What you may bring
The usual allowances, a little more generous than elsewhere.
- 2 litres of spirits and 200 cigarettes per adult.
- Your own devices — phone, laptop, camera — with no formality.
- Your medicines, in their boxes, with the prescription for anything ongoing. Opiates and some sedatives need a translated prescription.
- There is a duty-free shop AFTER baggage reclaim too: it is where Egyptians buy their alcohol, and it usually beats the shops in town.
What stays at home
The first line is not a formality. It is a criminal matter.
- Drones may not be brought in without military clearance, however small. This is not a duty to pay: it is confiscation, and the law provides for prison.
- Satellite phones are seized and not returned.
- Binoculars travel badly: they are regularly held back, unless you are on a declared birdwatching trip.
- And in the other direction: no antiquity leaves Egypt without a permit. A stone picked up on a site is an antiquity in the eyes of the law.
Money, and what to declare
Nothing forbidden, but one threshold to know and a currency that does not travel.
- Above 10,000 dollars (or the equivalent) you must declare the sum, going in and coming out.
- The Egyptian pound barely leaves at all: 5,000 pounds maximum. Change what is left before the airport, where the rate is poor.
- Cash machines are everywhere in the cities, scarce in the oases and at the sites. Many of our entries say “cash only” — that is not a turn of phrase.
- Keep small notes. The tip — baksheesh — is part of what things cost, and nobody has change for a large note.
A customs rule applies at the door, not in a guide: if you are unsure about an item, ask your airline, which will know whether it can be carried at all.