How to Get an Afghanistan Visa in Termez (Uzbekistan)

Termez is one of the best places to get an Afghanistan visa. It’s a relatively smooth process with minimal stress, and once you’re done, you can cross the Hairatan border on the same day and arrive at Mazar-i-Sharif.

Here’s a guide on how to get the visa in Termez, based on my own recent experiences. Rules change quickly when it comes to Afghanistan, but this is how the process works at the moment.

Where is The Afghanistan Consulate in Termez?

It’s located just off the main road on a street corner, and is identifiable by the old Afghan flag (🇦🇫) outside. Uzbekistan doesn’t officially recognise the Taliban which is why you will see this flag in use, although the new flag is displayed inside the consulate.

There’s not much nearby, although there are a handful of restaurants down the main road if you end up with time to kill.

Here is the Afghanistan Consulate on Google Maps.

When is the Afghanistan Consulate in Termez Open?

The consulate is open from Monday-Friday from 9am-4pm. Although the guard is on hand to give you your visa after 4pm if you applied earlier on. It is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

I was told that it’s only open from 9am-12pm on Fridays due to the Islamic weekend. This is NOT true. I applied on a Friday and it was open during the times mentioned above.

What do You Need to Bring to Apply for an Afghanistan Visa in Termez

• Your passport (you will have to hand this over until you receive it back with the visa)
• An ID card (my driving license was fine)
• A printed receipt of the completed online application form
• Two passport-sized photos of yourself with a white background (I was never asked for these)
• Potentially a letter of invitation (I was never asked for this)

How to Complete the Online Form:

You need to go to the visa application form website and fill the form out there. Please note that just as with many official government visa websites, it’s buggy, in this case the form will refresh and you’ll lose everything if you don’t complete it quickly enough, meaning you must start the entire process again.

I recommend having all documents ready before you start filling the form in. You will need:

• A passport-style picture of yourself with a white background
• A colour scan of your passport’s full details page
• A supporting document (I literally attached a Word document that said “I don’t need a supporting document” and this was accepted)

Most fields in the form are pretty self-explanatory.

Here’s what I put for each field that wasn’t 100% obvious, including the name fields where you had to fill out three mandatory boxes:

• Surname: My last name
• Given name: My first and middle names
• Father’s name: The first name of my father
• Contact number in Afghanistan: The phone number of the first hotel I planned to stay in, but a guide’s number would work too
• Entrance border: Hairatan (if coming from Termez, you will almost certainly be crossing the border from there, which will be the Hairatan border)
• Purpose of Journey: Holiday (assuming you’re there for tourism purposes)

You must upload three documents at the bottom of the form:

• A passport scan (self explanatory… this is literally just a scanned copy of your passport)
• An identification scan (I uploaded the same passport scan again here)
• A support document (I wrote “I don’t need a supporting document” on a Word document and uploaded this… it worked)

Once the form is complete, you will receive a visa application receipt with your picture in the top-left corner, and two QR codes. It is important that you save this and print it out.

Below are 8 images that show what the online application form looks like. I recommend doing it from a desktop or laptop if possible, it’s a little fiddly on mobile.

Please note: If you require help filling out the form, there is an office just around the corner from the consulate where a man will help you fill it in for a fee. Ask the guard at the consulate for directions to this office.

How Much Does The Visa Cost?

It should be US$80 for the standard visa or US$130 for the urgent one.

Plus an additional 5,000 Uzbek som (just under US$0.50) at the bank.

Some additional hidden costs you can expect are a Yandex taxi to and from the bank (unless you fancy walking for 80 minutes each way), and possible foreign transaction fees if you pay for your visa by card.

I was stung here as my Mastercard wouldn’t work, so I had to use my Visa card as an emergency measure, and that came with almost £5 in extra fees…

If you have cash to pay for the visa, this won’t be a problem.

How Long Does it Take to Receive The Visa?

They told me that the standard visa takes two weeks to process. I was surprised at this because I’ve heard it generally takes 5 days or less. It probably does in practice…

The urgent visa is processed on the same day if you get to the consulate early enough. Any time before 12pm is advisable for same-day turnaround. But I recommend getting in at opening time (9am) just to be on the safe side.

If you apply for the urgent visa later in the afternoon, then you may receive it the next day instead (or Monday if you apply on a Friday).

I’ve heard reports that they won’t process applications on the same day if you arrive after 12pm, so you’re definitely better off going early.

