Nepal’s e-Visa system went fully live on August 17, 2026 — no more counting on the visa-on-arrival counter at Tribhuvan International Airport being fast, or open, or fully stocked with the right forms. Tikaram Dhakal, spokesperson for Nepal’s Department of Immigration, confirmed that technical and administrative preparations were complete following a testing phase, and travelers can now apply online and get approval emailed back within roughly 24 hours — before they ever board a flight.

This site has covered a dozen versions of this same story this year — Egypt digitizing its visa on arrival, Thailand’s arrival card, Vietnam’s e-Visa — but not Nepal, which is a strange gap given how many people build an entire bucket list around getting to Everest Base Camp or the Annapurna Circuit. That gap closes today.

Quick Facts — Nepal’s e-Visa, August 2026

Detail	Info
Fully launched	August 17, 2026
Cost — 15 days	$30, multiple entry
Cost — 30 days	$50, multiple entry
Cost — 90 days	$125, multiple entry
Processing time	~24 hours, approval by email
Validity window	6 months from issue date to use the visa
Where to apply	Official Department of Immigration portal
Visa on arrival	Still running in parallel — not phased out
Excluded from e-Visa	Chinese passport holders (free visa on arrival continues)

In one sentence: Nepal’s e-Visa is now fully operational — apply online, get approved by email in about a day, pay the same $30/$50/$125 fees visa on arrival always charged — and the airport counter hasn’t gone anywhere.

What Actually Changed on August 17

Before this week, Nepal technically had an e-Visa option, but it existed in the kind of half-built state that made most travelers skip it and just deal with the counter at Kathmandu. Long queue, cash in hand, paper form, hope the line moves. That’s been the default experience for years.

What launched August 17 is the full version: a working online application, document upload, online payment, and — this is the part that matters — an actual approval emailed back to you, generally within 24 hours, according to Dhakal. You print it, you carry it, you walk past the visa-on-arrival line entirely. No system this thorough has covered Nepal’s entry process before, which is part of why this is worth writing up even though nothing about the underlying fee structure changed.

Dhakal framed the rollout as the finish line of a testing phase, not a rushed switch-flip — technical and administrative preparations were confirmed complete before the system went live to the public. That matters more than it sounds like it should. Government e-visa launches have a track record of going live before they’re actually ready (ask anyone who tried to use an early-stage portal that crashed under its own traffic), so a spokesperson explicitly saying testing wrapped first is worth noting on its own.

Free Visa Categories Worth Knowing About

Not every traveler pays the standard $30/$50/$125 tiers. A few categories get a different deal, and it’s worth checking whether you qualify before you assume the standard fee applies to you:

• Children under 10 generally travel free, except U.S. citizens, who must pay the standard visa fee under a reciprocity arrangement between Nepal and the United States.
• SAARC nationals — citizens of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation member countries — can get a free 30-day visa once per calendar year.
• Chinese passport holders skip the e-Visa system entirely and continue receiving free visas on arrival, discussed more below.

None of this is new with the August 17 launch. It’s the same fee-exemption structure Nepal has run for years, now sitting alongside a functional online application instead of only a paper one.

The Fees Didn’t Move — $30, $50, $125

Here’s the detail that keeps tripping people up when they read early coverage of this launch: going digital did not mean going more expensive. Unlike Egypt’s recent digital VOA rollout, which tacked a $6 issuance fee onto its paper price, Nepal’s e-Visa costs exactly what visa on arrival has always cost.

• 15 days: $30
• 30 days: $50
• 90 days: $125

All three are multiple-entry visas, and all three match the visa-on-arrival price you’d have paid at the airport counter anyway. The only thing you’re buying with the e-Visa is certainty and speed — knowing you’re approved before you land, instead of finding out at immigration.

Visa on Arrival Isn’t Going Away

This is worth stating plainly, because “e-Visa launches” headlines have a habit of implying the old system is being retired. It isn’t. The Department of Immigration is running both in parallel: travelers without a pre-approved e-Visa can still land at Tribhuvan International Airport or another authorized entry point, pay cash, and get processed on arrival, same as always.

Nobody’s forcing the switch. If you’d rather not deal with uploading a passport photo and a scan ahead of time, or you’re the type who books a flight four days out and figures logistics on the way, visa on arrival is still sitting there waiting. The e-Visa just gives you the option to skip that line entirely — which, if you’ve ever landed in Kathmandu behind three tour groups all doing paperwork at once, is not a small thing.

