MUSCAT, MAY 7 - Azerbaijan, which welcomed a record number of inbound visitors spending more than $2 billion in 2018, offers a visa to tourists in three steps (application, payment and download). The visa on arrival service is provided to the citizens of 15 countries – Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China, Turkey, South Korea and Indonesia, as well as expatriates possessing a valid residency permit from the GCC.
Tourists should visit www.evisa.gov.az, the official e-visa portal of the Republic of Azerbaijan which serves travellers in 9 different languages. At present, nationals of 95 countries are eligible to apply for an e-Visa. The list of countries can be found here. Emergency visas can be issued within three hours at an additional cost. Group visas can also be obtained through the portal. Since May 15, 2018, visas are issuance and processing take under 2 minutes with the support of ASAN visa staff and self-service terminals at Baku, Ganja, Gabala and Lankaran International Airports. The staff at the airports assist tourists in Azerbaijani, English, French, Spanish, German, Turkish, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Urdu, Norwegian and Russian.
In less than a year, since the launch of the ASAN visa system, around 1,191,000 tourists have received visas to travel to Azerbaijan.
This year, the number of tourists applying for E-visas to Azerbaijan has increased by 72 per cent compared to the same period last year. The ASAN visa system was created according to a Decree by Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on June 1, 2016.
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