An Afghanistan travel permit is the paper that covers movement after you enter the country. The tourist e-Visa gets you in, usually through Kabul International Airport. It does not, by itself, authorise the drive to Bamiyan, the flight to Herat, or the road into the Wakhan. Those movements need a separate permit that names the provinces on the trip.
This is the part most visa pages skip. The permit is a government document. It is not a hotel letter, not a tour voucher, and not something you print from the e-Visa portal.
Two papers, two jobs
The e-Visa is for entry and exit through the airport. Keep a colour print with your passport. Fees, photo rules, and the online portal are on the Afghanistan e-Visa page.
The travel permit is for the road. It is issued against a named itinerary. It lists the provinces you will enter, not a blank permission for the whole country. If the province you are driving into is not on that paper, a checkpoint can stop the car even if the visa is valid.
Who issues it, and where
Provincial travel permits are issued by the Afghan Tour office in Kabul. That is a government office. It is not the airport arrivals desk, and it is not issued by a hotel or a guesthouse.
The office works from the itinerary. The provinces you will stay in or pass through are the ones written on the permit. A place and a province are not the same thing. Band-e Amir sits inside Bamiyan province, so it is not a second province on top of Bamiyan. Mazar-i-Sharif sits in Balkh. The Wakhan sits in Badakhshan. The fee follows the provinces named, not the number of lakes or mosques on the route.
What it costs
The official fee is about 1,000 AFN per province. That is the government charge for the permit itself. A route that names two provinces is about 2,000 AFN in official fees. A route that names five provinces is about 5,000 AFN. Each extra province adds another official fee of about 1,000 AFN.
That figure is the office fee for the paper. It is not the cost of a guide, a car, a hotel, an internal flight, or a tour package. Those are separate. If someone quotes a single "permit price" with no province count, ask which provinces are on the letter. The official total only makes sense once that list is fixed.
Carry some Afghanis as well as US dollars. Cards rarely work for a small government fee, and the office fee is charged in AFN.
What the permit has to say
A useful permit is specific. It should match the trip you will actually take.
It names the traveler. It names the provinces. It belongs with the passport and the colour e-Visa print, and it should be in the car, not left in a hotel safe in Kabul. At a checkpoint the usual questions are simple: who you are, where you are going, and whether the Afghan Tour office paper matches the vehicle and the road.
English is often not the language at that stop. The officer is reading the permit, not a tour brochure. A Dari or Pashto speaker in the car is a practical part of getting through, because that is the language of the document and of the checkpoint.
How a traveler gets the permit
The issuing place is the Afghan Tour office in Kabul. The input is a planned itinerary that already names the provinces. Without that list, the office cannot write a permit that a later checkpoint will accept.
In practice the sequence is:
1. Fix the route first. Count the provinces, not the attractions. Kabul is one. Bamiyan, including Band-e Amir, is another. Balkh, Herat, Nangarhar, and Badakhshan are each their own.
2. The Afghan Tour office in Kabul issues the permit for those provinces. The official fee is about 1,000 AFN for each one.
3. You travel with the passport, a colour print of the e-Visa, and the permit. The paper has to be available at every checkpoint on that route, not only on the day you leave Kabul.
A longer trip is not a different kind of permit. It is the same permit with more provinces named, and a higher official fee because the fee is per province. Changing the route after the permit is issued means the letter and the road no longer match. That is the situation checkpoints are built to catch.
What changes by route
A first circuit of Kabul, Bamiyan, and Band-e Amir is a short province list. The Salang and the Bamiyan road still have checkpoints. The permit has to cover the provinces on that drive, and the car should match the letter.
A Silk Road route that continues to Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat adds Balkh and Herat, even if part of the journey is an internal flight. Landing in another city does not add that province by itself. The permit has to name it, and the official fee rises with each province named.
Eastern routes through Nangarhar, Kunar, and Nuristan, and any trip into the Wakhan, are the same rule with a harder road. Extra provinces still go through the Afghan Tour office in Kabul. Access can be refused even when the papers are in order. A closed valley is a closed valley. The permit is permission to ask, not a guarantee that the road is open that week.
What the permit does not do
It does not replace the e-Visa. It does not let you skip a checkpoint. It does not cover a province that was never written on it. It is not a camera permit and not a drone permit. Those are separate rules. Do not assume a camera or a drone is allowed because the travel permit is in the car.
It is also not a safety clearance. Several governments advise their citizens not to travel to Afghanistan. Read that advice before you book. It is a different document from the permit, and it does not substitute for the Afghan Tour office paper.
Travel without a permit that matches the province is the slow version of this trip. Expect to be stopped, questioned, and turned around. The visa in your passport does not answer the question the checkpoint is asking.
What to have with you
Passport. Colour print of the e-Visa, not only a phone screenshot. A copy of the itinerary that lists the same provinces as the permit. Enough AFN for the official fee of about 1,000 AFN per province if that fee is paid in Kabul. The permit itself, in the vehicle, for the whole route.
If you want this arranged
The facts above are the permit. The Afghan Tour office in Kabul issues it. The official fee is about 1,000 AFN per province. The paper has to name the provinces before you leave Kabul.
If you want that permit requested for you, send the dates and the regions. We will tell you which provinces the office needs to name, and what the official fee comes to, before you buy a flight. A first circuit is Kabul, Bamiyan, and Band-e Amir. The longer arc is Kabul, Bamiyan, Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Herat.
