Do I Need a Guide? Iran Rules by Nationality

The honest answer is that it depends entirely on the passport you hold — and for three nationalities, the answer is yes.

If you carry a United States, United Kingdom or Canadian passport, you cannot travel Iran independently. You must be accompanied by a licensed guide on an itinerary approved in advance. For almost everyone else — 184 nationalities in our own visa dataset — no guide is required, and you are free to travel alone.

Before the practicalities, something we would rather you heard from us than found afterwards.

What your own government says

The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada all advise against travelling to Iran. The US State Department's advisory is "Do not travel", citing the risk of arbitrary detention and wrongful detention of US nationals. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office advises against all travel to Iran. Canada's advice is comparable.

We are an Iranian agency and we would like your booking. We are still telling you this first, because a page that hides it is not a page you can trust on anything else.

What those advisories mean in practice is a decision only you can make. What we can tell you is what the rules actually are, what the risks specifically attach to, and where we can and cannot help.

The one group who should read this twice: dual nationals

Iran does not recognise dual nationality. If you hold Iranian citizenship alongside another passport, Iranian authorities will treat you as Iranian only — and that is not a formality. It means your other country's embassy may be refused access to you entirely.

The US State Department names dual nationals explicitly among those at serious risk of wrongful detention, alongside journalists, academics and business travellers. The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran; Switzerland acts as its protecting power, and Iranian authorities routinely deny dual nationals access to it.

If this describes you, read our dual-citizenship guide before you go any further. It is the most consequential page on this site and we would rather you left us for it than booked without reading it.

If you hold a US, UK or Canadian passport

Only tourist and pilgrimage visas are available to you, and independent travel is not permitted. In practice that means:

• A licensed guide accompanies you outside your hotel, for the whole trip.
• A day-by-day itinerary is submitted and approved in advance, with confirmed accommodation. You can shape it freely before it is submitted; you cannot improvise once it is approved.
• The application goes through a licensed Iranian agency — you cannot apply alone.
• Allow four to eight weeks from complete documents, and treat that as a floor rather than a promise.
• Collect the visa at an Iranian embassy or consulate. Visa on arrival is not available to you.

There is one alternative worth knowing about: the Iranian Embassy has told the UK FCDO that a British passport holder may travel either as part of an organised tour or with a sponsor in Iran. The sponsor route is real, but it is not the route most travellers can use.

If you hold any other passport

For 184 nationalities in our dataset, an e-visa is the route and no guide is required. You can travel independently, choose your own route, and change your mind on the road.

Ten nationalities — China among them — are visa-free and have the simplest entry of all.

You will still normally apply through an agency, because the e-visa process expects an Iranian reference. That is paperwork, not supervision.

Not sure which applies to you? Check your nationality in the visa wizard — it reads the same dataset this page does.

What a guide is actually for

If you are required to have one, it is easy to read it as surveillance. In practice a licensed guide is the person who gets you into the courtyard that is technically closed, orders the dish that is not on the English menu, and explains what you are looking at in a country where almost nothing is labelled in your language.

Guides who let restricted-nationality clients wander alone are breaking the law and risking their licence — so a guide who is strict about it is protecting both of you.

Plenty of travellers who are not required to have a guide hire one anyway for part of the trip. If cost is the concern, joining a small group splits it.

What we do

We are a licensed Iranian agency. For travellers whose nationality requires it, we arrange the licensed guide and build the itinerary that goes for approval — and we will tell you honestly if we think the answer for your situation is not to come.

Tell us your nationality and dates and we will tell you exactly what applies to you before you spend anything.