In case anyone is interested, I personally visited the Iraq consulates in Jeddah and Istanbul and was told by both that it is not possible (for US citizens) to apply for a tourist visa in advance, only at the airport. In Jeddah I asked about wanting to cross overland into Iraq via Kuwait and was told that they have no idea if you can get a visa in advance in Kuwait city or on arrival at the Kuwait-Iraq border.

I have never heard of a country only issuing visas on arrival, not beforehand from an embassy or consulate; usually you have the option of getting a visa in advance and the VOA is just meant to be more convenient. Personally, I have decided to fly from Istanbul to Baghdad and will be doing so on Tuesday. Hopefully the VOA is as easy to get as everyone says.

Thanks for sharing that. It is indeed a pretty mad visa policy, dating I believe from Saddam's time and only partly reformed it seems. I guess either Iraq will update the policy in the coming years, or some tourist will do something stupid, or get in trouble and the authorities will go back to organised tourism only.

But I can say Iraq was absolutely worth the trouble to visit (I had to get an Iranian visa and a CdP just to transit Iran and then wait more that two weeks while the Iranian authorities suddenly closed the borders, then opened them again..)

Have a great trip,

EO

I've now been in touch with two traveller groups who actually flew to Bagdad to get their Iraq proper visa.

Two of them flew from Turkey and then back to their bikes. The other two actually entered Iraq Kurdistan and flew domestically from Erbil to Bagdad and then back to their bikes. The latter have been questioned about leaving their bikes in Iraq Kurdistan while flying to Bagdad but succeeded in the end.

So it seems to be possible but a headache. If you're not American, Israeli or British then getting a carnet and entering from Iran might be easier. I might go this route later this year.

Cheers,
Benjamin

Interesting to hear that. I considered doing the internal flight from Erbil to Baghdad and back to my car, but didn't want mismatched car papers / visa etc so just forked out for a cdp and went through Iran.

I'm a saudi citizen, and just recently our government is allowing travel permits to Iraq. Im assuming the arrar, saudi/Iraq border will be open for everyone with permit.