Travel insurance for a visa: which countries require it

Required, recommended or not asked for

Schengen insurance has its own guide, built around the €30,000 rule. Everywhere else the position runs from a firm rule with a minimum cover to a checklist that never mentions insurance. This is what official sources said in 2026.

The UAE: cover that is valid in the UAE

For a Dubai tourist visa, the GDRFA lists the documents plainly: a photo, a passport copy, a passport valid “not less than (6) six months”, a ticket to continue the journey or leave the UAE, and “Medical insurance valid in UAE”. The visa is sponsored by a tourism business, because “Only accredited tourism offices in the emirate can issue this kind of visa”, and in practice airlines, licensed travel agents and hotels arrange it.

Ask whoever arranges your visa whether their package includes the insurance or whether you buy it yourself. Then read the certificate for the words that matter: valid in the UAE, your name as in the passport, and dates covering the whole stay. The five-year multiple-entry tourist visa also lists health insurance, next to a USD 4,000 balance over the last six months.

Canada’s super visa: the strictest rule

Parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents who apply for the super visa face the most detailed insurance rule in this guide. The policy can come from a Canadian insurer or an authorised foreign one, and IRCC spells out what it must do.

An ordinary visitor visa is different: insurance is not among the required or recommended documents on IRCC’s apply page, so cover for a short visit is your own decision.

• Be “valid for a minimum of 1 year from the date of entry”.
• “provide a minimum emergency coverage of $100,000”.
• “cover the applicant’s health care, hospitalization and repatriation”.
• “be valid for each entry”.
• Be paid in full, or in instalments with a deposit: “quotes aren’t accepted”.
• If the insurer is foreign, be issued by one authorised by OSFI, Canada’s financial regulator.

Australia: recommended, and sometimes a condition

Australia does not make insurance a default requirement for the subclass 600 visitor visa. Home Affairs says “we strongly recommended you take out adequate health insurance”. It can, however, attach condition 8501, “Maintain adequate health insurance”, to a grant, and once that condition is on your visa you must keep cover for the stay.

Parents of Australian citizens or permanent residents granted a longer visa face a firmer line: they must have “adequate arrangements for health insurance”. Read the conditions on your grant notice before you decide to buy a policy or skip one.

Where insurance is not part of the file

The UK takes the opposite view of insurance as evidence. Its guide to supporting documents puts travel insurance on the list of documents applicants should not use as evidence, together with hotel and flight bookings. A policy bought for the file adds nothing to a UK application; buy one, if you want it, for the trip itself.

Bhutan dropped its insurance requirement in April 2024, and the visitor checklists we read for Japan and South Korea do not list insurance. That is not a reason to travel uninsured. It does mean the policy is your choice, not a document the officer expects to see.

Other destinations with written rules

Several other places Indians visit write insurance into their rules. Cyprus, which issues its own national visas, asks for medical travel insurance of at least €30,000 for the whole stay, the same figure as the Schengen states. Serbia’s visa list asks for adequate and valid travel medical insurance, and Armenia makes it mandatory on every route, including its e-visa.

Some rules are recent. Oman’s 14-day visa-free route, for Indians holding certain visas or GCC residence, requires “a return ticket, a confirmed hotel reservation, health insurance”. Tanzania made inbound travel insurance mandatory from 1 October 2026, at US$44 for up to 92 days, according to the Norwegian embassy in Dar es Salaam. Georgia’s e-Visa portal lists insurance for the whole stay, and secondary sources report that cover became mandatory for every visitor from 1 January 2026.

Matching the policy to your bookings

Where a policy is required, the officer will compare it with your trip, so build it from the bookings rather than from a rough plan. Start the cover on the date your outbound flight leaves India and end it on or after the date you land back, so an overnight return is covered. Name every traveller, and check that the territory includes the country you are visiting, or is worldwide.

If the dates change, change the policy before you submit. For the super visa the clock works differently: cover runs for a year from the date of entry, so buy it for the date you actually expect to land in Canada, and keep it valid for every entry.

Questions people ask