Everest Base Camp Trek Cost From the UAE: The Real All-In Numbers in Dirhams for 2026 and 2027

Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586.

Last updated 13 September 2026. Package prices read from our booking system on that date; they hold for 2026 and 2027 departures. Dirham figures use the fixed peg of 1 US dollar = 3.67 UAE dirhams, rounded.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi send us more trekkers every year, and almost none of them were born there. Emiratis, Indians, Filipinos, Britons and Lebanese who share a city, a four-hour flight to Kathmandu and the same question: what does the Everest Base Camp trek really cost from the UAE, all in, in dirhams, and what do the cheap quotes leave out? This page is my answer, with the arithmetic shown so you can check it against anything you are holding. Because the dirham is pegged to the dollar, the numbers here will not drift the way they do for a European.

The short answer

A twelve-day Everest Base Camp trek costs a UAE-based trekker roughly AED 11,500 to 12,300 all in on a budget package once you add your own trail meals, about AED 15,000 to 15,800 on a standard package with meals and porters, and AED 24,000 to 25,000 for the luxury version with helicopter transfers. In US dollars, which is what we quote in, that is about $3,150 to 3,350, $4,100 to 4,300 and $6,550 to 6,800. The short direct flight is why a UAE resident pays less all in than almost anyone else on the trail. Where the money goes, line by line, is below.

What does the trek package itself cost?

Our own prices for the twelve-day trek, per person, held for 2026 and 2027:

• Budget: US$1,399, about AED 5,135. Guide, permits, Lukla flights and lodge rooms. You carry your own bag and buy your own meals on the trail.
• Standard: US$2,499, about AED 9,170. Everything above plus all meals and one porter between two trekkers.
• Luxury: US$4,999, about AED 18,350. A porter to yourself, private rooms, and a helicopter to and from Lukla instead of the fixed-wing flight.

The route and the guide are the same on every tier; what changes is how much is carried, cooked and arranged for you. The full inclusion list is on the Everest Base Camp trek page.

If you would rather ask than read, message me on WhatsApp with your dates and how many of you there are. Kathmandu is one hour and forty-five minutes ahead of the Gulf, so you will have real numbers within the hour on a working day.

Does it get cheaper as a group?

Yes, and here are the actual bands rather than a vague promise. Per person, US dollars, for the twelve-day trek:

In dirhams the standard tier runs from about AED 9,170 for a pair down to about AED 8,620 a head for a group of thirteen or more. Two things about how we run groups, because not everyone does it this way. Every trip is private, so we never add strangers to your trek to fill seats, and the discount comes from group size alone. Ten colleagues from the same DIFC office get the same deal as ten members of one family. UAE groups tend to be larger than most, often a hiking group or a company team of eight to twelve, and that is where the third row starts to matter. A solo trekker pays the same per-person rate; there is no single supplement on the trek itself.

How much are flights from the UAE to Kathmandu?

This is the easiest long-haul trek in the world to reach from the Gulf. Kathmandu is four hours and ten minutes from Dubai nonstop, and the route is crowded with carriers: flydubai flies it four times a day, Air Arabia from Sharjah two or three times a day, Himalaya Airlines daily and Nepal Airlines three times a week. Published return fares start at about AED 1,700 in the low season; our UAE clients report paying AED 1,800 to 2,600 return for October and November dates booked two to three months ahead, and the week of Dashain, when every Nepali in the Gulf flies home, can pass AED 3,000. From Abu Dhabi, Air Arabia Abu Dhabi flies nonstop in about four and a half hours, but the choice is narrower than from Dubai, so plenty of people still drive across to Dubai or Sharjah for the timing they want. Land in Kathmandu at least a full day before the Lukla flight, and never on the same night.

Visa, permits and insurance

Your visa depends on your passport, not your residency. Most nationalities, Emirati included, pay US$50 for a 30-day visa on arrival at Kathmandu airport, about AED 184, in cash or by card, and can fill the online arrival form up to 15 days before flying to skip the kiosk queue. Indian passport holders need no visa at all. Bring one passport photo. The visa on arrival guide walks through it step by step, and if you hold a passport that is not on the on-arrival list, ask me before you book flights.

Sagarmatha National Park permit: NPR 3,000, about AED 71. Khumbu Pasang Lhamu municipality permit: NPR 2,000, about AED 48. Indian and other SAARC passport holders pay half on the park fee. On any decent package, ours included, both permits are bought for you and sit inside the price; I list them so you can see where the money goes.

