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I have a flight landing in Muscat, Oman and another taking off in the following 24 hours. I would like to take advantage of my long layover to exit the airport and actually discover Muscat.

I am looking into the visa options I have and I found something appealing, a transit visa, on the Royal Oman Police website :

Visa type : 23A

Visa name: Airport Transit Visa 1D-3D

Description: Short visit for an airline passenger transiting through Oman on the way to a third country.

However, nowhere could I find a way to apply for this visa. And even though it lies in the "unsponsored" category, another page of the same website mentions that the application should be fulfilled through the carrier (I am not sure I understand the following sentence actually):

To be granted by competent authority at air way passages to expatriate based on application submit by aviation carrier company entitle the holder to enter the country only once and resident for a maximum period of (72) hour provided that he should have enough money to cover his expenses and valid ticket to continue his travel.

Anyway, I searched the website of Oman Air and I found nothing about transit visas.

So, how can I apply for a transit visa through Oman?

I am a European Union citizen. I found out that I can apply for an eVisa for about 1 month but I'd rather avoid paying 20 rials (45 euros) for a few hours of visiting the city.

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Oman made a number of changes to their visa policy in March 2018, shortly before the opening of the new airport in Muscat in April.

I was there a few weeks after that, and was told that they are no longer issuing transit visas. That said, I can not find an official statement to this fact.

They also now require all visitors to apply for a visa in advance using their online system, and as you said this does not currently allow applying for a transit visa.

I suspect the page you have linked to is no longer current - certainly there are a number of other pages on the Royal Oman Police website that are out of date, broken, or "under construction".

If you do decide to apply for a tourist visa the process is simple, and in my case the visa was approved almost immediately (6 minutes!)

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As @Doc said, the rules changed recently for tourists in Oman.

As a French national, not resident in GCC country (the Gulf), I could see multiple unsponsored visas I could apply for and among them:

  • 26A Tourist Visit Visa, for 10 days, costing 5 rials
  • 26B Tourist Visit Visa, for 30 days, costing 20 rials

One can apply for them online.

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    The conditions for the 26A visa appear to have been changed since this question was originally asked. At the time I answered (as well as when I applied for my visa in April), the only option was a 30 day 26B visa. However it does now appear that the 26A has been added/changed to be available to "group 1" country citizens.
    – Doc
    Jul 15, 2018 at 5:00

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