 6,864 | 18,999 | +12,135 |
60-day single entry, standard | 9,588 | 13,999 | +4,411 |
30-day multiple entry | 8,171 | 17,999 | +9,828 |
60-day multiple entry | 13,619 | 21,499 | +7,880 |
Agency prices observed at two large Indian visa sellers on 2026-08-10. A third widely reported figure, INR 6,710 for a 30-day single entry through VFS Global, sits below the converted government fee, which is a reminder that quoted rupee prices are struck at each seller’s own exchange rate on their own date and are not directly comparable.
Read that table as a decision, not an accusation. The standard 30-day tier is close to fair value once the insurance line is counted, and a large part of what looks like a markup is a real cost. What genuinely costs money is impatience: paying INR 18,999 instead of INR 7,899 for the same visa buys you four days. GDRFA’s own published turnaround on the single-entry tourist visa is 48 hours (GDRFA-Dubai, accessed 2026-08-10), so the multi-day standard tier at an agency is mostly the agency’s queue rather than the government’s. Our page on Dubai visa processing time covers what actually drives the clock.
Three questions to ask any seller before paying, all of which are answerable in one sentence by an honest one:
· Which government fee is inside this price? If they quote AED 200 or AED 250 as the government fee for a 30-day visa, they are working from an old or rounded figure; GDRFA publishes AED 252 plus 5% VAT.
· Is the insurance a separate line, and which insurer issues it? You are buying a policy, so you are entitled to know whose it is and what it covers.
· Will the visa be issued in my name against my own passport and email? You want the approval and any correspondence to reach you directly.
If you would rather see the application flow before choosing a channel, our guide to the Dubai e-visa application walks through it step by step. Visa cost is also one line of a much larger number, and our breakdown of Dubai trip cost from India puts it next to flights, hotels and daily spend.
The insurance line on your Dubai visa bill, stated precisely
The UAE conditions its tourist visas on holding medical insurance valid in the UAE, and for the 5-year multi-entry visa it is an explicit required document alongside a 6-month bank statement and a return ticket. For a standard 30-day or 60-day tourist visa, GDRFA does not ask you to upload a policy: the required-documents list on the single-entry service card is a personal photograph, a copy of the passport, and an origin-country identity card for certain nationalities that do not include India. UAE-valid medical insurance appears separately, in the service card’s terms and conditions, alongside the return-ticket condition (GDRFA-Dubai, single-entry tourist visa, accessed 2026-08-10).
So the honest statement is this. It is a stated condition of the visa, not an upload gate on the 30-day and 60-day routes, and an outright document requirement on the 5-year route ( u.ae , tourist visa, accessed 2026-08-10). Anyone telling you insurance is optional for a Dubai tourist visa is wrong, and anyone telling you that you must upload a policy for a 30-day visa is also wrong.
The prices you see quoted for that insurance are market prices, not a government tariff. Visa-processing sites commonly quote around AED 40 (about INR 1,038) for a 30-day policy and AED 60 (about INR 1,556) for 60 days at a minimum cover level of AED 150,000, and some sellers list the line at anywhere from AED 40 to AED 150, all observed 2026-08-10. No UAE authority publishes those figures as a fee. They are what the bundled policy costs inside a package, and the cover behind them is usually a thin, visa-shaped minimum rather than the trip cover you would actually want in a city where private healthcare is expensive.
That distinction is worth money to you in both directions. It means you should not pay a premium for something described as a compulsory government charge, and it means the cheapest policy that satisfies the condition is not the same product as a policy that would carry an emergency hospital admission in Dubai. Our page on Dubai tourist visa documents and requirements sets out where insurance sits in the paperwork for each route.
The 5-year multi-entry visa: why the headline number misleads
The 5-year multiple-entry tourist visa is published at AED 3,713.50, about INR 96,330, but AED 3,000 of that is a refundable guarantee rather than a charge, so the money you actually spend is AED 713.50, about INR 18,509. GDRFA breaks the total down as an application fee of AED 100, an issuance fee of AED 500, a guarantee amount of AED 3,000, a warranty service fee of AED 21, a guarantee collection and return fee of AED 20, a Knowledge Dirham of AED 10, an Innovation Dirham of AED 10, and a service fee of AED 52.50 (GDRFA-Dubai, 5-year multi-entry tourist visa, accessed 2026-08-10).
The AED 3,000 is a deposit. GDRFA returns financial guarantees on cancellation of the issued visa, on its expiry, or when the holder becomes an exempt category, and enforces them against the holder if the entry and residency rules are broken (GDRFA-Dubai, Fees and Guarantee Refund Service, accessed 2026-08-10). Treat it as money parked with the authority for the life of the visa, not as a price.
This route also has the heaviest conditions of any tourist visa Indians use: a health insurance policy valid in the UAE, a bank balance of USD 4,000 or its equivalent across the preceding six months, and a return or onward ticket, with stays capped at 90 days per visit, extendable by a further 90, and a maximum of 180 days in any one year ( u.ae , tourist visa, accessed 2026-08-10). It is priced for a frequent visitor, and against a 30-day single-entry visa at roughly INR 6,864 a trip, it starts paying for itself around the third visit if you would otherwise buy separate visas.
Is the Dubai visa fee refundable if your application is rejected?
