Well, personally, I have transited through the Hamad International Airport in Qatar, and I can tell you for one that Nigerians do not require a transit visa to Qatar.
However, that is not what you came here for.
You want to know if Nigeria is visa-free to Qatar, and the answer is NO. Nigeria is not visa-free to Qatar. You are not going to be allowed to even fly out to Qatar without a visa.
Qatar and Nigeria are on two different scales. Qatar is a much more developed country than Nigeria, so you can understand why they wouldn’t easily allow other people, not just Nigerians, to enter their country freely.
As of October 2023, Nigerian passport holders are only allowed visa-free entry into 27 countries or territories and these countries are Barbados, Benin, Antigua, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, Cameroon, Cook Island, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Micronesia, Mali, Vanuatu, Togo, Gambia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Niue, Niger, and Montserrat. Those are the only places where Nigerians can enter without a visa.
Qatar, 100%, is not on the list. Nigerians are only allowed to enter just 27 countries in the world visa-free.
But then, there are other countries in the world which can issue visas on arrival and others which can issue e-visas to Nigerians.
Countries that can issue e-visas to Nigerian citizens
These 12 countries are Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Gabon, South Tomoya and Principe, Qatar, South Africa, South Sudan, Suriname, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
So you can see clearly that these countries can issue e-visas for Nigerian passport holders. But e-visas is different from being visa-free.
E-visas is also different from visa on arrival.
E-visa means that you still need to apply for the visa, it’s just that it is a paperless visa. Nigerians can get evisa to South Africa, but it does mean we can freely walk into South Africa. Neither can Nigeria enter Qatar.
But even though they allow e-visas, it means you still have to go through all the embassy processes in order to get a visa into Qatar. It is not a free visa. An e-visa doesn’t mean that it is free. It just means it is electronic and might not require passport stamping. It might not involve physically pasting a visa page on your passport. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to apply for one.
Countries that Nigerian passport holders can apply to based on the visa-on-arrival package
There are 17 countries such as October 2023 that can accept this visa-on-arrival package with Nigerians. These countries are Cambodia, Ethiopia, Comoros, Kenya, Iran, the Maldives, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Palau, Somalia, Tuvalu, Uganda, and Timor-Leste.
So I hope I’ve been able to answer your question. And your question is, is Nigeria visa-free to Qatar? The resounding answer is no. You need a visa to get to Qatar, but you can get an e-visa to enter Qatar. However, I have listed countries that do not require visas for Nigerians and also countries that will give visa on arrival to Nigerians; you may check out those countries if your desire is to at least see the world.
Author
Abbey Johnson has a Masters degree as an engineer and has over 3 years of teaching and research experience. He is happiest when on a bike and is also interested in electric energy and computer Science.