Uzbekistan visa and registration: entry rules for 2026

Visa-free stay by passport: 30 days, 60 days or no limit

Your nationality decides, not where you live: a stateless resident of a visa-free country gets no visa-free entry. The foreign ministry’s list, last updated on 1 June 2026, sets no limit for 8 former Soviet states and gives 60 days to Kyrgyzstan, 30 days to 79 nationalities and 10 days to 3 Gulf states. The 30 or 60 days run from the moment you cross the border, and you must leave when they run out.

The United States joined the 30-day group on 1 January 2026 under Decree PF-203 of 3 November 2025, which also dropped the old condition that US visitors be 55 or older. Everyone else needs the e-visa, a consular visa or, on a stopover, the 5-day transit rule.

India, China, Hong Kong and transit: the conditional cases

Indian passports have two routes. The e-visa works for anyone. Since September 2026, Decree PF-180 of 29 August 2026 also gives 30 days without a visa to Indian citizens holding a valid multiple-entry tourist or business visa from the US, the UK, a Schengen state, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea or New Zealand, plus a ticket home or to a third country. The stay has to end before that foreign visa does.

Chinese ordinary passports get 30 days per entry and at most 90 in any 180 days under the agreement in force since 1 June 2025; the 30th day ends at 24:00. Hong Kong passports get two answers: the Uzbek list puts Hong Kong and Macao under China at 30 days, while Hong Kong’s Immigration Department (list of 15 September 2026) gives 10 days, entering and leaving by air with an onward or return ticket, and requires the e-visa for a land crossing. Plan on 10 days by air.

The 5-day transit rule covers 48 nationalities that are otherwise not visa-free: fly into an international airport holding a Uzbekistan Airways ticket to a third country, and you can stay up to 5 days on the way through. Vietnamese citizens aged 55 or over get 30 days visa-free as tourists; younger ones use the e-visa or the transit rule.

Where your country has no Uzbek embassy, the visa is issued at Tashkent airport: your host in Uzbekistan obtains the foreign ministry’s approval stamp in advance and sends it to you, and you show it when you buy the ticket and at passport control at home.

The e-visa: US$20 and 2 working days

Apply at e-visa.gov.uz at least 3 working days before you arrive: processing takes 2 working days, not counting the day you apply. The visa is valid for 90 days from issue and allows up to 30 days in the country; arriving late does not move the expiry date.

The e-visa belongs to one passport. Any difference between the two makes it invalid, a new passport needs a new e-visa, and a dual citizen applies on the passport used at the border. Show it printed or on your phone together with that passport.

The fee is not refunded, even after a refusal, and anyone can pay it with their card. If your nationality is visa-free, the portal stops before payment; if it is not on the e-visa list, the portal sends you to an Uzbek consulate.

1. 1

   Country and dates

   Choose your nationality, passport type, purpose of visit and dates of stay.

2. 2

   Passport data and photo

   Type your details in English exactly as in the passport, then upload a photo to the ICAO standard and a scan of the photo page of up to 500 KB.

3. 3

   Activate and pay

   Enter the code sent to your email, then pay the fee by card; the portal names Visa as its payment system.

4. 4

   Receive the PDF

   Follow the application on the status page; the visa arrives by email as a PDF. For payment trouble, call the hotline on +998 71 200-00-88 or write to mail@e-visa.gov.uz.

Passport validity: 3 months beyond a visa, 6 months to be safe

The foreign ministry gives two figures. For a consular visa, the passport must stay valid at least 3 months longer than the visa. For visa-free entry, its note asks for a passport valid at least 6 months ‘from visa issuance’, a date that does not exist on a visa-free trip.

A passport with 6 months left on the day you arrive meets both readings; with less, renew it before you book. Every traveller needs a passport of their own, children included, and Russian citizens travel on the foreign-travel passport only.

Registration within 3 working days: hotels file it for you

Registration records where you sleep and is separate from the visa. Law ZRU-1074, in force since 12 October 2025, requires every foreign visitor to be registered within 3 working days of entry, unless a treaty or law sets another period (Article 7). The 10 working days quoted on many websites apply to Uzbek citizens and permanent residents.

Hotels, guesthouses, campsites, yurt and tent camps and sanatoriums register their guests through E-mehmon, and the record is processed within 1 working day (Articles 5, 6 and 19). Each place registers its own nights, so a route through Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva leaves 3 records.

