Hello,
I have a question regarding wheather it is necessary to have a visa when married to an Egyptian.
When i started living here, not married, i had a tourist visa for one year that is now finished. And after being married, and coming back from holidays abroad, at the Sharm airport the officer said i didn't need visa as I was married with egyptian and wrote on my passeport wife of egyptian.
So now i am without visa and don't know if i should go to El Tour to make sure that I don't need ?
If anyone could talk about their experience on this issue, i think it could help many people as it s not always easy to get all the necessary information in El Tour.
thanks so much

very strange... how did he know you were married to an Egyptian? Did they ask for the marriage paper? You do not have a residence visa as to the marriage?
He just stamped the passport and wrote married to Egyptian?
If that is all I do not think this is enough, unless they are currently having also a change in that. Usually based on your marriage you could get a residence visa.
Curious to know what others say and what you could find out...

Of course you need visa. I dont know what is this writting on your passport - but dont count too much on it.Call to El Tur and ask.Just three weeks ago I went to Cairo by plane and they asked me about visa (my husband gave them my passport without visa because I have now Egyptian citizenship and have Egyptian ID that I should show).

If you have a real marriage contract you can request a resident visa based on your marriage document. The authorities ( not police or anybody else) will place this visa in your passport. I passed through all this in Cairo. Lot's of paper work, and it took me about 2 weeks. And some expenses, of course. Good luck.

Thank you all for these answers.
To reply to the different questions,
yes the officer at the airport asked to see our marriage contract (which is real and formal), I was with my husband so he showed him. but at this time, my tourist visa was not finished so there was no problem for me to come back. So maybe what he wrote doesn't have any value as for visas.
From your answers i understand that i need to have a resident visa. I guess i can make it in El Tour, maybe in the same place where i got the extended tourist visa ? or is there a necesity to go to Cairo for this ? If yes, where ? Thanks if anyone can clarify these questions.

No, they make it in El Tur in the same place where they give all the visas.Good Luck!

I believe, you can do it in Cairo only. If you have an employer, he can do it for you, my did it for me and I paid only. Usually they have better connections in Cairo.

Hope this doesn't confuse you more but i had to get my residence visa from the goverment office closest to where my husband is from and NOT El Tour. When we went to El Tour first they would not do it. Also my husband was informed that as long as i had my mariage cert with me when i flew i didnt actually need my visa !! Although i did go ahead and get it. Its a small fee and took quite a long time to obtain , a couple of weeks. Hope this helps.

thanks, actually we just asked in the hometown of my husband and they said we should make the visa where we live.. so i guess I will try to make it in El Tor and see how it goes, will post it the results here soon... to be continued...

I don't know if the procedure has changed recently, but three years ago I went to el Tur for my 5 year visa and got it without any difficulty, the whole process took less than an hour. My husband is from Cairo, but we just had to prove that we live in Sharm by providing the rental contract for our apartment.

Just to follow up on that... we just went to El Tour today and got the visa without much problem, just providing the marriage contract, photocopy of the passport and the contract of rent (but it had to be legalized so we had to rush to the office to make it and bring it back).
So the visa is for 5 years, cost 200 pounds and we made it on the same office as the one for tourist visa.
thanks all for sharing your experiences about that, hope it can help others too.

Just for the sake of clarity - it is called Residence PERMIT. "Temporary residence permit for 5 years". I believe the difference is that visas normally are just for a single entry. It means when you leave the country your visa loses validity automatically, even though it is still valid by date. Unless they state they are "multiple-entry", but also then it is often regulated how many times or how often you can "enter". While with the residence permit you come and go just as normally as a citizen, as many times as you wish.
I always did all visas and permits in Cairo - kind of nicer than El Tour. Otherwise - no difference, I suppose.

Dear Igrenie,
How and where you have made the marriege contract, and what vise you have got in El Tour?
Thank a lot