Saudi Umrah Visa Procedure from USA 2020

Millions of people travel to Saudi Arabia to visit the city of Makkah and Islamic pilgrimage. Pilgrims from USA also travel and search for Umrah Visa Procedure Online. Most eminent and prime reason or purpose of doing Umrah is to cleanse one’s soul from the sins committed thus far and essentially attain peace and feel closer to God himself.

The difference between Hajj and Umrah is that while they share common rites that need to be performed at the holy place Umrah can be done in a few hours to 1 week while Hajj requires more time in hand and involves several more rituals.

Umrah Visa Procedure from USA

People travelling from the USA can apply for Umrah Visa through any approved Umrah travel agent for quicker and easy routes. As Umrah can be performed any time of the year, the planning can be done according to your schedule but keeping a couple of months in hand for applying and getting the visa. 

New Requirements & procedure for people travelling for Umrah to Saudi from USA:

• New Umrah VISA Fee – SR 500
• No more travelling alone on Umrah Visa. Umrah pilgrims must be a group of atleast 20 people through a travel agency and should not exceed 45 people inorder to get Umrah Visa
• As per New Umrah E-Visa Law, Umrah pilgrims cannot book their own hotel and must use the hotel available on E-Umrah portal (Earlier pilgrims used to book their hotels of their own choice)

Related Article: Umrah Visa Suspended Entry in Feb 2020 for Coronavirus Outbreak

Requirements for UMRAH VISA for USA (United States of America):

Form – To begin with you need to find and fill Umrah visa application and sign it after carefully reading the terms towards the end of the form. Also remember, incase you or your family member has a non-muslim name they will be required to submit related legal documents or a certificate from mosque to declare themselves as being part of the Islamic community.

Photo – 

1. 1. you need 1 recent passport size (2”x2”) photograph which  can’t be older than 6 months from the time of application
   2. Should have a white background and the photograph itself should be color 
   3. Only the full face of the application looking straight at the camera will do any side angled pictures are not acceptable
   4. To stick the photo on to the form you cannot use glue at all. You can use just tape or one staple that too handled properly not to spoil the photo and keeping the face, forehead or basically the applicants complete should be intact without smudging

Passport –

1. 1. Valid Passport for the family members travelling or visiting you at Saudi Arabia. 
   2. The passport needs to be valid at least for next 6 months during or after the travel date 
   3. There needs to be some (minimum 2) blank pages adjacent to each other for visa provisioning.
   4. Also, the passport should be eligible and acceptable to enter Saudi Arabia and other destinations they plan to travel after Saudi

Others – 

1. 1. Ensure you have your airline tickets booked in advance as you will need to show those for Visa and they need to be non-refundable. And accordingly date of entry be provided accordingly departure should be within two week from Saudi Arabia 
   2. A male member (Mahram) is required to travel with children and women along with proof of relationship to present to the officials. All women above 45 yrs old are allowed to travel self and without a male custodian provided she’s travelling in a group or other family members but needs to present a NOC for travel from her Mahram
   3. Meningococcal Meningitis is a very critically seen disease and therefore a medical certificate of vaccination also needs to be present issued not more 3 yrs ago and less than 10 days before your travel time and entry to Saudi.
   4. Visa for Umrah is generally alloted and is valid only for 2 weeks and therefore you have to perform Umrah within those timelines of your Visa.
   5. Another point to remember here is if you are going for Umrah during Ramadan you cannot extend your day till the last Ramzan day and your 2 weeks and basically not stay there for the festivities of Ramadan
   6. Also, though the Umrah Visa is free of cost you have to pay and take care for the expenses for your stay and other expenditure yourself when in Saudi Arabia

Once you have all the required and valid documents mentioned above and you are meeting all the criteria set by the Saudi Visa Personel you can apply for your Umrah Visa for Saudi from USA with the help of a travel agent. It takes approximately 2 weeks for you to get your visa approved from the time of submission.