I had heard that there is a way to get a Free Jordan Visa. It ain’t easy, but you can get it. Or at least it’s a discount if you can’t get through the hoops. Typically when you arrive in Jordan (some nationalities must apply before their trip) you can buy a Jordan visa on arrival. 20 Jordanian Dinars (JD) or about $28 USD. However, there is a way to get a FREE visa for Jordan.
Aqaba, the port city in the south of Jordan, right on the Red Sea and bordering with Eilat in Israel, is an economic free zone. This means you can do a bit of duty-free shopping here, for one thing. The Jordanians are looking to promote travel to Aqaba and there is a huge development project in the works there – they’re even moving the port down the coast toward Saudi Arabia to make room for a marina.
In hopes of getting the ball rolling with tourists, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) allows travelers coming to Aqaba to do so with a free visa.
You can obtain it at the border if you are entering Aqaba directly from Eilat, Israel. (You can also avoid the entry stamp if you want to keep your Israel visit invisible for future visits to certain Arab countries.)
The ASEZA office in Aqaba is nearly outside town. I walked there and back. Because I am an idiot.
The free Jordan visa requires you to complete a simple form upon arrival. Once inside Jordan it is assumed you are going to Aqaba, so this is not designed for you to just go tour the rest of Jordan (though that is still also possible). After entry you have 48 hours to get this visa validated at the ASEZA office near the outskirts of Aqaba. This is easy if you are working with a tour agency as they will do it for you. If you are independent, it will require a taxi ride. If you do NOT do this, you will pay for the visa when you leave Jordan. However, the fee will only be 10 JD unlike the usual entry visa of 20 JD in Amman. (And truth be told, the immigration agent in Amman didn’t charge me anything at all!)
Not Entering Via Aqaba?
No worries. You can request this free visa in Amman when you arrive if you are heading to Aqaba in 48 hours.
Read my article about crossing the Israeli-Jordanian border by land.
Aqaba makes a good home base for Wadi Rum and Petra, plus it is a very good scuba diving destination. Read more…
Hello Kevin,
Both your articles about borders crossing and visas in Israel/Jordan are being really helpful. They are great.
I’m traveling in a month, and I was thinking to get mi visa to Jordan here in Paris (even if i’d have to pay for it)…thinking I might save some time the day I cross the border from Eilat to Aqaba.
What do you think about that? Do you think it would change anything..? Reading you it seems like crossing the border is quite a quick thing to do.
Hoping you could give me your advice!
Thanks
E
From my experience crossing at Aqaba/Eilat was very easy. Not a lot of people do it like at Allenby/King Hussein, so there are no lines or crowds. I’ve seen the same assessment on other posts. Unless you think you might cross the border three times during your trip, getting the visa ahead of time won’t help you much. It took me minutes to cross. They looked at my bag. I went to a window and filled in a short form. That was it! If you are avoiding the Israel evidence in your passport, just be sure to tell them before they put a Jordan one in your passport. They can sign that on a separate sheet of paper. Cheers! K
Dear Kevin: I, too, appreciate your advice on crossing to Al Aqaba. My wife and I (intrepid senior citizens) are going to Israel in October. After looking at $400-a-night hotels in Eliat, I got all excited about some cheaper-yet-better places in Al Aqaba and forked out $800 for a hotel reservation. Then I learn that you can’t take an Israeli rental car into Jordan. Can’t take a can either. Yikes! So here’s my question: Suppose we just park my rental car on some street in Eilat, get a cab to the border, schlep the bags across and hail a cab on the Jordanian side. Are there cabs, in fact, waiting on the other side? I’m hoping your answer will help me out of a jam. Thanks!
Well, I can’t comment with certainty about parking in Eliat but there must be some kind of option. But yes, you can taxi to the border in minutes, walk over, and there will be a number of taxis just waiting to cheat you a wee bit.
I had read 5JD but that info may have been old or wrong. I got 10JD (not bad really) and was told it was the government controlled rate into town. About 10-15 minutes to downtown. Good luck! Let me know how it works out.
Hi Kevin, Very informative and great site you have. Thanks for the details. I’m an Indiain planning to cross over from Nuweiba (Egypt) to Aqaba and then planning to go to Petra and from there fly out of Amman to Bombay. So would it be possible for us to get the free Visa in Aqaba and continue towards Amman ?
Also Would be able to reccomend some good n reasonable place to stay for night in Dead Sea ?
