• Do It Yourself:
You can go directly through a consulate or MFA e-visa site, which saves you some amount but takes at least three weeks or longer. You can fill out the Iran visa application form in your home country; then send the forms, passport, photos, fee and proof of your travel insurance to the embassy. Your documents will be sent to Tehran for approval. You will be contacted, few weeks later. In rare cases this process can take just a few days.
• Use Iran Travel Agency:
In most cases you fill out an electronic form with details of your itinerary and where you’d like to collect your visa, attach digital copies of photo and passport, and the agency sends these to MFA. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced that it takes between 5 to 10 working days to assess the application. There is no refund if your application fails, but few are rejected. Once the Iran visa authorization code is received, the agency will forward it and you are asked to call the Iranian embassy or consulate.
You need to go through the application process as a formality. In most consulates the visa is issued on the spot. If you’re British, Canadian or American, the process is slower and costlier. The Iranian Embassy in London will often hold an interview and requests fingerprints from British applicants.
For US citizens, three months is needed. Tourist visa requires passport, application form, four passport-sized photos, and reference number issued by the Foreign Ministry in Tehran.
Extending a tourist visa is very easy and can be done in most cities. As it is very time consuming in Tehran, applying for visa extension is recommended in other cities. Extending a visa for second time requires the passport to be sent to a department in Tehran (no matter where you are applying) and thus takes longer than the first time.
Although it has become easier to get a tourist visa in recent years, whether the process takes one day or one month depends on your nationality. Please apply to the Iranian embassy in your own country at least three months before your departure, but it is one month in other countries, with varying degrees of difficulty.
Note: Women need to make sure they are wearing the Hijab or a head scarf in their submitted passport sized photos.
Iran Tourist Visa on Arrival (VOA)
Iran usually issues 30-day tourist visas on arrival (VOA , Airport Visa) for people from about 65 countries, including most European, Asian, Persian Gulf and Central Asian countries, several South American countries, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
Notable absentees are Britain, Canada and the USA. Tourist visas are available at all international airports, but it is recommended to fly for Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) to avoid possible problems. At the time of writing, to obtain the visa on arrival the following were required:
• Insurance documents in advance, otherwise you may purchase at the airport;
• Insurance can be purchased about 16$ it is strongly recommended that you purchase insurance before the visa process;
• Hotel reservation documents
• For most Western nationalities, the fee is €75 (Australians pay €145) or the equivalent US dollar. Visa fees can be paid in both Euros and US dollars.
Transit Visa
Issued for five to seven days Transit visas are not available to US passport holders. For other nationalities, the visa can be granted in one or two days and no authorization number is required.
Do you need an Iran Visa?
Passport-holders from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia and Turkey get a three-month tourist visa on arrival. Everyone else needs to arrange a visa in advance or seek a 30-day visa on arrival at an airport. Contrary to popular misconception, US citizens are welcome.
Note: Israeli passport holders, and anyone with an Israeli stamp in their passport (or exit stamps at the relevant Jordanian or Egyptian border crossings into Israel), will not get a visa.
Iran Visa for US citizens:
They can apply for a visa at the Iranian Interest Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. However, US citizens must have an MFA-approved guide for the entire trip and detailed itinerary. This includes entering Iran from any border.
Iran tour operators will follow up the process, and help you to set up an itinerary for you. To get the visa, US citizens should communicate with Iran travel agency in advance, to set up Iran tour packages ; Iran travel agency may apply for a visa authorization number to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs once approved, the authorization number is issued to the interest section. Then the applicant applies for the visa. The interest section does not reply emails or phone calls.
Good news: there is usually little difficulty in extending a 30-day tourist visa to 60 days. It’s possible, but harder, to extend up to a maximum of 90 days.