The Real Cost of a Tourist VisaFees Compared Across 199 Destinations, 2026
175 destinations ranked by fee · official sources only
- Destinations ranked
- 175
- Charge nothing
- 18
- Median fee (paid)
- $50
- Data updated
- 2 Jul 2026
Passport-power rankings measure how many countries you can enter. This measures something no one else has indexed: what it costs. Across 175 destinations with a directly comparable, official published fee, 18 charge nothing at all, the median paid fee is $50, and the priciest confirmed fee is Mozambique at USD 220.
Every figure is the destination's own lowest published rate for a standard adult tourist product - see the methodologyfor exactly what is (and isn't) counted.
18 Destinations With No Tourist Visa Fee
No visa fee, no e-visa charge, no arrival levy - just a passport, and in some cases a free digital arrival form. This is not the same as visa-free access for every nationality; it means the destination itself charges nothing for the product listed.
- 🇦🇺Australiae-VisaFree
- 🇩🇴Dominican RepubliceTAFree
- 🇬🇩GrenadaeTAFree
- 🇯🇲JamaicaeTAFree
- 🇱🇧LebanonVisa on arrivalFree
- 🇲🇾MalaysiaeTAFree
- 🇲🇻MaldivesVisa on arrivalFree
- 🇲🇭Marshall IslandsVisa on arrivalFree
- 🇲🇺MauritiusTourist visaFree
- 🇲🇽MexicoeTAFree
- 🇫🇲MicronesiaTourist visaFree
- 🇳🇮NicaraguaTourist visaFree
- 🇵🇼PalauVisa on arrivalFree
- 🇵🇬Papua New GuineaTourist visaFree
- 🇸🇨SeychellesVisa on arrivalFree
- 🇸🇬SingaporeeTAFree
- 🇪🇸SpainTourist visaFree
- 🇱🇰Sri LankaeTAFree
The 10 Most Expensive Tourist Visas in 2026
Ranked by the destination's own lowest published standard-entry fee - some publish steeper rates for multiple-entry or expedited service, which are not counted here.
- #175🇲🇿Mozambique$220Tourist visa
- #174🇬🇧United Kingdom$186Tourist visa
- #173🇹🇯Tajikistan$160Tourist visa
- #172🇩🇿Algeria$160Tourist visa
- #171🇳🇪Niger$155Tourist visa
- #170🇸🇩Sudan$154Tourist visa
- #169🇦🇷Argentina$150Tourist visa
- #168🇸🇦Saudi Arabia$128Visa on arrival
- #167🇧🇧Barbados$107e-Visa
- #166🇵🇱Poland$106Tourist visa
Full Visa Fee Comparison: 175 Destinations Ranked
Click a column header to sort, or filter by country or region. Every row links to the destination's full fee breakdown and official source.
24further destinations aren't ranked here because no single official fee could be confirmed - typically because the fee varies by requesting nationality on a reciprocity schedule, or only a range/embassy-discretion figure is published. See each destination's own page for detail.
Cheapest Paid Tourist Visas in 2026
Just above free: Eswatini ($4.5), Canada ($5), Israel ($7), Palestine ($7), South Korea ($7.5), and Armenia ($8), Haiti ($10), New Zealand ($10), Zambia ($10.1), El Salvador ($12) round out the ten lowest confirmed paid fees - see the full table above for every destination in between.
Visa Fees by Region
Europe's median is driven almost entirely by the flat Schengen short-stay fee. The more striking pattern is Africa: its median published tourist-visa fee runs well above Asia's and Americas', despite far lower average incomes in many of its constituent countries - the same $50-100 fee is a very different share of a traveller's (or a visiting relative's) budget depending on where they're from.
| Region | Destinations | Median fee | Charge nothing | Priciest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 43 | $97 | 1 | United Kingdom ($186) |
| Africa | 46 | $55 | 2 | Mozambique ($220) |
| Americas | 30 | $33.5 | 5 | Argentina ($150) |
| Asia | 47 | $30 | 5 | Tajikistan ($160) |
| Oceania | 9 | $0 | 5 | Solomon Islands ($50) |
The Hidden Markup: Outsourced Application-Centre Fees
70destinations in this dataset outsource visa-application handling to a private company - almost always VFS Global - which charges its own service fee, separately from and on top of the government's visa fee above. That charge doesn't appear in most "visa cost" comparisons because it's paid to a different party for a different thing (biometrics, document handling, courier), not the entry permit itself. We could confirm one clean, unambiguous amount for 31 destinations; the 23below are reported from India-based application centres, so they're directly comparable in one currency - a further 8 are confirmed in other local currencies on their own destination pages.