Travel insurance: this is the one item you must buy yourself and the one item not to economise on. Your UAE employer's health plan almost certainly excludes adventure sports abroad and pays nothing towards a helicopter, and a helicopter from Gorak Shep to Kathmandu is billed in the thousands of US dollars. Buy a policy that names trekking to 6,000 metres in the wording; it has to be higher than Kala Patthar at 5,545 metres, not equal to it, because a rescue helicopter flies above you to reach you. Most travel policies sold in the UAE stop at 3,000 or 4,000 metres unless you add the adventure rider, and a few exclude helicopter evacuation altogether, so read the exclusions page rather than the brochure. Budget AED 400 to 900 for two to three weeks. Ask the insurer for the confirmation in writing, because the helicopter company in Kathmandu will phone them before it lifts. Send us the wording before you fly and we will tell you honestly if it has a hole in it.

What will I spend on the trail?

On a standard or luxury package with meals included, trail spending is small: hot showers (NPR 500 to 800 higher up), wifi, battery charging, snacks and a bakery stop in Namche. AED 65 to 95 a day covers it comfortably. On a budget package you buy your own meals, and prices climb with altitude because everything above Namche arrives on a porter's back or a yak. Plan on AED 140 to 185 a day for three lodge meals and tea, so roughly AED 1,700 to 2,200 across the trek.

Add two or three Kathmandu hotel nights, which are not included in trek packages, ours included. A clean tourist-class double in Thamel runs AED 250 to 370 a night; a five-star runs AED 700 and up, which by Dubai standards is not much. Carry the trail money in Nepali rupees from Kathmandu. Dirhams change easily in Thamel, or use a Kathmandu ATM, but do not count on the trail: the only ATMs on the route are in Namche and they are often empty.

How much should I tip?

Tipping is a bigger part of the trek than it is of a holiday elsewhere, and nobody in Nepal will make you feel awkward about it, but it genuinely matters to the crew, many of whom have brothers working in the Gulf and know exactly what a dirham is worth. A fair guideline is about ten per cent of the trek price, pooled: for a standard trek, think AED 550 to 750 for the guide and AED 400 to 550 for the porter, adjusted for group size and how the team looked after you. Hand it over on the last trekking day, in rupees or US dollars.

The full arithmetic, from Dubai

Standard package, one trekker sharing rooms:

The same arithmetic puts the budget route at about AED 11,800 once you add roughly AED 1,950 of trail meals and tip the guide alone, and the luxury route at about AED 24,500. If someone quotes you dramatically less than the bottom of that range for the same twelve days, a line has been cut somewhere, usually wages, an acclimatisation day or the safety margin. The fuller breakdown of what sits under every operator's pricing is in what Everest Base Camp really costs.

How many days off work do I need?

Fifteen is the honest answer from the UAE: twelve for the trek, one travel day each way, and a spare day at the end. Lukla weather occasionally holds flights, and a buffer day turns a drama into a rest day. With thirty days of annual leave that is manageable, and many of our Gulf clients bridge the UAE National Day holiday at the start of December, when the trail is cold, clear and nearly empty, or come in the first half of November. If you genuinely only have two weeks, tell me and I will show you honestly what fits, which for most people means the buffer day dropped and a flexible return ticket, not a shortened trek.

When should I go?

October is the most reliable month and the busiest. Know one thing most sites will not tell you: from late September to the end of November, Lukla flights leave from Manthali airstrip, four to five hours by road from Kathmandu, with a 1 to 2am pickup. We tell every client this before they book. Mid-November into early December is quieter, colder and often better value. Late March into April is the warm, rhododendron alternative, and it lands just before the Gulf summer makes anyone want to leave. Two recent autumns have seen the tail of a Bay of Bengal cyclone clip the last week of October, so if your dates are free, the first half of November has become my honest recommendation. One more thing for a Gulf resident specifically: you live in 35-degree heat, and Gorak Shep in November is minus ten at night. The cold is a bigger shock than the altitude for most of our UAE clients. The down jacket and the sleeping bag are free with us, and the Everest Base Camp weather month by month guide tells you what each month actually feels like.

Is Nepal safe right now?

