Egypt’s monuments like the Pyramids, Karnak Temple, Abu Simbel, and museums like the Grand Egyptian Museum now only accept credit cards for purchasing tickets, and you can now purchase tickets in advance for almost all sites online.

In this post, I will talk about:

1. Why you would want to purchase tickets online, 

2. What website you can do this at and how to do it,

3. Which sites you cannot buy tickets for in advance online, 

4. How to use your tickets when you get to Egypt.

Why you would want to purchase tickets online

Purchasing tickets in advance online is great because it will save you the time of waiting in lines at all the tourist sites to buy tickets in person with a credit card. However, lots of the time when you book with a company, like Egypt Adventures Travel, tickets will be included with your trip and the tour company will prepurchase them, so make sure you check if you are working with a company to see if they have included tickets already or not.

You would want to purchase tickets in person though if you are unsure of what sites you will visit in Egypt, or what dates you will visit which sites, since purchasing tickets for the sites is tied to a specific date, and for some tickets, like the Tutankhamun Immersive Experience at the Grand Egyptian Museum, tied to a specific time as well. The only exception is the Grand Egyptian Museum — at this time, it’s necessary to purchase those tickets in advance, since the museum has set dates and times for the Tutankhamun Immersive Experience show.

If you do purchase tickets in person, make sure you have a visa or Mastercard credit card, not an American Express, Discover, or some other company, since only Visa and MasterCard are accepted.

What website you will use and how

The website for purchasing tickets online is egymonuments.com, and I will link it in the blog post that is in this video description. This site is fairly easy to navigate, but here are my tips for how to use it in the easiest and most efficient way.

First, make a list of all of the sites you want to visit, and which date you want to visit them. For the Grand Egyptian Museum, if the Tutankhamun Immersive Experience show is still going on, note what time you would like to see the show.

Then purchase individual tickets for everything except for the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and the GEM together. For some reason, these tickets are purchased on separate websites, but all other tickets are done together on the egymonuments.com site, and it is very easy to put multiple tickets in your cart, and then buy them all at once.

Be sure when purchasing tickets to select “foreigner” or “Arabs and other nationalities”, unless you are an Egyptian passport or ID holder, in which case you can select “Egyptian”, or if you are a foreigner who has a work visa or permanent residency in Egypt, you can select “expatriate”.

You can purchase tickets for multiple travelers at once, but note that this will send all tickets to one person’s email, in a big PDF document, so if it’s easier, to have everyone purchase tickets for themselves, you can share this video with your group so they can purchase tickets individually.

For sites like Saqqara or Giza, there is an option to purchase a ticket for your vehicle, which almost everyone will need to do. Ask your tour company which type of vehicle you will have (most will be a car), and then purchase the ticket for parking in addition to the entry ticket.

For some sites, like Giza, you can also add on tickets, like adding on the ticket for entering inside the Great Pyramid in addition to the main ticket to get inside the Giza Plateau. Be sure you add in all the additional tickets you would like, otherwise you will still need to wait in line at the site to buy tickets in person.

What sites you cannot buy tickets to

There are several sites, like the Aswan High Dam, that tickets cannot be purchased online in advance. Sites like the Aswan High Dam, for example, are not managed by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Other sites you cannot buy tickets to include public areas like Coptic Cairo and the Khan el Khalilii Souq and UNESCO World Heritage Site of Moez Street, because these sites do not require tickets at all.

How to use your tickets when you get to Egypt

Once you’ve purchased tickets, you will receive one email that contains a PDF document with all of the tickets, together. This is why if you are booking tickets for an entire group, it may be easier for each person to book their individual tickets.

Technically, you are supposed to print out the tickets and have them in paper form when in Egypt, but I have used my phone and scanned the QR codes on the tickets directly at the sites, and have not had any issues.

Since you already have tickets purchased, when you get to the sites, skip the ticket purchasing queues, and go right to the entry point for each site. Show the QR code to the person at the ticket scanner, and they can help you make sure the QR code scans. And that’s it!

What questions do you have about buying tickets in advance? Leave a comment below to share questions, or if you recently went to Egypt and use the online ticket system, leave a comment to let us know about your experience.