Four boxes to tick before you're legally allowed on the trail
Visa, permit, royalty deposit, insurance — miss one and it doesn't just cost you money, it costs you your departure date. This checklist walks through all four in the order Pakistani authorities actually process them.
Nothing here is optional — only the order changes by route
E-Visa Category
Picked before you book flights. A tourist-category e-visa won't carry you into a restricted trekking corridor — the trekking & mountaineering category exists for exactly that reason.
GB Council Permit
Needed for restricted-zone treks and any peak climb above 6,500m. Filed by a licensed operator, never by an individual traveller directly.
Royalty Deposit
Attached to the climbing permit for 6,500m+ peaks, banded by altitude and settled once your file clears.
Rescue Insurance
Must explicitly cover high-altitude helicopter evacuation — general travel insurance rarely qualifies.
Does your trek even need Stage 2?
Not every route in Gilgit-Baltistan sits in a restricted zone. Here's the quick way to tell.
Skip the permit
- Hunza and Nagar valley trails
- Naltar and Fairy Meadows
- Skardu town and nearby day hikes
- Any route staying under 6,500m in an open zone
File the permit
- Baltoro Glacier / Concordia / K2 Base Camp
- Gondogoro La crossing
- Shimshal Pamir and border-adjacent corridors
- Any peak attempt above 6,500m, any zone
How the four stages actually move through the system
Route locked, category confirmed
We match your trek or peak to the correct e-visa category before anything is submitted online.
E-visa goes in first
Filed on the official NADRA portal; approval usually lands within two to three weeks.
Permit file follows
Submitted to the GB Council under our operator licence once the visa approval is in hand.
Royalty & insurance closed out
Settled together right before departure, once the permit itself has cleared.
Filing the permit before the visa is approved is the single most common reason a Gilgit-Baltistan file gets bounced back for resubmission — keep the order above and it won't happen to yours.
Straight answers to the checklist questions we get most
Yes — that's the point of routing it through a single licensed operator instead of juggling NADRA, the GB Council and an insurer separately.
Stage 3 drops off your checklist entirely — royalty deposits only apply to climbing permits for peaks above that altitude.
For open-zone treks you can move faster. Eight weeks is the safe number once a restricted-zone permit or climbing permit enters the picture.