You should be able to get the visa. However, the written rules of the visa, which I confirmed at the ASEZA office, are that you must leave the same border you came in at OR get your visa validated by the ASEZA office (a pain in the butt) before you head back to Amman – and even then you have 48 hours to get there and leave. That said, I broke all those rules and still left from Amman without a hassle or paying the visa fee as they had said I would. But what’s the price of the gamble? You have to pay the visa fee anyway. Not a big deal I think.
I don’t know that what is reasonable for you, but I stayed at the Holiday Inn on the Dead Sea courtesy of the tourism board. If I were a normally employed middle-class person (ie not a hand-to-mouth writer or a budget backpacker) I would have definitely stayed there on my own dime – I see about $127-140 per night. It’s a nice hotel for a Holiday Inn, lots of pools, and there is a bucket of mud and patches of mud right along its beach. Plus security to keep out trouble makers trying to scam beachgoers. HOWEVER, I am seeing some online reviews recently that the beach is closed indefinitely and some service complaints (which can always be taken with a grain of salt).
And remember, anything we know today can change tomorrow! (That’s my little disclaimer.
Apologies if this combines several previous questions answered on your post, but I’m not sure they are completely relevant to my situation and am looking for the cheapest easiest solution. I’m in Dahab right now, and came down from Jordan a few days ago. I only had a single entry visa from Jordan. I’d like to go to Israel next for a few weeks, and eventually am flying from Amman to Dubai to visit UAE, Oman and Qatar, so quite worried about “stamp” issues.
From what I can tell, the cheapest/quickest solution is to take a bus from here to Taba, and cross the border into Eilat. But, everywhere I’ve looked says that I can’t do that b/c then I’ll have a Taba exit stamp. The next cheapest/quickest solution is to take ferry to Aqaba, and then cross over to Eilat, asking Aqaba authorities to also stamp exit on separate piece of paper. Sounds like that is possible, but if I get a single entry visa in Aqaba, won’t I need to get another one when I return to Jordan (either in Tel Aviv or at bridge crossing)? Won’t that visa show that it was from the embassy in Tel Aviv or mention the bridge crossing? Or, will the Aqaba visa suffice even though when I go back to Amman it will be my second entry into Jordan?
Last and most expensive option is to fly from Sharm el Sheik, but that’ll cost me more than double than the ferry option. My understanding from your post and others is that the single-entry visa I buy at the airport is valid for 30 more days in Jordan, and would also be valid if I go to Israel for 15 days. Correct? Then I can come back across at King Hussein and ask for Jordan and Israel entry/exit stamps on separate piece of paper.
Such a drag, but I can’t risk a stamp as the next leg of my RTW trip leaves from Dubai. That said, also don’t want to NOT go to Israel. Thanks for your help!!!
Hi Debbie,
I can’t comment on Taba but it sounds like that’s not possible due to exit stamps. So take the ferry. Do you care to see Eilat or just Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc.? The trouble is this: if you get the Aqaba visa, I am not sure they will let you back in at Allenby/King Hussein. They do let people in within the 15 days but so far I’ve only heard of that being done with the usual Amman airport 20JD visa and thus leaving and returning at that same crossing (note in comments a couple Brazilians got charged to re-enter, likely a scam, but at least they could still cross). And you cannot get a visa at Allenby/King Hussein. You could always end your Israel trip north at Sheikh Hussein crossing maybe. When I was sorting all this out in May, I actually took the bus from Tel Aviv down to Aqaba, crossed on the free visa, took the bus to Amman — all in one day. I think it was a 6 am bus to Eilat, 4-5 hours, crossing took nearly no time at all, went directly to the bus station in Aqaba, another 3-4 hours on the bus. Back in Amman before sundown. It’s an option if the other plan doesn’t work out.
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Thank you, this article was really useful to organize my trip..I was almost buying the single entry visa at the Embassy in Rome for the “modest” sum of 38 Euros!
I would like to ask you something more specific.
I’m flying from Rome to Amman with Alitalia and then I’m heading straight to the terminal for Aqaba. If I get the free visa at the Aqaba airport instead of Amman, do you think I’ll have to go to the ASEZA office anyway?
I’m arriving on Friday morning and then I’ll go to Wadi Rum. If I have to pay the taxi back to the ASEZA office on Sunday morning, it’s not worth to ask for a free visa!
Interesting, so you’re saying you do NOT go through immigration when you land in Amman?? You are now entering into murky territory for me.