I recommend applying for the urgent visa as Termez doesn’t have much in terms of cheap accommodation, and you’ll be spending a lot more than the US$50 saving by hanging around there waiting 1-2 extra weeks for the visa.

Termez is tucked into an awkward position on the southern tip of Uzbekistan, so you’d need to do a fair bit of backtracking to go from there to the main tourist spots (Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva) and come back.

How Long is The Afghanistan Visa Valid For?

It is valid for 90 days from the date you entered as “date of arrival in Afghanistan” on the online application form, with a maximum of 30 days allowed in the country.

All tourist visas are single-entry. If you wish to stay longer than 30 days, you must leave the country and apply for another visa.

What Happens During the Visa Application Process? (A Step-By-Step Guide From Personal Experience)

I arrived at opening time on a Friday, which is 9am.

You are not allowed any phones or bags in the consulate. You must hand these to the guard who will inspect your documentation before you go in. My bags were left outside, so hopefully it isn’t raining if you have to do this…

He did at least ensure I put my bags in front of the CCTV camera looking down from above his office.

I waited around 10 minutes to be seen inside. I was 5th in the queue so it took around 2.5 minutes to process each person on average, although the others seemed local so it was longer for me.

Once I reached the front desk, the man took my online application form receipt and my passport, he also wanted to see my ID (I gave him my driving license).

He asked some questions:

• What is my job?
• How long do I plan on visiting Afghanistan for?
• Why am I going to Afghanistan?
• Where do I plan to go in Afghanistan?

I had to write down on a piece of scrap paper my name, passport number, job, answers to the above questions, and that I was applying for a tourist visa. Then I had to sign it and sit back in the waiting area.

After a total of 45 minutes from the moment I entered the consulate, I was given a slip of paper and told to take this to the bank. Not any old bank but the Milliy bank located in the centre, also referred to as the NBU bank.

Copy this into Yandex Go for the exact location of the bank: Imom at-Termiziy 1A

In the small print under that location it will say “Termez, Surkhandarya Region”.

In the bank, you need to start by getting a slip from the receptionist. Don’t lose this.

Then walk forward into the next room, then into another room located at 11 o’clock if you picture the room as a clock face from where you enter. From here you need to go upstairs.

Once you reach the top of the stairs and walk into a big open room, head towards the desks on the left and wait for someone to call you forward. They will process the slip you were given by the consulate.

Then head downstairs again and go left from the bottom of the stairs into another room. You will need to pay attention to the slip given to you by the bank receptionist. It will have a number, and when that number is called, you head over to the corresponding cashier (kacca).

This is where you pay for your visa – a total of US$80 (standard visa) or US$130 (urgent visa) + 5,000 Uzbek som.

As I mentioned previously, my trusty Mastercard didn’t work here, which meant paying with my Visa card instead (and being hit by hefty foreign transaction fees in the process). If your travel-friendly card doesn’t work, cash is the next-best option.

Once you’ve paid, you can head back to the consulate. I was back there around 11am and told to return at 4pm to pick up my passport with the visa. They took my WhatsApp number, presumably to tell us when the visa was ready.

I’d met another guy from my guesthouse by this point, and we found a restaurant down the road to kill a few hours. If you’re bored, then now would be a perfect time to read a detailed Afghanistan travel guide!

We returned to the consulate at 3pm in the hope of obtaining the visa early.

Our plan didn’t quite work as we hoped, and we had to wait until 4pm as we’d been told. Eventually at 4:05pm we were given our Afghanistan visas.

I’ve heard Yandex can be pretty unreliable for making trips to the Hairatan border. I certainly had this problem when going from Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan after weeks of Yandex not letting me down…

Fortunately we got our first taste of the kindness of Afghan people and the consulate guard’s friend agreed to drop us at the border for the same price the Yandex app offered, which was 76,000 som at the time we left (£5/US$6).

The Hairatan border crossing isn’t too challenging. Get through that and you’re in Afghanistan. I arrived at the consulate to start the visa application process at 9am, received it at 4:05pm and was in my hotel in Mazar-i-Sharif at roughly 6:30pm.

And once you’re there, you can find many fun activities in Mazar. It’s one of the most interesting places in Afghanistan for sure.

I started my journey the previous day in Dushanbe, having initially planned to cross the Shir Khan border from Tajikistan where you’re eligible for a visa on arrival. I’m very glad I applied in Termez instead, as I’ve heard terrible things about Shir Khan, and both the Termez application and border crossing turned out to be very easy in the end.

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• How To Get An Afghanistan Visa In Termez (Uzbekistan)
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