Normally, Tibet permits can be issued around 15 days, but if your tour itinerary covers some restricted or unopened areas like  Mt. Kailash, Sichuan-Tibet highway and Yunnan-Tibet highway, it needs several different permits, thus it would take around 20 working days.

To obtain Tibet Travel Permits, it is compulsory to make your Tibet tour arrangements through a local travel agency, and then provide clear scan copies of you passports and China visa to apply for the Tibet permit (TTP). Please note that it’s impossible for a foriegners to board either flights or trains to Tibet without the Travel Permit. The permits themselves specify every destination and towns that you would visit during the tour and cannot be changed once you have arrived in Tibet; therefore, make sure that you have listed all your interested places in the tour with your tour operator before they apply for the permit. It usually takes 5 to 10 working days for the Tibet Travel Permit to be issued, then if your tour included restricted areas like Mt.Kailash or further eastern Tibet, then you will another permit from the Tibet Military department which would take another 5 to 7 days. After the Tibet Permit is issued, we will mail it to your last hotel in Mainland China by making a confirmation call to your hotel in advance if you take plane to Lhasa(Tibet), FYI, if you only have stopover at one of the Airports, such as Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai and so on, please make sure that the stopover would be more than 3 hours so that our agency is able to to hire an agent to deliver the Tibet Permit to the Airport for you, but this method may cost some Additional Fee.

If you plan to enter Tibet from Nepal, you must get the TIBET GROUP VISA from the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu despite whether or not you already have a Chinese Visa. The Tibet Group Visa is an A4 size sheet of paper, with the name, sex, nationality, passport number, date of birth and occupation of each member of your group listed. The dates of entry and exit are precisely recorded. Usually, the visa is valid only for the length of the trip you have booked but it’s possible to get the visa extended for few additional days, for stays in Lhasa only. There will be two original copies of the Tibet Group Visa, one for immigration at the entry and one for the exit. We can easily help you with the Tibet Group Visa application. We also highly recommend if you enter Tibet via Nepal not to apply for an individual Chinese Visa in your country; when you arrive in Kathmandu, you will need to apply for the Group Visa to enter Tibet and the Chinese Embassy will cancel your individual Chinese Visa when you receive the Group Visa.

Please Note: If you plan to travel to Tibet from Nepal, you don’t have to apply for the Chinese visa, all you need to do is to send us your scaned passport and clear photo, we will apply for the Tibet Travel Permit at Lhasa, at the same time we will obtain the Tibet Group Visa invitation letter from Lhasa and will send it to our Nepalese Agent  in Nepal. Then the agent will meet you at your arrival in Kathmandu and collect your passprt to apply for the Group Visa which is compulsory for every traveler entering Tibet from Nepal. You have to pay for the Group Visa Fee and the agent’s service fee to the agent separately as such fees are not included in our tour cost. For the Fee, you can refer to this link http://www.exploretibet.com/visa-permits/, just for reference.
Your schedule in Kathmandu will be like below.
Day 1: Arrive in KTM
Day 2: Apply the Group Visa ( Must be Embassy working days)
Day 3: Collect the Group Visa( Must be Embassy working days)
Day 4: Obtain the Group Visa by 11:00 A.M ( Must be Embassy working days)
Day 5: Fly to Lhasa(Tibet)

Normally, the Tibet Travel Permit application process would take 10-15 days depending your travel plan, if you just vist Lhasa and around or EBC (Mt Everest Base Camp), then the permit would take around 10 days, if you go further west of Tibet and to Mt Kailash, then the permit would take around 15 days. But we highly advise you to book your Tibet tour as early as you can, so it give us more time to process the permit and hassel free. If you fly into Tibet, you should have the original permit to board the flight, so you should provide us with details about your hotel or residence address in China (including the correct name under which the booking is made) and we will send the original permit to you by Express which takes 24hrs to 3 days within China, we never mail it abroad as it takes longer and could be delayed or lost. If you don’t have a long layover or overnight in China, you can send us your detail international flight information and we can arrange someone to deliver the permit to you at the airport.

If you take the Train to Tibet, we will send you a copy of the permit by email and you can print it and bring the copy to board the train.

To visit Tibet you should have a valid passport, a Chinese visa and Tibet Travel Permit, it is also called a Tibet Entry Permit or Tibet Visa. If your visa is not Tourist Visa, type L, work permit or invitation letter need to be provided. When you book the tour from us, we will obtain the Tibet Travel Permit for you from the Tibet Tourism Bureau, so all what you need to do is to send us scan copies of your passports and Chinese visa by email and we will take care of the rest. You can also check the latest Tibet Travel Permit by clicking this link.  

To avoid any problems you might encounter to obtain the Chinese visa in other countries, we suggest you to obtain the Chinese Visa from the Chinese Consulate in your home country before you leave. Explore Tibet also strongly suggest you not mention your trip to Tibet on your visa application form, because Tibet is a politically sensitive area and mentioning it as a destination on your application might reject the visa. You can use your return flight tickets and hotel reservation in other cities of China to get the visa

Please click HERE to check more detail of the Tibet Group Visa and its application.

Military and PSB Permits are only needed for those trips going through sensitive areas or a border region; these trips include the Mt. Kailash trip, Sichuan-Tibet Overland Tour, Tibet-Kashigar Overland Tour and so on. Alien’s Travel Permits are necessary if you are going to Mt. Everest Base Camp, Samye Monastery (southern part of Tibet), Nyinchi (Eastern part of Tibet) and Mt. Kailash, but these can be issued from the local PSB just before you enter the region.

There are two main ways to get into Tibet from Nepal, either through a direct flight from Kathmandu to Tibet (normally available on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday) or by an overland drive to Tibet. The overland drive poses a greater risk of getting Altitude sickness due to the extreme increase in elevation along the way.