Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar are close to starting the process that could exempt their citizens from the Schengen visa, according to the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
“We are very close to reaching the beginning of the process to waive the Schengen visa for GCC citizens, for the five countries, the five remaining countries,” Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi told the Arab Views podcast. Arab News, which produces the podcast, published his remarks on October 9.
“So, inshallah, in that summit, you will hear something positive about that,” he added. EU and GCC leaders are scheduled to meet for their second summit in Riyadh on October 24.
A Council document lists that process by name. The provisional agenda of the Permanent Representatives Committee, which prepares the Council’s work, has an item headed “Visa waiver process” for each of the five countries.
Each item schedules “Conclusions on the launch of the visa waiver process” for approval and a “Visa waiver action plan” for endorsement. The committee was due to take the items without discussion on October 7.
Dated October 2 in its original version, the agenda does not record an outcome. IMI could not obtain the five documents behind the items.
A search by IMI turned up no public statement on the process from the Commission or from an EU ambassador in the Gulf since the start of September.
Albudaiwi did not give a date for visa-free travel. Asked whether the exemption could come within a year, he avoided a timeframe, according to Asharq News, which reported on the same interview.
The five countries will begin the procedures together, he added in that report, and each will finish according to its own requirements.
Enis Sljivo, Managing Partner at Ancova Capital, believes a waiver “would be a very positive development for the region, especially for Gulf entrepreneurs and families who travel frequently to Europe for business and leisure.”
He argues that “it is important to distinguish between starting the visa waiver process and actually achieving visa-free travel, which could still take years.”
Arab News opened its own report by stating that “a major announcement” on the start of the process is expected at the summit. That wording does not appear in his quoted remarks.
European Council President António Costa named “mobility” among the priority areas for cooperation in his letter of invitation to leaders, The National reported.
The UAE Has Had a Visa Waiver Since 2015
EU law lists the five countries among those whose nationals need a visa to enter the Schengen Area, in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2018/1806.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is in Annex II, the list of countries whose nationals are exempt for visits of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period.
In May 2014, the European Parliament and the Council put the UAE on the exempt list of the regulation then in effect. That act made the exemption conditional on a visa waiver agreement.
The EU and the UAE signed their visa waiver agreement in Brussels in May 2015 and applied it provisionally from the day of signature.
Five-Year Visas for Gulf Nationals
The Commission eased the visa rules for Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain in April 2024. Nationals of those countries who live and apply in their own country receive a multiple-entry visa valid for five years if they qualify for a visa.
The Saudi decision records that “Saudi nationals residing in Saudi Arabia present a very low migratory risk.”
“Citizens from all GCC countries (except the United Arab Emirates, which is visa exempt) are now eligible for five-year multiple-entry visas upon first application,” the Commission told the Parliament in a written reply last updated in January 2025.
During the validity of such a visa, “holders enjoy travel rights equivalent to visa-free nationals,” the EU’s delegation to Kuwait notes of the rules for Kuwaiti nationals.
The 2022 Proposal for Kuwait and Qatar Is Pending
The Commission proposed in April 2022 that the EU exempt nationals of Kuwait and Qatar. The exemption would apply once the EU concluded a visa waiver agreement with each country.
In June 2022, the Council approved its negotiating mandate. The mandate asks the Commission to assess the remaining Gulf states “with the view to exempt further GCC Member States from the visa requirement as soon as all the relevant conditions are met.”
In December 2022, the Parliament’s civil liberties committee backed the proposal and added Oman and Ecuador. The full Parliament sent the file back to the committee later that month.
“We must ensure that this process has not been influenced by corruption,” rapporteur Erik Marquardt argued after the vote. “For now, we will not proceed towards visa liberalisation for Qatar.”
At the time of writing, the Parliament’s legislative register lists the file as “Awaiting Parliament’s position in 1st reading.” The Commission’s work program for 2026 lists the proposal among those pending.