The longer periods in the table apply to your first registration after entry. They matter mainly in private homes, since hotels register their guests through E-mehmon.

Private stays: the owner registers you on E-mehmon

In a flat, a friend’s house or a private rental, the owner must register you (Article 6), and an owner who fails to is fined 6,600,000 som (Administrative Code, Article 225). There are two routes: online at reg.emehmon.uz, where the owner signs in with OneID, the Uzbek government login, or in person at the local migration and citizenship office with the owner’s written consent, the owner’s passport or ID card and your passport (Article 19).

Online, the owner enters your name, citizenship, passport and visa details, picks the home by its cadastre number and sets the dates; the registration counts once the tourist levy is paid. The levy is 2% of the base amount per person per day in a non-commercial home, 8,800 som, and 5% in a commercial rental, 22,000 som; children under 16 pay nothing.

The online service registers stays only within 30 days of the border crossing, counted from the day after entry. Longer stays, missed deadlines and mismatched dates go to the migration office. After a hotel, E-mehmon’s rule is to register the next address within 24 hours of check-out.

The home needs at least 16 m² of floor space per resident, 23 m² for a wheelchair user, or the registration is refused (Articles 20 and 22). Agree before you book who registers you and who pays the levy; a booking confirmation is not a registration.

Keep every registration slip until you leave

Each registration produces a certificate, electronic or paper (Article 19). From a private owner it is a printable sheet in the owner’s E-mehmon account, available once the levy is paid, listing every place you were registered in Uzbekistan; E-mehmon says it helps at the border and at road checks.

From hotels, ask for the confirmation at check-out and keep them all with your passport and train tickets. If only the last hotel’s slip is left, ask the earlier ones to email theirs before you fly.

While you stay, the law asks three things of you: live at the address where you are registered, carry your passport, and show it when officials ask (Article 19).

Overstays, fines and extensions

One scale of fines covers late or missing registration, overstaying, living on an expired passport and breaking transit rules; the amount grows with the length of the violation. Visitors under 18 are not fined. An unpaid fine leads to expulsion and a 1-year entry ban, and a second violation within a year to expulsion and a 3-year ban.

To stay beyond the visa-free 30 or 60 days, apply for one of the foreign ministry’s visa categories before they run out. Inside Uzbekistan, the ministry directs visitors to its bureau for servicing diplomatic missions to get or extend a visa; abroad, apply at an Uzbek consulate. If an entry visa has already expired, the ministry issues an EXIT visa, valid up to 1 month, to leave.

Registration follows the permitted stay: an owner can register visa-free citizens of CIS states for up to 6 months, and other visitors up to the end of the visa-free period or the visa (Article 19). E-mehmon’s online service stops at 30 days after entry, so a longer private stay is registered at the migration office, as is any case where a deadline has already passed.

Travelling on a Russian passport

Russian citizens need no visa, and the foreign ministry sets no limit on their stay. Three rules shape the trip:

• Document: the foreign-travel passport (zagranpasport) only, under the 2005 protocol to the 2000 travel agreement. The internal passport is not accepted and a child needs a zagranpasport too; talks on entry with an internal document, ordered in 2025, had produced no agreement by 24 September 2026.
• Registration: none for the first 15 days from entry, under an agreement in force since 4 June 2022. For a longer private stay the owner registers you by day 15; otherwise the fines above apply to you and to the owner.
• Money: Mir cards have not worked since UZCARD suspended them on 23 September 2022, and Visa and Mastercard cards issued in Russia do not work abroad. Bring US dollars or euros in cash: see cash limits at customs, money in Uzbekistan and the summary for Russian passports.

Watch out

• On 27 September 2026 E-mehmon’s online service for private stays showed a ‘temporarily not working’ notice, citing its connection to the border service. While it is down, the owner has to register you in person at the migration office, so settle this before you arrive.
• The 16 m² rule counts every resident: 5 people need a home of at least 80 m², or the registration is refused.
• Belarusian passports: E-mehmon counts 30 days before the first registration, the July 2026 protocol 10, and the law’s default is 3 working days. In a private home, register within 3 working days.
• Hong Kong passports: 10 days by air on Hong Kong’s list, 30 on the Uzbek one. Plan on 10.
• An unpaid fine means expulsion and a 1-year entry ban; a second violation within a year, a 3-year ban.
• The e-visa fee is not refunded, even after a refusal, and a payment email is not the visa: wait for the PDF.

Common questions