Umrah runs on an annual cycle, and four dates govern the whole of it. Miss one and there is no appeal, no expedited process and no exception. They are worth writing down.
The four dates for 1448 AH
| What it is | Date | What it actually stops |
|---|---|---|
| Visas opened | 31 May 2026 | Before this, no 1448 visa could be issued at all. |
| Last day visas are issued | 9 March 2027 | After this, no new Umrah visa for the season, regardless of when you meant to travel. |
| Last day to enter Saudi Arabia | 23 March 2027 | A visa issued before the deadline is still useless if you have not entered by this date. |
| Last day to depart | 7 April 2027 | Everyone on a 1448 Umrah visa must be out of the Kingdom. |
These correspond to the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah’s published calendar for the season. The gap between the last issue date and the last entry date is deliberate: it gives pilgrims who applied at the very end a two-week window to actually travel.
The one that catches people out
It is not the issue deadline. It is the departure deadline of 7 April 2027.
Pilgrims sometimes plan a trip that enters Saudi Arabia in the third week of March and stays three weeks, reasoning that they entered legally. The visa does not work that way. Everyone on an Umrah visa for this season must have left by 7 April, and an overstay is not a fine-and-forget matter — it affects future applications, including for Hajj.
If your return flight lands after that date, the itinerary is wrong. Change the flight, not the plan.
What the calendar means for Ramadan 2027
Ramadan 1448 runs from roughly 18 February to 19 March 2027. That sits entirely inside the visa window, comfortably. The constraint on Ramadan travel is not the visa calendar at all.
It is hotel supply. Our own research found that by September 2026, the five-star hotels immediately beside the Haram were already gone for the last ten nights at any sane price — what remained within a thousand metres was a three-star at $567 a night, more than a five-star room costs in October. There is more detail in why Makkah hotel prices climb in Ramadan.
So the practical deadline for the last ten nights is not March 2027. It is now.
How long the visa itself lasts
An Umrah visa is generally valid for multiple entries within the season and permits a stay of up to ninety days, subject to the season’s closing dates above. In practice almost nobody uses the full period; the season end is the binding limit, not the ninety days.
You can move around the Kingdom freely on it — Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah, Riyadh and elsewhere. It is not restricted to the two holy cities, which surprises people who remember older rules.
Before you apply
- Check your passport expiry. Six months’ validity beyond your date of entry is the standard requirement. This is the most common reason an application stalls.
- Meningitis ACWY certificate. Required, and it takes time to arrange in the United States. We have written a full guide to getting the certificate.
- Green card and visa holders, and anyone travelling on a passport other than a US one, have different routes. Our Umrah visa guide for the USA goes through each case.
What we do about the deadlines
Every one of our group departures is dated, and every date sits inside the 1448 window with room to spare — the latest group returns on 8 March 2027, more than a fortnight before the entry deadline and a month before the departure deadline. Visas for everyone on a group are applied for together through Nusuk, so nobody is left chasing their own application against a closing date.
If you are planning to travel independently, put 9 March and 7 April 2027 in your calendar now, and work backwards from them.
