The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has confirmed that its long-planned “one-stop” immigration concept will enter live trials before the end of December, with flights between the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain chosen for the inaugural route. Under the scheme, Gulf citizens will complete passport control, security screening and customs formalities only once—at the airport of departure. On arrival they will be treated as if they were on a purely domestic flight, able to exit the airport without additional checks.
GCC officials say the pilot is the technical dress-rehearsal for a broader Schengen-style travel zone that ultimately aims to cover all six member states. Biometrically-enabled e-gates at both departure and arrival airports will exchange travellers’ data in real time, while a single API (Advance Passenger Information) feed will allow border agencies to run security vetting simultaneously. Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council and Bahrain’s Information & eGovernment Authority have led the integration work, using a cloud-based platform that encrypts data end-to-end.
![GCC to Pilot ‘One-Stop’ Airport Immigration Between UAE and Bahrain This Month]()
If the trial succeeds, the bloc will gradually open additional city-pairs—Dubai-Riyadh and Doha-Muscat are already on the shortlist for phase two—and extend eligibility to GCC residents and, later, holders of the forthcoming Grand Tourist Visa. For business-travel managers the implications are substantial: shorter minimum-connection times, lower dwell costs and the ability to schedule same-day regional meetings without fearing secondary queues on arrival. Airlines expect gate-to-garage journey times to fall by up to 40 minutes, improving aircraft utilisation as well.
The project dovetails with the unified GCC tourist visa that ministers still hope to debut in Q4 2026. Together, the two initiatives would give the Gulf a seamless internal travel market akin to Europe’s Schengen Area—an important step as the region pivots toward services, conferences and high-value tourism. Mobility advisers, however, caution that corporate travellers should continue to carry physical passports during the pilot period in case of system outages or manual spot checks. They also advise updating traveller-profiles so that duty-of-care teams can distinguish trips covered by the new process from legacy itineraries that still require double processing.
GCC officials say the pilot is the technical dress-rehearsal for a broader Schengen-style travel zone that ultimately aims to cover all six member states. Biometrically-enabled e-gates at both departure and arrival airports will exchange travellers’ data in real time, while a single API (Advance Passenger Information) feed will allow border agencies to run security vetting simultaneously. Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council and Bahrain’s Information & eGovernment Authority have led the integration work, using a cloud-based platform that encrypts data end-to-end.
If the trial succeeds, the bloc will gradually open additional city-pairs—Dubai-Riyadh and Doha-Muscat are already on the shortlist for phase two—and extend eligibility to GCC residents and, later, holders of the forthcoming Grand Tourist Visa. For business-travel managers the implications are substantial: shorter minimum-connection times, lower dwell costs and the ability to schedule same-day regional meetings without fearing secondary queues on arrival. Airlines expect gate-to-garage journey times to fall by up to 40 minutes, improving aircraft utilisation as well.
The project dovetails with the unified GCC tourist visa that ministers still hope to debut in Q4 2026. Together, the two initiatives would give the Gulf a seamless internal travel market akin to Europe’s Schengen Area—an important step as the region pivots toward services, conferences and high-value tourism. Mobility advisers, however, caution that corporate travellers should continue to carry physical passports during the pilot period in case of system outages or manual spot checks. They also advise updating traveller-profiles so that duty-of-care teams can distinguish trips covered by the new process from legacy itineraries that still require double processing.
