File Photo: Tourists visit the Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt s southern city of Luxor. AFP
The scheme, funded by the Ministry of Finance, offers subsidized interest rates covered by the state treasury to help investors complete hospitality projects and expand Egypt’s accommodation capacity. The extension responds to requests from tourism companies and developers seeking to benefit from its incentives.
Under the revised timeline, banks will continue accepting applications and issuing preliminary approvals until 20 April 2026. The ministers said the move reflects the government’s commitment to balanced economic policies that stimulate private-sector growth, with tourism prioritised for its role in job creation, foreign-currency inflows and support for feeder industries.
Beneficiaries will continue to enjoy subsidised interest rates for up to five years from the date of the first bank disbursement.
To speed project delivery, the government has also approved a final six-month grace period—beginning at the end of the disbursement phase—for investors to secure either a permanent or temporary operating licence, setting the deadline for licensing at December 2027.
Initially launched in July 2024, the initiative was introduced to bolster Egypt’s tourism sector amid global and regional tensions. Regulations issued in October 2024 enabled eligible companies to access financing facilities with a treasury-subsidized return rate for five years from their first withdrawal.
Tourism revenues rose 14.7 percent year-on-year between July and March 2024/25, reaching $12.5 billion compared with $10.9 billion a year earlier.
The tourism industry remains one of Egypt’s high-productivity sectors, central to the government’s 2030 development vision to raise real GDP growth to 7 percent and generate 1.5 million jobs.
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