Partly, and this is the most widely misreported fact about Dubai visa costs: GDRFA operates a refund service and states that the issuance fees, the health insurance fees and any financial guarantees paid can be refunded if the main application is rejected. GDRFA’s wording is specific: “Only the issuance fees, health insurance fees, and financial guarantees paid, as shown on the payment receipt, can be refunded if the main application is rejected.” Refunds go back to the card used for payment within 180 days of the main application, or by bank cheque or transfer to a UAE bank after that, and the service itself carries no fee and is quoted at 10 days (GDRFA-Dubai, Fees and Guarantee Refund Service, accessed 2026-08-10).
What is not on that list is as important as what is. The application fee is not named as refundable. Neither is your agent’s service charge, your express-processing surcharge or your Ok to Board fee, none of which GDRFA collects or controls. Agent refund policies vary and are contractual, so read them before paying, particularly on the instant and super-express tiers where the surcharge is the largest single line.
The residue is the exposure worth insuring. On a family of four applying at an agency’s standard 30-day rate, roughly INR 31,600 goes out before anyone has seen a decision, part of it recoverable through a 10-day GDRFA process and part of it simply spent. That is before the flights and hotels you booked around the dates.
Protecting the money you spend on the visa
The visa fee is the first non-refundable payment of a Dubai trip, and travel insurance is how you protect both that amount and the much larger bookings that sit behind it. Zurich Kotak’s Smart Travel policy includes Visa Cost Cover, which reimburses your visa fee if the application is rejected or you are denied entry on arrival; it returns the fee itself rather than the policy premium, and the retail visa-denial benefit is not available on multi-trip policies.
Beyond the fee, there is the bill nobody budgets for. Entry permission pays nothing towards a hospital admission, private treatment in Dubai is expensive, and hospitals there expect payment upfront. Dubai sits in the Asia geography, where Smart Travel is offered in two tiers, Excel and Prime, with sum insured up to USD 500,000 on Prime and a maximum entry age of 70 (there is no Senior Citizen plan on the Asia geography, so travellers aged 71 and above need a different route). Claims are handled by Europ Assistance India on a cashless or reimbursement basis, with cashless treatment available at network hospitals in Dubai such as Mediclinic City Hospital (list subject to change, verify before use), and a settlement commitment of 15 days from complete documents.
The sensible sequence for a Dubai trip is: get a written breakdown of the visa quote, take travel insurance for Dubai sized to what an emergency admission in a Dubai private hospital would actually cost, and only then commit to non-refundable bookings.
Travelling to Dubai? Get covered before you fly. Get a Dubai-ready quote in minutes at travel insurance for Dubai .
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How much does a Dubai visa cost for Indians?
A: A 30-day single-entry tourist visa is AED 252 plus 5% VAT, about INR 6,864, and the 60-day version is AED 352 plus 5% VAT, about INR 9,588, at 1 AED = INR 25.9405 on 2026-08-10 (GDRFA-Dubai, accessed 2026-08-10). Indian agencies commonly sell the 30-day visa at around INR 7,899 at standard speed, because a UAE-side sponsor has to file the application and a bundled insurance policy is usually priced into the package.
Q: What is the Dubai visa fee in Indian rupees?
A: About INR 6,864 for a 30-day single-entry tourist visa and INR 9,588 for 60 days, converted from AED 264.60 and AED 369.60 at 1 AED = INR 25.9405 on 2026-08-10 (Exchange Rate API). The official fee is set in dirhams, so every rupee figure is a dated conversion rather than the official price, and each seller converts at its own rate on its own date.
Q: Why do agents charge more than the official Dubai visa fee?
A: Because GDRFA requires a UAE-side sponsor to file the application, so a hotel, airline or licensed travel agent is part of the process rather than an optional extra (GDRFA-Dubai, accessed 2026-08-10). Observed service charges run around AED 100 to 250 and a bundled insurance policy adds roughly AED 40 to 150, on top of which express and instant tiers add INR 4,600 to INR 12,100 for speed alone.
Q: Is insurance compulsory for a Dubai visa?
A: UAE-valid medical insurance is a stated condition of the tourist visa, and for the 5-year multiple-entry visa it is an explicit required document alongside a 6-month bank statement and a return ticket (GDRFA-Dubai and u.ae , accessed 2026-08-10). On the 30-day and 60-day routes GDRFA does not ask you to upload a policy, and the AED 40 to AED 60 figures quoted by visa sellers are market prices for a bundled policy, not a government tariff.
Q: Is the Dubai visa fee refundable if the visa is rejected?
A: Partly. GDRFA states that only the issuance fees, health insurance fees and financial guarantees paid can be refunded when the main application is rejected, processed through its refund service in about 10 days and returned to the card used within 180 days (GDRFA-Dubai, Fees and Guarantee Refund Service, accessed 2026-08-10). Application fees and any agent service or express charges are outside that list, and travel insurance with visa-fee reimbursement, such as Zurich Kotak’s Visa Cost Cover, can return the visa fee if the application is refused .
Q: How much is the 5-year Dubai multiple-entry visa really?
A: The published total is AED 3,713.50, about INR 96,330, but AED 3,000 of that is a refundable guarantee, so the amount actually spent is AED 713.50, about INR 18,509 (GDRFA-Dubai, accessed 2026-08-10). The guarantee is returned when the visa is cancelled or expires, and the route requires UAE-valid health insurance, a USD 4,000 bank balance over six months and a return ticket.
