Tajikistan Visa from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (JUN 2015)

The embassy is located at N 42° 50.853’ E 74°37.777’
It is open Mon-Fri from 9am-11am and 1pm-2pm.

The Tajik embassy in Bishkek is quiet and friendly- arrive early with all your documents and you should be able to collect the same day or the following morning.


If you are planning to travel to the Pamirs, you will also need a GBAO permit which you should ask for when you hand in your application form. They give you a short application form to complete for this. This is what the application form, visa and GBAO permit look like.
When we went to collect our visas the following morning we paid $55 plus 100 Soms for the GBAO permit. Check the permit includes Ishkashim if you want to travel along the Wakhan Valley. This is what the Visa and GBAO permit look like in your passport. Double check the dates before leaving the embassy.

Kyrgyzstan To Tajikistan Border (JUN 2015)

We arrived at the border (Sary-Tash to Karakul (Bar-Dobo)) quite late in the afternoon but there was no-one else there. This is a very quiet crossing at high altitude (over 3,600m) and although it’s officially open all year round bad weather/snow does close the roads and border. At the Kyrgyz side you first stop at a small customs shelter with a small office on the right. We pulled over and the customs guard did a very quick car check- only a couple of minutes looking in the back of the car. Inside the office we needed to show both car importation documents we were issued when we arrived in Kyrgyzstan- the customs guy kept these. He also asked for an ‘Ecology Tax’ receipt? We had genuinely not been given one of these on arrival but fortunately the German couple we were travelling with had entered through a different border and had been accidentally issued 2 receipts- one of these was sneakily handed to me behind my back which I gave to the oblivious customs officer.

Across from the customs office is a small passport control kiosk- the guard stamped our passports with the Kyrgyz exit stamp and we left Kyrgyzstan, no problems.
After around a 5km drive through no-man’s land you reach the barrier for the Tajik side of the border. Passport control is first, a small hut with a window where it took just a couple of minutes to check our visa and stamp the Tajik entry stamp into our passports.

We were directed to a customs office, bit of English spoken, the customs officer filled out a temporary importation form for the car. I asked several times about the validity duration of the car importation and he assured me it would be for 30 days - the same as our visas.

NB: Some overlanders travelling the other direction through the Pamirs (entering Tajikistan from Uzbekistan) were only given a maximum of 15 days temporary importation for their vehicles. Check at the border how many days you have and push for 30. If you are only given 15, it is possible to extend the permit easily and quickly through the tourist information office in Khorog.
The car temporary importation documents look like this...
The customs guard told us the importation would cost $45. I knew from talking to other overlanders entering Tajikistan around the same time that they paid $25 which I told the guard. He looked out of the window at our car and said “Oh you only have 4 seats?.... OK, $25”. He filled out a small receipt and stapled it to the form. If they try and charge you more tell them that you know $25 is the official cost for a 4x4. The receipt looks like this...
We were taken into a second customs ‘office’ by the same English-speaking officer who said we also needed an additional form for the car ‘car control’. This apparently covers tax for tinted windows and other luxuries you may have as well as vehicle registration… He said we could either buy it now or when exiting Tajikistan but it was an official requirement. The form looked genuine, he said it cost $18. We paid $10. Later, when we reached Khorog I showed this form to the tourist information office- she said that only the first car customs document was necessary and the ‘car control’ document was a scam. This is what the scam document looks like...

We then had to go to another shipping container office to arrange ‘sanitation and disinfection’ of our vehicle. They filled out a fancy form for this but did absolutely nothing to physically disinfect the car!?! The officer asked for $10, I told him I had no more money, only Uzbek cash- he looked at it and did a quick calculation then threw it back at me and told us to go so we paid nothing for this ‘service’. This is what the document looks like…
The English speaking border guard then told us we should pay nothing when leaving Tajikistan as we’d paid everything we needed to on arrival. Incidentally our German friends who entered with us left through the same border where the guards tried again to charge them $10 for a ‘missing receipt’ and again for ‘disinfection’.

The entire border crossing took just over an hour. The customs officers are out to get as much money from you as they can. Carry only small denomination dollars (only a few on show) and stand your ground; they weren’t aggressive, just annoying and trying their luck. Other travellers have also told corrupt Tajik border guards that they have no more money (when they know what they are being asked for is not official) and this seems to work if you are patient and polite.

You can find information here about leaving Tajikistan back to Kyrgyzstan.
This information is about our experience applying for visas and crossing borders. Obviously please try and find the most recent information you can as visa application and border information changes daily. If you have any questions please feel free to email us.
Proudly powered by Weebly