IF you get that free visa at Aqaba airport, it SAYS on the visa that you need to visit ASEZA and validate that you are in Aqaba. But I failed to do that after entering from Eilat, Israel and spending 10 days in Jordan. (Though I did WALK out to ASEZA – insane choice, by the way – and chatted with the visa people to confirm that I was too late.) Nevertheless, when I flew out of AMMAN later that week, no one charged me anything at all. After Wadi Rum you are flying out of where? Aqaba? Truth is you likely are one of the nationalities that can buy a visa on arrival as I did when I entered Amman the very first time. 20JD. If you can skip that and go directly to Aqaba and get the free visa, then you are no worse off. If it fails and you still have to pay for the visa, you aren’t spending any more money or time than you would if you got that 38 Euro visa in Rome, right?
I crossed from Israel to Jordan through Aqaba at the end of 2011. Nobody mentioned any visa validation. The visa was free. I flew out from Amman a few days later and it all went smoothly.
Yes, same for me. However, the fine print on the paper says it is required and when I went to ASEZA after they argued with each other and called in a supervisor they said yes, this is true and that I was too late to be validated. So if the paper and the ASEZA folks are right, then it is POSSIBLE they could hold you to it upon departure. I’m not saying you better take the trouble to visit ASEZA but rather simply have the cash on hand upon departure just in case someone actually enforces it – which from reports thus far is unlikely.
You people are so cheap … You’ve wasted a lot of time reading this to save 10$ ..
Dear Bla,
It’s not a matter of money (by the way 20JOD are 28$, not 10). It is, instead, a question of being informed. I like to plan out my itinerary, I think it’s the best part of a trip.
Unfortunately many many Italians only rely on a travel agency while travelling to Middle East: most of them don’t even make the effort of looking on the map where the country they are visiting is!!
By the way, Kevin, just to share my experience:
Friday, 19th October 2012: I entered Jordan at Amman Airport. Asked the immigration office a free ASEZ visa (on the basis of my ticket with Royal Jordanian Amman-Aqaba on the same day). The immigration officer told me to register the visa at the ASEZA the day after or Sunday.
I didn’t go there at all. I left Jordan the 9th November (after 3 weeks) from Amman Airport. No fine and no visa payed!
Jordanians are the kindest people I’ve ever met! This was my 5th visit to Jordan but I’ll come back soon!!
Thanks for sharing that information, Federica!
Hi Kevin (and anyone else who can help),
We’re Brits on a cruise ship visiting Aqaba in January – the ship overnites in port. Having previously been to Petra, etc, we’re looking at crossing to Eilat for an afternoon/evening on day one, or the morning/afternoon of day two – our ship sails 5pm on the second day. Day one may not be worthwhile, our plans to spend the evening in Eilat possibly thwarted by the crossing hours? (website says it closes 20.00), If it’s to be day two how long should we allow for the crossing formalities? – its a long swim to the next port-of-call..
Last time we visited Aqaba (same cruise line) the ship provided Jordanian visa (5JD according to the stamp in my passport, so I’m guessing it’s a single entry). A number of queries arise,:
We’re not planning to take shekels or Dinars & to rely on euros/plastic. Acceptable by Israeli taxi from the border? And is there an Israeli entry/exit fee (exit fee we can check on arrival, but problematic if an ENTRY fee can only be paid in shekels & we have none?)
Likewise visa for returning to Aqaba – hear what you say about free entry, no worries if there is a fee, but problematic if there is & has to be paid in dinars (again, not planning to take any, sterling & euros were fine in Jordan last time)
Apologies for the number of questions. Don’t want to be ripped-off, more importantly don’t want to be delayed/stranded.
Regards
Chris
1. If there is a delay at the border (unlikely down here I’m told and I saw nearly no one crossing when I did it myself) it is likely to be entering Israel. Jordan should take you in without hassle and Israel won’t mind seeing you go if you pay your exit tax. Be aware that exit taxes are typically changed every January 1. Just keep an eye on that.
2. You can change money right there to get shekels. And if they don’t take plastic for the exit, you can also change money for that. Taxis are universal: they will cheat you on either side but hopefully only modestly if you haggle and are firm.
3. Visa into Aqaba should be free.
4. If all this still makes you nervous, I’d say day trip to Mujib Reserve (awesome)/Dead Sea or Wadi Rum if you were to stay in Jordan. If you are into scuba at all, the shore dives at Aqaba are awesome and I can recommend SeaStar Watersports. They were great.
Enjoy your trip! Please report back if you experience anything out of the norm!
Hi, Kevin,
Thank you so much for posting such comprehensive info on the subject. Even on the TA I could not find such detailed and to the point info. Would you be OK if I post a link to this site there? I bet it will help a lot of ppl who run around the web looking for bits and pieces of crossing info.
