UAE amends its travel guidelines, passengers with only one name will be allowed if...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) amended its travel guidelines on Thursday, requiring passengers entering the country to fill out their full names on their passports.

The Consulate General of India in Dubai tweeted on Thursday that passengers with only one name will be allowed to enter if their father's or family appears on the second page of their passports.

Passengers with only one name will also be eligible for visa on arrival (VoA) if their father's or family name appears on the second page, according to the amended rule.

“Visa issued with more than one name-passenger has father’s/family name mentioned in the 2nd page is accepted. Passenger eligible for VOA if the father’s/family name mentioned on the 2nd page is accepted,” the Consulate General of India, Dubai, tweeted.

Passengers with visiting visas or visas on arrival were required to clearly declare both their first and last names on their passports, according to a rule that went into effect on Monday (November 21) and has since been amended.

Any passport holder with a single-word name—whether in the 'given name' or 'surname' column of their passport—would be considered an 'inadmissible passenger' (INAD) and would be denied entry into the country by immigration officers. The rule, however, did not apply to UAE resident card holders or people with work visas.

Many passengers were alarmed by the rule. According to media reports, some travellers with only one name on their passports were denied entry into the UAE.

To implement the new rule, the UAE government relied on the convention of writing the name cited in Part 3.4 of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which states that the "name of the holder is generally represented in two parts; the primary identifier and the secondary identifier."