Crossing into Oman from UAE and Back

Jebel Shams and the larger Al Hajar Mountains which encompass it are excellent sites worth visiting in Oman.  While most shoot for the City of Muscat, an authentic experience is lying in wait for those adventurous enough to visit this area.  While much of the Arabian Peninsula is is low-lying desert, the Al Hajar Mountains provides dry mountainous terrain with beautiful oasis villages and wadis.  Of course, most would recommend a 4×4 for exploring this area, but for those coming from UAE or even Muscat, sometimes renting a 4×4 is either impossible or ridiculously expensive.  This we will cover in another post. In our particular experience, no rental company serving Abu Dhabi Airport allowed cross-border rentals of sport utility vehicles.  As such, we had to rent a standard compact vehicle which proved to be difficult enough to take over the Omani border.  Up until 2015, this was a fairly straightforward process, with you paying for additional insurance and the rental company taking care of most of the paperwork.  Recently, however, this has changed and most UAE rental companies are not allowing you to cross into Oman.  This, in part, is because the Omani government is cracking down on foreign drivers who come into Oman without insurance or permission from their rental company.  If these drivers are involved in an accident or some other incident, the wrong parties sometimes have a difficult time making amends absent these measures.  We’ve also heard that the conflicts in Yemen as well as the fleeing of UAE by debtors in violation of applicable Sharia law regulations have also resulted in stricter border measures.  Our rental company, Avis, initially objected to us crossing over the border, but after some back & forth, we were able to purchase the Omani Insurance and the necessary “No Objection Certificate” (NOC) from them.  At the border, we really didn’t have any problems.  We had to park our car and go inside the border station to sort out the paperwork.  Surprisingly, our car was never searched (I was a bit nervous about carrying the drone and some leftover wine). 

The next issue you may encounter is determining which border to use.  Non-Gulf Coast Countries citizen are not permitted to use many of the borders.  On our way back to UAE, we were turned away at two of the border crossings due to these new regulations which seems to have been enacted during our brief 4 day sojourn into Oman.  The same border we entered through, would not let us return.  The problem we had was that our insurance was due to terminate coverage at midnight on the particular day we were supposed to cross.  Allegedly, if you try to cross back into UAE and don’t have proof of Omani coverage you may face problems.  It was 11:00 PM and we started to panic.  Whether this panic was justified we will never know.  The route most tourists take from UAE crosses via a border located in the Vicinity of Al Ain, UAE and Al Buraimi, Oman.  There are four border crossings here, and we were told that only one of them accepts non-GCC citizens, but we had no idea which.  Here is where it gets confusing.

We crossed into Oman on December 1^st, 2015 via the southernmost Al Ain crossing, Al Mezyad.  When we tried returning via this border five days later, we were turned away.  We were told we needed to go through the Al Kuwaitat Border Post in Al Buraimi by the border guards.  They said to not even bother trying the Khattam Al Shikla Border Post which was nearest to us, so we didn’t.  In hindsight, from what I have read, we may have actually been able to cross there.  Sure enough, upon arriving at the Al Kuwaitat Border Post we were turned away.  The guards had a good laugh at our visibly anxious state and sent us on up to the Hili Border Post which eventually allowed us to cross.   The funny thing is that this border post is the one border post that we read was restricted to GCC-citizens only.  But it turns out the opposite is true.  Still, articles and other internet research  directly contradicts this:

                      “Avoid Al Madheef checkpoint (Al Ain/Buraimi border) as well as Al Hili border as these are only open to GCC nationals . . .”

                                 (Source: http://gulfnews.com/guides/tourists/al-madam-hatta-diversion-expats-not-allowed-on-oman-e44-1.1648517)

So who knows what the deal is.  It is probably best practice to ask your rental car company, and UAE/Oman border police on your way out, although neither was helpful for us.