FlySimple

thanks for sharing

commodities

Crazy bonkers - just react to things. What a dumb move.

Maybe the US should do that for ALL visitors too. Will solve our debt crises in 1 year

florin

The US charges for visas (and "travel authorisations" that are just like visas but are totally not visas because they're called differently).

nilsfr69

Tried one of them listed on their site. After filling in ALL my details, including shoe size, nose length, recent and divorced spous(es), bedtime behaviour etc ... I got an error message bringing me back to the home page to start all over again.... Professional service....

lazarus89

Take a bunch of money from people who won't use their services, and use it to top up local healthcare funding.

Clever, but very poorly implemented. If they were smart they would build it into the ticket price for any flight that terminates in Doha or provides for a long enough stopover for someone to leave the airport.

lowfareair

Short-sighted policy. We have an 8-hour layover next week and were going to go into town for a few hours for some local shopping at the souq and potentially dinner, but now we probably aren't and it's not the money, it's not knowing what immigration will be like with this policy.

Local businesses (Uber/taxi drivers, restaurants, etc) lose out from this scheme well it sounds like a couple of Qatari health insurance providers end up making money.

Mister P.

Hi, does the travel insurance requirement also apply to passengers in transit? HfP seems to suggest that is the case, haven't been able to find any information online,
https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/0...ravel-to-doha/

plunet

I've put a 'something is wrong' feedback into the UK FCDO page for Qatar, directing them at HfP, which will hopefully prompt someone in the UK Gov to actually work out what the real requirements is

N1Rotate

To be fair this was announced and put into law in 2021, the law came into force in 2022, implemented in 2023. I do agree though that they should have a lot more info published and whatever has been published is confusing and doesn't answer many questions. This will cause disruption at boarding and on stopovers and will put people off going out during transits. It is also very counterproductive for the tourism and hospitality industry in Qatar.

This isn't really a money grab, that is not the aim of it, I do agree it is very poorly implemented. The aim is to reduce the amount of people that come on tourist or visit visas to take advantage of the free or heavily subsidized government healthcare, which has been a problem in Qatar and overloads the health system for Qataris and the residents that don't have health coverage to use private healthcare. Typically this issue is more with family visit visas and not from visa on arrival eligible countries.

It would be difficult to incorporate into the fee of tickets that terminate in Qatar because the booking systems wont differentiate between citizens, residents, uninsured visitors and insured visitors. I wish they would implement it in a better way, maybe incorporate some of the ideas below:

1. Have the fee be taken at immigration, unless the visitor chooses to prepay online or they already have valid travel insurance.
2. If it the visitor prepays online, it should only be a verifiable token to prove payment to speed up the process and not require all the detail they currently do and that token can be tied with the immigration record once the person enters Qatar.
3. To simplify the process and since the minimum coverage and price is standardised, rather than picking a company the fee should be collected and the passenger is either assigned one of the insurance providers randomly or the insurance providers all pool in to cover all the visitors. That will mean a single portal to obtain coverage and a single point of contact to file claims.
4. They should accept any international travel insurance with valid coverage, right now the list is restricted to certain providers such as AXA.

FlyingScientist

Having paid QAR 100 entry fee for many years, why don't they just go back to collecting that on arrival, and give free healthcare, free public transport, and free entry to museums?

timesnaps

IAN-UK

I've got a hazy understanding of the Qatar approach to political administration, and I don't think chum-ocracy is at work here. It's a cack-handed approach to covering the cost of providing limited health cover to visitors. The state isn't short of a bob or two, but maybe the cost of providing treatment to visitors has reached unacceptable levels even for Qatar's deep pockets.

There are simpler methods of taking modest amounts from visitors. Maybe tagging a couple of riyal onto each night's accommodation would achieve the same end in a simpler, more seamless way. Neighbouring Saudi Arabia achieves that end by incorporating health insurance in its fees for a tourist visa.

Qatar has (so far) resisted the temptation to introduce taxes and levies such as VAT and the daily fixed tax on hotel stays we face in so many other places. Last time I looked, Dubai visitors paid UAE's 5% VAT + 7% Dubai tax + an additional tourism tax per night related to the star-rating of the hotel. Together with hotel service charges of 10% this boosted hotel rates by around 25%.

timesnaps

anyone here actually arrived and passed immigration after this policy started? (in the last few days), and can relay their experience please. Is it simply a matter of showing a screengrab or email or does one have to wait while they check the policy number on their system?!

half of the websites that are indicated at the ministry page either dont load or only accept Qatari credit cards. ...>...!?

F1.Cullen

Just to provide a Data Point: USA based here. The first time I tried, my debit card would not go through. I retried with a Chase Visa Credit card and it worked -- for what it's worth.

IAN-UK

The MOPH site suggests we could submit details of existing cover for evaluation. Though good luck with that!

The easiest path to entry will be to fill in the forms and cough up the modest premium for cover from the local providers.



I note those companies listed as approved international providers include only GIG Gulf Axa Insurance Qatar. While I've a feeling Qatar's border-force would happily accept my annual worldwide certificate from AXA (UK), I'm less confident of check-in agents being as willing to accept it - even though it seems arriving passengers can apply for a policy on arrival.