Kuwait and Qatar now appear in both files, the 2022 proposal and the October agenda. IMI found no document that explains how the two relate.
What the Visa Waiver Process Involves
In January 2026, the Commission adopted its EU Visa Strategy. In that text, “the Commission will develop a modern system for proposing visa exemptions,” with criteria that “will be agreed with Member States in 2026.”
A discussion paper from Commission staff describes how that system could work. The version dated April 2026 has the Council’s “LIMITE” marking, and Statewatch published it.
That version names no country. The Austrian Parliament’s database of EU documents lists two later revisions, both with the same marking.
Under the April version, the Commission selects a country for a “Visa Waiver Process” after it consults the member states. Benchmarks for that country then go into a “Visa Waiver Action Plan drafted by the Commission and endorsed by the Council.”
The October agenda adds a step that the April version does not describe, Council conclusions on the launch itself.
If the country meets the benchmarks, the Commission can propose the exemption, and talks on a visa waiver agreement can begin. The Parliament decides on such a proposal “on an equal footing with the Council,” its summary of the 2022 file notes.
The April version’s main condition for starting the process is a “visa refusal rate below 3% for nationals of the third country concerned applying in their country.” It calls its thresholds indicative and adds that “relevant thresholds will be identified in a second stage.”
The paper argues for a rigorous test because granting visa-free access “can be easier than moving a visa-free country to the visa-required list.” The EU’s revised visa suspension mechanism entered into force on December 30, 2025.
Public visa statistics from the Commission give no figures by nationality. They count applications by the country of the consulate.
Consulates also serve foreign residents: Germany’s embassy in Kuwait, for example, takes applications from people whose “usual place of residence is Kuwait.”
Consulates in Saudi Arabia received 553,967 Schengen visa applications in 2025 and issued 521,087 visas. In Kuwait, consulates received 146,194 applications, in Qatar 102,930, in Oman 53,700, and in Bahrain 25,110.
For Kuwaiti nationals, the refusal rate “stood at 2.88 percent in 2024 and 2.64 percent in 2025,” Kuwait Times reported in February, citing France’s ambassador to Kuwait. The paper measures the rate per nationality as a trend over four years.
A Waiver Would Follow Nationality
A visa waiver follows nationality: The regulation exempts “nationals of third countries listed in Annex II.”
No general exemption exists in the regulation for people with a residence permit from a non-EU country. Foreign residents of the five countries would continue to need a visa if their own country is in Annex I.
Investors with long-term residence permits are in that group. No GCC state has a citizenship by investment program, and naturalization across the bloc is at each state’s discretion, as IMI’s GCC golden visa guide sets out.
Sljivo adds that “mobility is becoming an increasingly important part of wealth planning, and easier access to Europe would certainly make GCC citizenship even more valuable.”
Saudi Arabia had more than 19.6 million citizens in 2024 and approximately 15.7 million foreign residents, according to its statistics authority.
Kuwait counted 1,566,168 citizens at the start of 2025, according to its Central Statistical Bureau. Official figures compiled by the Gulf Research Center’s migration program show more than three million Omani citizens at the end of 2025 and 742,234 Bahraini citizens at the end of 2024.
For Qatar’s 2020 census, a breakdown by citizenship was “not readily available in any census publication” as of October 2022, the same program notes.
An exemption covers visits of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period. A member state may require a visa from “persons carrying out a paid activity” during a visit.
Visa-free entry is a right to enter for a short visit and gives no right to live or work, as an IMI analysis sets out.
A waiver would end the visa application, for which an adult currently pays €90. Border registration would continue, because the EU’s Entry/Exit System registers visa-exempt and visa-required travelers alike.
Visa-exempt travelers will also need an authorization under the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) once it starts. An ETIAS authorization costs €20 and is valid for up to three years, according to the EU’s ETIAS site.
ETIAS “is currently not in operation,” the same site states. Under the Council’s 2022 mandate, the exemption for Kuwait and Qatar “shall only apply from the date of the start of operation” of ETIAS.