| Destination | Service fee | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 🇲🇦Morocco | INR 590 | VFS Global |
| 🇮🇹Italy | INR 631 | VFS Global |
| 🇪🇬Egypt | INR 800 | VFS Global |
| 🇯🇵Japan | INR 800 | VFS Global |
| 🇧🇩Bangladesh | INR 825 | DU Digital Global (Bangladesh Visa Application Centre, India); no VFS Global/TLScontact for most other countries - applications go direct to missions |
| 🇵🇱Poland | INR 1,026 | VFS Global |
| 🇲🇩Moldova | INR 1,350 | VFS Global |
| 🇰🇷South Korea | INR 1,380 | VFS Global |
| 🇩🇿Algeria | INR 1,600 | VFS Global |
| 🇮🇱Israel | INR 1,805 | VFS Global |
| 🇱🇧Lebanon | INR 1,920 | VFS Global |
| 🇩🇰Denmark | INR 2,109 | VFS Global |
| 🇨🇿Czechia | INR 2,220 | VFS Global |
| 🇱🇺Luxembourg | INR 2,281 | VFS Global |
| 🇬🇪Georgia | INR 2,435 | VFS Global |
| 🇦🇹Austria | INR 2,479 | VFS Global |
| 🇭🇷Croatia | INR 2,553 | VFS Global |
| 🇱🇮Liechtenstein | INR 2,690 | VFS Global |
| 🇧🇪Belgium | INR 2,700 | VFS Global |
| 🇮🇸Iceland | INR 2,900 | VFS Global |
| 🇺🇦Ukraine | INR 2,970 | VFS Global |
| 🇱🇻Latvia | INR 2,999 | VFS Global |
| 🇮🇪Ireland | INR 3,380 | VFS Global |
All figures reported from India-based application centres for consistency of currency; the same operator charges a different, locally-set fee at centres in other countries. Amounts are additional to the destination's own visa fee in the ranking above, not a substitute for it.
Methodology: How This Fee Comparison Is Built
Earth Visa crawled the official fee schedulepublished by each destination's own immigration authority, foreign ministry, or e-visa/eTA portal - not third-party visa-agency markups. The dataset was last refreshed 2 Jul 2026.
For each destination we take the lowest amount among four tourist-facing products:
- Tourist visa - a standard embassy/consulate-issued visa.
- e-Visa - a full visa applied for and issued entirely online.
- Visa on arrival - a visa issued at the border on landing.
- eTA - an electronic travel authorisation or mandatory digital arrival form.
We exclude business, transit and student/work visas (different product, different price), any fee without a published amount, and narrow-scope rates that don't reflect what a standard adult tourist pays - child and infant discounts, group/collective and family-passport rates, and one-off bilateral carve-outs for a single nationality. Amounts are converted to USD at the rate recorded at crawl time; native-currency figures are shown alongside on each destination's own page.
24destinations are left out of the ranking entirely because their fee genuinely isn't one number - it varies by the traveller's own nationality under a reciprocity schedule (common for embassy-issued visas), or only a range, "contact embassy", or since-discontinued figure is published. Publishing a single misleading average for those would be worse than omitting them.
Visa Fee Comparison 2026: FAQ
What is the most expensive tourist visa in the world in 2026?
Among destinations with a single published flat fee, Mozambique has the highest tourist-visa cost we could confirm from an official source in 2026, at USD 220. The United Kingdom's Standard Visitor visa and several embassy-issued African visas (Algeria, Niger, Sudan) also sit near the top - see the full ranking above. Some destinations set fees per requesting nationality (reciprocity schedules) rather than one public figure, so they aren't included in this comparison.
Which countries have a completely free tourist visa or e-visa in 2026?
18 destinations charge nothing for standard tourist entry in 2026, including Australia, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malaysia. Some of these are free visas-on-arrival, others are mandatory-but-free digital arrival forms (an eTA or arrival card) rather than a visa in the traditional sense - the table above labels each one.
How much does the average tourist visa cost?
Across the 157 destinations that charge something, the median published fee is $50 in 2026. Including the 18 destinations that charge nothing at all, 175 destinations in total have a directly comparable official fee.
Why do some countries charge an extra 'service fee' on top of the visa fee?
70 destinations in our dataset outsource visa-application logistics to a private company - almost always VFS Global - which charges its own service fee separately from, and on top of, the government's visa fee. That charge pays for the outsourcing company's operations (biometrics collection, document handling, courier), not the visa itself. We could only confirm one clean, unambiguous amount for 31 destinations; see the outsourcing-fee table below.
Why isn't every destination in this ranking?
24 destinations are left out because no single official fee figure could be confirmed: several (e.g. Turkey, Nigeria, Syria) price visas per requesting nationality on a reciprocity schedule rather than one public rate; others only publish a range, route applicants through embassy discretion, or had a program under review at crawl time. Each destination's own page lists whatever fee detail is officially published for it.
Does a cheap or free visa mean a country is easy to enter?
Not necessarily. Fee is one input, not the whole picture - some free-entry destinations still require proof of funds, onward tickets, or a separate sustainability/tourism levy paid locally (Bhutan's nightly Sustainable Development Fee is a well-known example, charged in addition to a fee-free entry permit). Check the destination's own Earth Visa page for the full requirement, not just the sticker price.
Fee is only half the story - see how many destinations your passport can reach without any visa at all in the 2026 passport ranking, or check your own passport's exact requirements and fees for any destination below.
Check the exact fee for your passport
Select your passport and a destination to see the visa type, fee, and documents required - sourced from official government pages.
Check visa requirements on Earth Visa →