Nepal Tourist Visa Extension: How It Works and When Leaving Is the Better Move

Your 30 days in Nepal are nearly up and you're not ready to fly home. Or you are ready, but the cheap ticket is two weeks away. Either way, this guide covers what a tourist visa extension actually involves: which office handles it, what to carry, how the fee gets worked out, what overstaying really means, and the situations where extending is the wrong call and a border run makes more sense.

One warning up front. I'm not going to hand you a fee, a processing time or a daily overstay rate as though the number were fixed forever, because a wrong figure on a visa page costs you actual money at the counter. So the numbers here are described by how they're set and where to confirm them on the day. Organisational details were checked against Nepal's official immigration website on 23 October 2026.

Who handles a Nepal tourist visa extension

Extensions are handled by Nepal's Department of Immigration, the body named on the country's official immigration website as of 23 October 2026. Most travellers end up at the department's main office in Kathmandu. The department also lists offices outside the capital, but whether a given office can process an extension, or only certain applications, is worth confirming before you build a trip around it.

Which office takes your file

This trips up more people than any other part of the process. If you're staying in Kathmandu, the answer is usually simple. If you're trekking in the mountains when your visa runs out, the answer involves a bus, a flight or a very long day, and you should be planning that return leg a week before your expiry date rather than the morning of. Don't assume the office nearest your guesthouse handles extensions. Check the official site, or call, and treat any address or opening hours you find in an old blog post as unverified until you've matched it against the current site.

Documents to bring for a Nepal visa extension

The exact list is set by the office and can shift, so treat the following as a packing list to confirm rather than a guarantee:

• Your passport, with whatever validity the office requires. They will check it, and a passport close to expiry can turn into a much longer conversation than you planned.
• The visa page or sticker, plus photocopies of your passport and visa pages.
• The application form, usually available at the office. Bring a pen, because the queue for one is longer than the queue for the counter.
• Recent passport-size photographs. Carry two or three. The required number has changed over time and the counter is the authority, not a forum post from 2018.
• Cash in Nepali rupees for the fee. Card acceptance is not something to bet your visa status on.
• An address and phone number in Nepal, ideally your hotel's.

A photo of your visa page on your phone is worth thirty seconds of your time. It has rescued more than one person who left the passport photocopies at the hotel.

How much a Nepal tourist visa extension costs

Nepal publishes a fee schedule for visa services. What you pay depends on the length of extension you're granted and the visa type recorded in your passport, and the counter applies the schedule in force on the day you apply. Payment is normally expected in local currency at the office. Confirm the current fee on the official immigration site before you go, and ask at the counter if anything on the published schedule doesn't match what you're being told.

Two practical notes. Don't convert a figure you found in an old blog post and arrive with exactly that amount in your pocket. And bring a cash buffer, because the amount is confirmed at the counter and not by me.

How long it takes, and the expiry cliff

Straightforward applications are often processed the same day. Often is not always. Weekends, public holidays, festival periods and any missing document can push you into a second visit, and a second visit is exactly what you cannot afford when your visa expires tomorrow.

So the most useful sentence on this page: don't apply on your last day. Aim for several working days before expiry, and more than that if your visa runs out around Dashain or Tihar, when government offices operate on holiday schedules and half the city is out of town.

If your visa has already expired, deal with the overstay first. Extension counters are not the place to fix an expired visa, and the process starts with fronting up at the immigration office rather than buying a ticket to the border and hoping nobody counts the days.

Nepal visa overstay: what actually happens

Overstaying is assessed per day past your expiry date and settled at the immigration office, or on departure, depending on how you're leaving the country. The daily rate is set by the department. Look up the current figure on the official site instead of trusting a number someone quoted in a travel group.

Beyond the fine, be careful with what you read. Claims about automatic blacklisting, entry bans or being permanently flagged get repeated constantly and are rarely backed by a dated official notice. If the department publishes a rule about consequences, it will be on the official site and it will carry a date. Until you've seen that, plan for a fine and don't plan for a ban. Anyone telling you otherwise should be able to show you the notice.

Extend, exit and re-enter, or get a re-entry permit?

Three different options, and they are not interchangeable.

Extend. You stay, the existing visa continues, you pay a fee and you keep your plans intact. The simplest option when it's available to you, and the one worth asking about first.

Exit and re-enter. You cross into India or fly out, then come back, ideally on a new tourist visa. This costs you travel time and money, and it isn't a guaranteed reset. Whether you're issued another tourist visa, and for how long, depends on rules the department applies on the day. Ask at the counter before you book a bus to the border on the assumption that you'll simply be let back in on fresh terms.

Re-entry permit. If you already hold a valid visa and need to leave briefly, then return within that visa's validity, a re-entry permit is designed to keep the existing visa alive rather than start you over. It suits people doing a short side trip across a border who don't want their clock reset. Eligibility, cost and processing are set by the department, so confirm before you travel rather than at the checkpoint.

Who this guide isn't for

• You've already overstayed. Sort the overstay out first, then come back to this page.
• You're on a work, student, dependent or marriage visa. Different paperwork, different desk, often a different building.
• You want to change visa type rather than extend the one you have. That's a separate application, and it isn't granted automatically.
• Your flight leaves in three days and your visa expires in two. Leave. Genuinely.

Before you go to the office

Five minutes of checking saves a wasted morning: confirm the current fee and the accepted payment method on the official site, check the office's opening hours against the public holiday calendar, confirm which office handles your case, bring more photographs and photocopies than you think you need, and carry a cash buffer. Then go early in the day, because a morning start is what gives you a same-day outcome.

The process is stable and fairly boring once you know it. The numbers belong to the Department of Immigration, not to me, so the official site and the person behind the counter are the only two sources worth trusting on the day you apply.