Oman to UAE – Khatmat Border

Quite an easy border really but as you would expect for the Middle East and for a modern country.

Some of the huts on the side of the road had people in them but they were only interested in things leaving or on the other side of the road.

The customs office nearly caught us out as you could drive straight past it but luckily I saw the sign on the outside. I went inside and there’s a huge reception area with a single person at the desk servicing both in and out. I showed her the carnet and she just told me to go upstairs. So go up to the first floor and walk straight ahead all the way to the end she will have called up to warn them you are coming.

The passport stamp out was very easy in fact it was drive thru, we didn’t even get out of the car. Just handing them in through the window and he did his stuff, that was it. You are a given a gate pass for final exit.

Hand in the gate pass at this final gate.

This one was rather frustrating as we queued in a line of cars for over 30 minutes only to be told we needed to go into the building at the left. If you can find somewhere to park before the gates I would advise you to take this action and go in there before crossing through the barrier.

Immigration won’t stamp your passport until you have purchased the car insurance so you might as well just go to this office first. The options however are only 10 days or 3 months which is no good for us getting a 30-day visa. We purchased 10 days and we are yet to find out how to extend this as nobody in any of the offices will do it.

As part of the immigration process we were also given what is effectively a gate pass but we handed this over at the customs physical inspection area just before we left.

We drove straight through the x-ray machine and parked up at the physical inspection area but they wanted us to go to one side so we had to turn around completely so we were facing the other direction. You can see this in the photo where we showed door number 10.

They weren’t particularly sure how to fill out the Carnet so we had to show them but it was simply enough it only took like 2 minutes. There was more difficulty actually finding the customs stamp which wasn’t inside it was actually outside of one of the desks.

Don’t forget to hand over the gate pass receipt you were given at immigration.

You’re done. Welcome to the UAE.