More than 199,000 people have been infected by Corona virus (COVID-19) and more than 7990 people have been killed worldwide. The new cases are being identified and outbreak is also reaching worldwide. More than 117 countries have reported that their citizens have been tested positive for Corona. The bad news is epidemic continues to expand rapidly and sooner or later the number of infections are going to soar. Good news is more than 83,000 people have recovered from this epidemic.
This outbreak has damaged the life of people meanwhile business has also got a major impact. In some countries people have been told to stay in home where major outbreak and cases have been reported while in some places people have themselves locked inside home because of fear. Many people have dropped their idea of visiting to other nations while some countries has blocked their borders and shutdown airports.
Meanwhile in Nepal only one case of Corona has been identified and he gets medical treatment and returns back home. Earlier Nepal government has announced 2020 as a visit year and started preparation but since Corona outbreak get major impact in tourism, Nepal government defers the visit year. But Nepal government has not banned people completely for travelling to Nepal. Those people who still want to visit Nepal they can visit.
Recently, Government of Nepal has issued an urgent notice on March 12 late night announcing that temporary suspension of on- arrival visa for all countries till April 30 2020. Not only they’ve suspended the on arrival visa but also they’ve cancelled all spring mountaineering expeditions, including Everest ascents till April 30. Before this outbreak, people who would like to visit Nepal could get on-arrival visa in immigration department in airport. But now government has suspended on-arrival visa policy temporarily until new notice is published.
So, people who are interested can still visit Nepal during this time but we recommend to postpone your travel plans to Nepal till the effect from this Corona outbreak minimises. The on-arrival visa suspension policy will be effective from March 14, 2020. Before this latest notice, on March 3 they had issued the notice to ban on-arrival visas only for the nationals of following countries:
People’s Republic of China, including Special Administrative Regions
Islamic Republic of Iran
Italy
Republic of Korea
Japan
And also, after a few days of the notice issued on 3rd March, they added up three more countries to suspend on-arrival visa due to the high influence of Coronavirus (COVID-19). For these three countries, the temporary suspension of 0n-arrival visa policy was effective from 13th March 2020.
France
Germany
Spain
However people who wants to visit Nepal from these countries can still obtain visa and visit Nepal. For this applicants for all countries are required to submit a recently issued health certificate with the visa application in Nepali Missions abroad. So, people who still wants to visit Nepal are heartly welcome.
Be careful and stay healthy during this hard time !!