President Sisi Signs Egypt-Colombia Visa Agreement

Please note: contact the Colombian Embassy or Consulate in your city or nearest city to check if you can travel visa free – you should always check in case any changes arise.

Based on the latest information, it appears that this only applies for officials, special passports, and diplomatic passports. This is despite the fact that a press release indicated it applied to all Egyptian citizens.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has signed off on a mutual visa exemption agreement between Egypt and Colombia, allowing citizens to visit each others’ countries without obtaining a pre-arrival visa.

The move comes less than a year after the two countries signed a preliminary agreement exempting visa rules. At the time, government officials said that the agreement would help boost tourism and strengthen relations between Cairo and Bogota.

Egypt’s tourism industry has been struggling to recover ever since the January 25 revolution in 2011.

Tourism revenues dropped 15 percent and the number of incoming tourists declined by 6 percent in 2015, according to the Ministry of Tourism.

According to the Ministry, 9.3 million tourists visited Egypt last year, while tourism revenues for the year stand at a total of USD 6.1 billion.

The drop in these indicators are largely attributed to a string of security-related incidents, including the “accidental” killing of 12 Mexican tourists and their Egyptian guides in the Western Desert in September 2015, as well as the downing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai in October of the same year.

Approximately four million Egyptians work in the tourism sector, which accounts for 12.6 percent of the country’s total employment and about 12 percent of the economy.