What happens if you overstay your Egypt visa, and can you pay the overstay fee at the airport when leaving?

There's now uncertainty: Egypt's MFA website no longer mentions the 14-day grace period, and the evisaEgypt site states it was cancelled back in 2023. No official confirmation of the 14 days could be found anywhere. In practice, outcomes depend on the individual officer — some overlook the overstay, some just charge a fine, and some refuse boarding and redirect the traveler to process it via Cairo.

Officially, Egypt has a law penalizing visa overstays: a fine is charged even for a single day of overstay, and departure is only possible on a scheduled airline flight, not a charter flight. This is referenced on the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

In practice, the 14-day grace period after visa expiry hasn't been cancelled — fee payment and extension desks operate at all Egyptian airports. This applies even to people who've already extended their visa three times and stayed for 9 months straight, which is how some long-term visitors do visa runs.

With the mass rollout of e-visas, technical glitches are expected: travelers' QR codes may fail to load due to connectivity issues or a dead phone battery, causing extra delays at the airport and during transfer waits.