Countries Where You Can Skip the Application and Just Pay at the Border

Most of the paperwork travelers dread happens before departure: an online form, a waiting period, an approval that might not come. Visa on arrival skips all of that. The visa is real and the fee is real, but instead of applying in advance, you land, join a specific queue, pay, and walk through. Here are seven destinations that still run it this way for a US passport, cheapest to most expensive.

The list

1. Indonesia - IDR 500,000 (about $28)

   A 30-day visa on arrival, extendable once, bought at a bank counter in the arrivals hall before immigration. It is the cheapest entry on this list once converted, though the local-currency figure is the one that actually matters at the counter.

2. Cambodia - $30

   A single-entry tourist visa (type T) for 30 days, paid in cash at the airport or major land crossings. One passport photo is typically required alongside the fee.

3. Egypt - $30

   The on-arrival sticker rose from $25 to $30 on 1 March 2026, bought at a bank kiosk before passport control, cash or card. Egypt also sells an equivalent e-visa online in advance for $25, five dollars cheaper for travelers willing to apply ahead.

4. Nepal - $30 to $125, by length of stay

   Nepal tiers its on-arrival fee by duration: $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30 days, $125 for 90 days, paid in fresh, undamaged US bills at Tribhuvan International Airport. Every tier is multiple-entry, and a stay can be extended further, up to 150 days total in a calendar year, at $3 per additional day.

5. Jordan - JOD 40 (about $56)

   A single-entry visa available at Queen Alia International Airport and most land borders, though not at the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge crossing from Israel and the West Bank, which requires arranging entry differently.

6. Bahrain - BHD 25 (about $66)

   Bahrain's on-arrival option costs noticeably more than its online eVisa equivalent (around BHD 9 for the same length of stay), making this one of the clearest cases on this list where applying ahead, rather than waiting for the counter, is the cheaper route.

7. Tanzania - $50 standard, $100 for US citizens

   Tanzania charges most nationalities $50 for a single-entry visa on arrival, but US citizens specifically are required to buy the $100 multiple-entry version instead of the cheaper single-entry one, a nationality-specific rule rather than a blanket price increase.

What you still need, even without an application

Visa on arrival isn't paperwork-free, just paperwork-later. Every destination above still expects a passport valid well beyond your stay (six months is the common minimum), typically a passport photo, and cash in the local currency or US dollars, since card payment at these counters is inconsistent. Arriving without close to exact cash is one of the most common ways this process stalls right at the counter.

Why some countries still do it this way

Visa on arrival is increasingly the exception rather than the rule. Most destinations that ran it a decade ago have since moved to an e-visa or ETA applied for online instead, since that screens and collects payment before a flight ever boards rather than in an arrivals queue. The seven above haven't made that switch, at least not for a US passport; several, like Egypt and Bahrain, offer a cheaper or faster e-visa alongside the on-arrival option for exactly that reason. See how visa on arrival, e-visa, and ETA actually differ.