Who’s Excluded From the e-Visa

Chinese passport holders are the one group carved out of this rollout. They’re not required to use the e-Visa system, and they continue to receive free visas on arrival, per visasnews.com’s reporting on the launch. If you’re arriving from China, nothing about your entry process changed this week — you still walk up to the counter and it’s still free.

Who Can’t Get Visa on Arrival At All

Here’s a distinction worth being precise about, because “excluded from the e-Visa” and “excluded from visa on arrival” are two different lists.

Nationals of twelve countries — Afghanistan, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, Palestine, Somalia, Syria, and Zimbabwe — have never been eligible for visa on arrival in Nepal at all. That’s not a change from this launch; it’s an existing policy that now matters more, because a working e-Visa gives travelers from those countries an actual online path to apply in advance rather than relying entirely on an embassy visit. If you hold a passport from one of those twelve countries, the airport counter was never an option for you, and the e-Visa system (or your nearest Nepali diplomatic mission) is where your application actually needs to happen.

Everyone else — the overwhelming majority of visa-required nationalities — has a genuine choice between the two systems as of this week.

How Do You Apply for Nepal’s e-Visa?

1. Go to the official portal. Applications run through Nepal’s Department of Immigration e-Visa system — not a third-party site, and not an agency charging a markup to fill out the same form.
2. Enter passport and trip details. Personal information, passport number, planned travel dates, and the address where you’ll be staying in Nepal.
3. Upload a passport scan and a recent photo. Standard requirements — have both ready as digital files before you start.
4. Pay online. $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30 days, or $125 for 90 days, depending on how long your trip runs.
5. Wait roughly 24 hours. Approval arrives by email once the application clears review.
6. Print it and carry it. Bring the printed approval to your point of entry along with your passport.

Six months is your window to actually use it — the e-Visa is valid for entry within six months of the date it’s issued, so applying doesn’t lock you into a specific arrival date the way some countries’ systems do.

e-Visa vs. Visa on Arrival: Which Should You Use?

	e-Visa (New)	Visa on Arrival
When you apply	Online, before you fly	At the airport counter
Cost	$30 / $50 / $125	Same: $30 / $50 / $125
Processing	~24 hours, by email	Instant, on the spot
Payment	Online	Cash, at the counter
Best for	Travelers who’d rather have entry locked in before departure	Travelers booking last-minute or who’d rather skip pre-planning paperwork

Probably use the e-Visa if: you’re the type who likes logistics settled before you fly, you’re traveling during peak trekking season when airport counters get backed up, or you just don’t want one more thing to deal with after a long-haul flight.

Probably stick with visa on arrival if: you booked last-minute, you’re not confident about the photo/scan upload process, or you’d genuinely rather hand over cash than deal with an online form.

What This Means If You’re Building an Everest or Annapurna Trip

The e-Visa doesn’t touch your trekking permits — that’s a separate system entirely, and it’s easy to conflate the two when you’re planning a first Nepal trip. Annapurna routes still require the ACAP permit plus a TIMS card, running around $38 combined, and Everest-region trekkers still pay a Sagarmatha National Park entry fee on top of the local Khumbu municipality fee that replaced TIMS in that region. None of that changed August 17. What did change is that the entry visa piece — the part that gets you into the country in the first place — is now one less thing you have to sort out at an airport counter after a long-haul flight.

If you’re already juggling a permit-heavy trek or comparing Nepal against other high-altitude bucket list routes like Mount Fuji’s reservation system or Rwanda’s gorilla trekking permits, knowing your entry visa is locked in before departure is one less variable in an already logistics-heavy trip.

It’s a smaller shift than India’s eVisa system, which has been fully digital-first for years, but for a country whose entry process has run almost entirely on an airport counter, this is the most functional Nepal’s visa system has been in a long time.

The Bottom Line

Nepal didn’t change what its tourist visa costs. It changed how confident you can be about having one before you land. The e-Visa system that went fully live August 17, 2026 charges the same $30, $50, or $125 that visa on arrival always has, processes in about a day by email, and runs alongside the airport counter rather than replacing it. Chinese passport holders keep their existing free arrangement, and everyone else now has a real choice between applying ahead or paying cash on landing.

If Everest Base Camp or the Annapurna Circuit has been sitting on your list, this is one fewer unknown standing between you and booking the flight.

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Launch details sourced from VisasNews and Nepal’s Department of Immigration official e-Visa portal. Information current as of Aug. 18, 2026 — verify fees and requirements against the official portal before applying.