Sharm el-Sheikh vs Hurghada: Which for Diving in 2026?

by Yannick SchrothSep 5, 20269 min read

Reef off Hurghada, one of the two coasts, not both. Photo: kallerna, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

What the Egyptian audit actually requires

This is the part worth knowing before you walk into any Egyptian dive shop, and it is public. The Chamber of Diving and Water Sports was founded by the Ministry of Tourism in 2007, works under Egypt's tourist-chambers law, now Law 27 of 2023, and describes itself as “the only entity representing this tourist activity before the public authorities”. It publishes its inspection manual in full.

The manual is blunt about what failing means. A centre that does not comply after its second inspection is handled like this: the ministry “will be notified to take necessary action to suspend the license of the facility, without issuing a membership letter”. Membership and the ministry licence are tied together: the Ministry of Tourism issues the licence, and a centre needs the Chamber's membership letter to get it and a valid membership to renew it. That is why a centre missing from the Chamber's list is worth asking about.

More useful than that: the manual sets out minimums you can look for without asking anyone's permission.

One caveat, and it matters. A centre that has held a ministry licence and an ISO certificate for two years running can be issued its membership letter for two years “without obligation with the requirement of annual inspection”. So a valid membership does not always mean somebody inspected the place this year. Ask when the last audit was; the technical manager will know.

Recompression chambers in Sharm and Hurghada

Egypt is unusual in having a recompression chamber in both places, which is not the case in most of the destinations on this site.

Sharm el-Sheikh's Hyperbaric Medical Center opened on 10 March 1993 and became part of the DAN Europe network. Its newer chamber is a Haux-Starmed 2000/200 that can take up to twelve patients, with an equipped ante-chamber, a ventilator, and gas-mix capability for nitrox and heliox. Hurghada's HyperMed Red Sea has been treating diving accidents since 2007, on the airport road, and states round-the-clock emergency support. It is not Hurghada's only chamber: the Chamber of Diving and Water Sports lists the Naval Hyperbaric Medical Center on El Corniche Road in Sekala as a second one in town, and El Gouna Deco International in El Gouna Hospital, 22 km north of Hurghada.

Between them they cover the two coasts. It is still worth asking a centre which one it uses and how a casualty gets there, because the answer from Sharm's outer sites and the answer from a Hurghada day boat are not the same journey.

Is it safe? What the travel advice actually says

People conflate “Sinai” with Sharm el-Sheikh, and that costs them insurance rather than safety. The UK FCDO advises against all travel to North Sinai Governorate, and against all but essential travel to the northern part of South Sinai beyond the St Catherine–Nuweibaa road, but explicitly excepts the coastal areas. It describes travel to the Red Sea tourist areas as generally low risk, and names Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and Marsa Alam as resorts that security forces protect with routine checks.

So neither town is under a travel restriction. The reason to know the exact wording is that most travel and dive insurance is void for travel against your own government's advice, and some inland excursions from Sharm run towards the area that is covered by it. Check the current page before you book an overland trip, not just before you fly.

Staying, rather than visiting

If the plan is a fortnight, skip this. If the plan is three months, it is the section that decides it.

Egypt has no digital nomad visa. Remote work for a foreign employer is done on a tourist visa, which is common and not the same thing as being provided for. Plan the stay around visa length, not around the lease.

On infrastructure, Hurghada is the one with a published remote-work scene. Coworking Hurghada advertises up to 70 Mbps wired and wireless, a nine-hour day pass at EGP 600 and a four-hour pass at EGP 400, on Mohamed El Said Street in Kawther; redNERD runs a coliving space with a dedicated work room. No equivalent is published for Sharm el-Sheikh, which is not proof that none exists: but a town whose workspaces are not findable from outside is a harder place to arrive in cold.

What the CDWS register adds for Sharm and Hurghada

Now the counts, which settle less than any of the above. They tell you how much choice you have on a bad day, and how much of it anybody has assessed.

Green Fins is separate from the CDWS audit and voluntary: somebody visited and scored the business against a published standard, on environmental practice rather than safety. A centre outside it may run a tighter boat than one inside it. The row that changes minds is the third one: Marsa Alam is smaller than both and has more assessed centres than both together.

What a bigger list buys you is a boat when one is cancelled and a course when one is full. It buys you nothing about the water. Ras Mohammed and the Straits of Tiran are reached from Sharm; Abu Nuhas and the Giftun islands from Hurghada. That is a choice of reefs, not a choice of quality.

Sharm el-Sheikh or Hurghada: which to pick

Sharm if Ras Mohammed and Tiran are why you are coming, if you want the largest choice of centres, and if being near a twelve-patient chamber in the DAN Europe network matters to you. Hurghada if you are staying longer than a dive week: it is the bigger town, it has the published coworking and the fibre, and it reaches the Abu Nuhas wrecks. Marsa Alam if you would rather have eight assessed centres than a hundred unassessed ones and do not mind a quieter coast.

The count is not the thing to choose on. The gap between 101 and 68 is a gap in how many shops line the same water.