Last updated
Italians do not need a Dubai visa. The UAE foreign ministry lists Italy as visa free: a free multiple entry visit visa is issued on arrival, valid for 6 months, for up to 90 days in total. Rome's travel site words it as 90 days in 180. The things to check are your passport, the border questions and any relative who holds a different passport.
Passport rules from Rome
The Italian foreign ministry's travel site, last updated on , asks for a passport valid at least 6 months from the day you enter the UAE. Someone who already holds a valid UAE residence visa can enter on a passport with at least 3 months left. It points out that more travellers are turned back because their passport is damaged or too close to expiry. Look at the cover and the chip page before you pack.
Border checks are stricter
This is the part most guides skip. The same Italian page says entry checks have become tighter and deeper after the regional situation worsened, and that Italian and other EU citizens have been refused entry for unspecified "security reasons". We have no way to tell you why a given person is stopped. What helps is simple: an undamaged passport, a return or onward ticket, a hotel or host address and a phone with the booking on it.
What Italy says about customs and drugs
The Italian page lists what a traveller may bring in: 4 litres of alcohol or two cartons of 24 beer cans, 200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 50 grams of tobacco, and gifts including perfume up to AED 3,000. Alcohol is banned in Sharjah. Anyone carrying more than AED 60,000 in cash, other currency, jewellery or valuables to or from the UAE must declare it: the Afseh app for Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, and the iDeclare app for Dubai.
On drugs, Rome is blunt. Bringing in or dealing drugs, even light ones and even at personal-use quantities, carries a minimum of four years and up to the death penalty. It also warns about medicines that contain prohibited substances, so carry prescriptions.
Italian offices in the UAE
Italy has an embassy in Abu Dhabi and a Consulate General in Dubai, in Sheikh Rashid Tower at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The consulate serves the emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah, Ajman and Umm al Quwain. The embassy covers Abu Dhabi. Their sites list a consular register, consular fees and an emergency section. We do not pass on phone numbers here, so use the official sites.
Relatives on other passports
A mother-in-law from Manila or a friend from Cairo cannot ride on your Italian passport. Each needs a visa before boarding. GDRFA charges AED 210 for 30 days and AED 315 for 60 days, single entry. If you live in the UAE, ICP lets you sponsor a relative: the application fee is AED 100, and issuance is charged per month of stay. A visitor with nobody to sponsor them goes through a tourism company, and we file those too.
Source: GDRFA tourist visa pages and ICP visit visa pages, checked .
What Dubai agencies charge
Dubai visa agencies publish about AED 340 to AED 800 for a 30-day single entry visa (published prices of 8 Dubai agencies, checked ). It is a market range, not our price.
After 90 days
Free entry ends at day 90. An ICP extension is AED 100 for the application plus AED 500, and overstay is AED 50 a day. See our Dubai visa extension and overstay fine guides before you plan a long stay.
If you are in Dubai and need an Italy visa
That is the opposite direction, and a different page. UAE residents whose passport needs a Schengen visa file Italy at VFS Global in The Gate, DIFC if they live in Dubai or the Northern Emirates, and Abu Dhabi emirate residents use BLS International. The EU Schengen fee is EUR 90 for an adult. Dubai agencies publish about AED 325 to AED 1,200 for Italy (published prices of 4 Dubai agencies, checked ). Everything else is on Italy visa from Dubai.
How it works with us
Tell us who is travelling and when, with a photo of each passport, through WhatsApp or the form here. A visa adviser marks the Italians as free entry and the others by visa type, and quotes one price for the whole group before you commit. Then our partners submit each file, chase any query and pass you the e-visas by email. DubaiVisaDesk.com is a private service. It is the UAE that approves or rejects.
A refused visa does not bring back the government fee. The adviser writes down, before you pay, which share of our fee would return in that case, if any.
Official sources
- UAE foreign ministry visa exemptions: Italy listed as visa free.
- Viaggiare Sicuri, UAE: passport validity, border checks, customs, drugs (Italian text).
- Italian consulate network in the UAE: who serves which emirate.
- Italian embassy in Abu Dhabi: consular register and fees.
- GDRFA tourist visa: fees for relatives.
- ICP visit visa: sponsor route.
More: Dubai visa for EU citizens, Dubai family visit visa, 60-day Dubai visa, and every nationality.