Thank you!
Hi Kevin! I hope you’ll be able to help me with this. It’s about not wanting my passport to get stamped.
I’m flying from Hong Kong -> Tel Aviv roundtrip, and I also plan on visiting Jordan. After I’ve read this post, I’ve decided to take this route. I’m only gonna spend enough time to see Petra & Wadi Rum before I cross the same border crossing again.
My concern is, since they’re obviously going to issue me a visa when I want to get it validated at the ASEZA office, are they going to stamp the visa in my passport? I’m concerned that they’re going to put something in the visa that will show that I entered Jordan via Israel. (or can I also get it stamped on a paper?)
I really want to know since I’m planning a trip to Iran afterwards.
I hope you’ll be able to help me with this. Your blog helps me plan my trip to both countries already, so I’d like to thank you so much for this!
hi sir,,i just want to ask my husdand is in Qatar and I want him to visit me hear in Jordan his holding phillippine passport can he enter aqaba?can he get a visa thru aiport upon arrival?
Hi Lea, Unfortunately, no. He would have to obtain a visa before his trip but should be able to do so at the Jordan embassy in Qatar. Good luck!
Kevin
Hi Kevin – We are traveling in May on a cruise with Aqaba as a day-stop. However, we are disembarking on that day vs continuing on with the cruise in order to visit Petra, Dead Sea and depart home from Amman airport. The cost of a Jordanian visa is not the issue, but in order to get an advanced visa, we must provide via mail our original passport and do that in such a way that the visa is not expired (30 days) by the time we need it and that our passport is returned by the time we need it (crusise departing much earlier). Scary. In order to avoid these catch-22 problems, we would like instructions on where and how we get a visa once we are at Aqaba port, including any unforeseen problems on our part. thank you! Terry
Where’s your passport from? Most countries are eligible for visa on arrival which you’d get at your point of entry.
USA. Where and how do we get the visa when docking on cruise ship at Aqaba? Thnks!
I have not done this myself, but I see in various places online that they now have an immigration office at the port (which makes sense otherwise people could come and go willy nilly). Years ago they took you by bus to another office. Should be a free visa.
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hi! This article and the one crossing jordan-israel is helpful.. Er, mind answering some inquiries? im a filipino and working in suadi arabia and wanna visit israel,maybe last quarter this year, but im confused on how too
i think my nationality requires me to abtain a visa prior to arrival, but would entering aqaba exempt me? And im avoiding the israeli stamp on my passport, reason is obvious 
, how could i assure that? Thanks!
If you need a visa (and I think you do), you cannot get it at the border, you’d need to apply at an embassy where you are. Here’s how to avoid the Israel Stamp in your passport. Good luck!
What you are saying is actually only partly true. In Aqaba you NEVER pay for visa and they are not entitled to charge you. But when you cross the rule of less than five persons and less then two days in Jordan (48 hours to be precise), you will pay the entrance visa upon your departure should that be other than Aqaba. I just wrote an article about it, the information is directly from the authorities, so there should not be a mistake http://orientoholic.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/how-to-enter-jordan-from-israel/
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Hi Katka, Thanks for your comment. Be very careful with words like “never” or “always”. As recently as last month (Feb 13) some travelers reported being charged for a visa in Aqaba. It depends of course on country of origin and on whether someone is cheating you.
From which authorities did you get your information? ASEZA or a border agent? On my visa it clearly stated I had 48 hours to validate it at ASEZA and I spent some time in the ASEZA office in Aqaba to confirm that from them. Anyway, what’s official isn’t always what happens. 
That’s why it’s nice to collect recent comments/experiences of travelers.
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if i want to enter jordan throught eilat border going to aqaba, and buy visa at the border, can i then return to israel at different border?
thanks for your reply
Hi Peter, yes. And in fact the visa is free there. From what country is your passport? Most countries can get their visas at the border, but some must apply at a Jordanian embassy/consulate before arrival. (EU, USA, etc are ok)
The thing is my family and I are planning trip from tel aviv to Jerusalem and then to Eilat. From Eilat we want to enter Jordan and spend some time near Aqaba by Red Sea. It would be pointless for us to go all the way to north Jordan (we want to see the country) and then come back South to enter Israel. That’s why I’m asking if the alright if I return to Israel via different border crossing somewhere north of Jordan. And m passport is EU so ill be alright.
I see. Not a problem at all.
what kind of visa i have to get at the border, to enter aqaba from eilat and returning from other north border? and how much would it be?
thanks for reply
The free tourist visa. It’s free.
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