The flash flood of 26 August on the Bhote Koshi in Rasuwa district killed more than a thousand people, left thousands more missing, and closed the main road north from Kathmandu towards the Tibet border. The figures are still provisional. Several Gulf-based pilgrims heading for Kailash were caught in it, which is why many of you are asking. That corner of the country is on the other side of Nepal from Everest, and the Everest region was not touched. I keep a trail-by-trail status page updated at which treks are open after the Rasuwa flood, and your own government's travel advice, whichever passport you hold, is worth reading before you fly.

Which Everest trek should a UAE trekker book?

The twelve-day trek on this page is the classic and the right first choice for most people. Three variants sell well with our Gulf clients, and each trades a little time for a lot less crowd:

• Everest Base Camp with Gokyo Lakes via Cho La, 15 days. The Gokyo side carries a fifth of the traffic of the main corridor.
• Everest Three Passes, 17 days. The full circuit, for people who have done Kilimanjaro or Toubkal from Dubai and want something that lasts longer than a summit day.
• Everest Base Camp by road, 15 days. No Lukla flight at all, which some people pick for the budget and some for the nerves.

How do I pay from the UAE?

We quote in US dollars, and with the dirham pegged to the dollar there is no exchange-rate guesswork at all. A 10 per cent deposit confirms the booking; it goes by card through Himalayan Bank's secure gateway, and the balance is paid in Kathmandu in cash or by bank transfer. If you pay the balance by card there is a 3.5% charge. Cash in Kathmandu has none. UAE-issued Visa and Mastercard cards go through without trouble; approve the one-time password when it arrives. Indian-issued cards are a different story and are usually declined in dollars, so if that is what you hold, tell me and we invoice in Nepali rupees, which those cards accept. The deposit is non-refundable, but if your plans change we move your trek to any date within a year, free, with 72 hours' notice.

Check us before you pay

Trekking scams in Nepal are real and in the news, so do not take my word for any of this. The Everest Holiday Pvt. Ltd. was registered in Kathmandu on 8 April 2016, company registration 147653/072/073, trekking licence 2090/072, Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal member 1586. Every legitimate operator holds the same paperwork and will send it without being offended that you asked. Ask me for a call before you send a deposit; I am on WhatsApp all day and we are nearly in the same time zone. If a company will not get on a call with you, walk away. Our reviews are on TripAdvisor and Google under our own name; read the critical ones as well as the kind ones.

The questions UAE clients always ask me

Do I need to be very fit? You need to walk five to seven hours a day at altitude with a daypack. The UAE has no altitude to train on, so train on stairs, on the Jebel Jais and Hatta trails with a loaded pack, and in a gym on the stepper. If you can do six hours on Jebel Jais comfortably, you are fit enough. Base Camp is 5,364 metres and you sleep above 4,000 metres for five nights, which is exactly why the itinerary has two acclimatisation days and why we will not cut them.

Is halal food available? In Kathmandu, yes, easily. On the trail, no: there is no halal meat above Lukla, and Muslim clients go vegetarian from the first day and eat well. Dal bhat, vegetable curry, noodles, eggs and momos are on every menu. Tell us in advance and the guide handles it lodge by lodge. Prayer times are yours to manage; the guide will build in stops, and a lodge dining room at dawn is a quiet place.

Can I drink the water? Not from the tap. Budget for purified refills or bring purification tablets rather than buying bottles all the way up. Refills are cheaper and the mountain does not need more plastic.

What gear is provided? With us, a down jacket and a sleeping bag rated to minus fifteen Celsius are free on every tier, so do not buy either in the Gulf, where the shops stock them badly and you will never use them again. Bring broken-in boots, proper layers and category-3 sunglasses. Full list on the trek page.

Will my phone work? Buy a Ncell or Nepal Telecom SIM at the airport for a few dirhams; it works to Namche and patchily above. The Everest Link wifi card in Namche covers the lodges further up. The UAE operators' roaming packs cover Nepal but are poor value against a local SIM.

Can I use my card in Nepal? In Kathmandu, yes, at hotels, better restaurants and ATMs. On the trail, no. Withdraw rupees in Kathmandu and carry them.

If you want a quote for your own dates and group size rather than an article's averages, write to me on WhatsApp and I will send the real numbers, including the unwelcome ones. That is rather the point of this page.

Shreejan Simkhada is the CEO and co-founder of The Everest Holiday, a family-run trekking company in Kathmandu, and a third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586. Every booking helps fund our Nagarjun Learning Center.