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I thought it be a good idea to start a thread about Visas & Passports, I used to work as a passport courier for a 3rd party visa/passport processing company and processed tons of US Passports and visas to China, Brazil, Thailand, Ethiopia, Saudi, Russia and many many more. Hopefully other folk can chime in and we can help people figure out stuff because most situations are unique and can get very confusing. US Passport stuff $140 if you go thru the post office or $170 if you use a 3rd party company who will get it done faster. As of 2016 you can't add pages to your passport anymore you just have to renew it, so if you get a new passport get the 52 page book. Passport Cards ($30) are awesome if you go to Mexico, Canada by car/foot or go on a cruise. You can only get one when you renew or get a new passport you can't apply for just the card if you have a valid passport. I get harassed a lot by the police so I like using it as my ID cuz it doesn't have my address on it. If your Passport expires in 6 months or less it is basically useless for air travel and should be renewed ASAP. Visas Each Country is different in what they require to apply for a visa but here's the typical tourist requirements: Your valid Passport At least one passport photo(you should really have two) Their application A booked itinerary showing in & out of the country. Make sure traveler name, flight # and dates on there. Money Order/Visa fee If you going on business then you usually need some type of invite from the company in the foreign country and a letter from your employer here. Don't lie on your application but if you check the "have you committed a crime" box you will be denied entry 100%. Apparently Canada knows when you had a DUI 10+ years ago but China will never know. Always, always, always check your passports and visas to make sure they put the correct info on there. I've seen the stupidest poo poo at consulates. How to behave at a Consulate I've seen so many people freak out on Consulate staff, try to bribe them, lie to them etc. It never works, no means no. It doesn't hurt to press them a little bit but it ain't Burger King. Do your best to know what you need before you get there. Be aware of cultural stuff also, you are not getting into the Saudi Consulate with shorts and flip flops(learned that one the hard way) There is always a print/passport photo place in the same building or very close by so if you forget to print something you can usually pay them $1-2 and get what you need. Casual Yogurt fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 02:35
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I got a multiple entry business visa for China back in October 2016. My passport expires in July 2017 and I want to renew it now. When you renew your passport, do your previous valid visas cross over somehow or do you need to get new ones?
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Mar 31, 2017 04:09
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Morbus posted:I got a multiple entry business visa for China back in October 2016. My passport expires in July 2017 and I want to renew it now. When you renew your passport, do your previous valid visas cross over somehow or do you need to get new ones? Great question! So every country is different but when you renew your passport they send you the new one and the old expired one with holes punched in it. China allows you to travel with both passports, a valid one and an expired one with a valid visa. So if you got the 10 year visa you can use it for 10 years as long as you have a separate valid passport. Some countries don't fly this way and some make you get new visas, or transfer to new passport.
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Mar 31, 2017 17:41
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quote:If you Passport expires in 6 months or less it is basically useless for air travel and should be renewed ASAP. Thanks for including this. I'm planning a trip to Italy this summer and unfortunately my passport's 6 month expiration date is within days of our planned departure. Looks like I'm renewing.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:09
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Huh! That's good to know. It's a very recent change, it used to be passports were valid until 3 months before their expiration. Looks like it changed last year for visiting Europe. https://dobianchi.com/2016/05/04/italy-passport-requirements-change/
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Apr 1, 2017 12:07
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Casual Yogurt posted:Always, always, always check your passports and visas to make sure they put the correct info on there. I've seen the stupidest poo poo at consulates. This! I spent a few days over 2 months in Belize, which you're required to visit an immigration office to renew your visa every 30 days. So I had to do it twice. I went to the same office and had the same clerk help me both times. My first renewal had March 2 as the expiry date. So I went in on March 2 to renew for another 30 days, and he wrote March 3 as the expiry. When I went to leave the country on March 9, I was told I had overstayed my visa, but they saw I had two separate extension stickers in there with one day difference. They called the clerk in the immigration office and asked what was going on, and fortunately everything was okay and they let me leave without charging me a penalty.
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Apr 2, 2017 12:24
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I once got a permanent residency stamp on my passport when I went to New Zealand. Didn't think anything of it. Then the next year when I went back to NZ the customs agent was like "uhhhhhhh..." and so I explained what happened and he was like "oh ok that's fine, I just couldn't see any record of you actually being a permanent resident in my computer" and gave me a tourist stamp.
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Apr 2, 2017 23:43
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Picnic Princess posted:I spent a few days over 2 months in Belize, which you're required to visit an immigration office to renew your visa every 30 days. So I had to do it twice. I went to the same office and had the same clerk help me both times. My first renewal had March 2 as the expiry date. So I went in on March 2 to renew for another 30 days, and he wrote March 3 as the expiry. When I went to leave the country on March 9, I was told I had overstayed my visa, but they saw I had two separate extension stickers in there with one day difference. They called the clerk in the immigration office and asked what was going on, and fortunately everything was okay and they let me leave without charging me a penalty. Exactly! Something as small as that can really gently caress poo poo up, so always check all the dates: Issue, expire, length, birthdate, ect... I've had the Brazilian Consulate give me a passport back with someone else's visa inside before, those are a little easier to catch.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:27
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If you have a multi entry Visa for China for work, can you use it for tourism as well?
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Apr 5, 2017 02:25
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ohgodwhat posted:If you have a multi entry Visa for China for work, can you use it for tourism as well? For working you should have a Z visa which you change to a residence permit when you get into the country, you can go in and out freely on those. What do you mean by tourism exactly? You are allowed to go out when you aren't working. Jimmy Little Balls fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 13:37
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ohgodwhat posted:If you have a multi entry Visa for China for work, can you use it for tourism as well? 2 choices: 1. Enter China with your valid visa 2. Apply for a Chinese Tourist Visa, pay the money and have the consulate cancel whatever valid visa you have currently. China has 10 year business and tourist visas, no one in there right mind would get a 10 year visa then a year later pay again and have them cancel a valid visa.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:25
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One thing with visas is that although some countries will grant visa-on-arrival, they still charge a fee. And I've been in at least a couple of airports where the immigration counter wants their fee in local currency well before you get to the ATMs in the terminal building. So that's definitely worth checking before you leave!
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Apr 5, 2017 22:01
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webmeister posted:One thing with visas is that although some countries will grant visa-on-arrival, they still charge a fee. And I've been in at least a couple of airports where the immigration counter wants their fee in local currency well before you get to the ATMs in the terminal building. So that's definitely worth checking before you leave! Ugh, and countries with f'ing airport exit taxes. Just include it in your airport fees, you bastards. At least Costa Rica finally did that. I'm actually more surprised at how often countries want US$ and won't accept, or don't prefer, their own local currency. I've bought visas on arrival from a handful of countries and they all preferred (or even mandated?) US$, which was often annoying since I don't live in the US but still had to find US dollars. (E: based on wikipedia's map, I guess that was Kenya, Tanzania, Bolivia, and Jordan.)
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Apr 6, 2017 14:54
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So is there a better way to renew your (US) passport than "mail your current one with $100 and a form, and wait 4-8 weeks to get a new one (and your own one back)"?
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Apr 6, 2017 22:16
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:So is there a better way to renew your (US) passport than "mail your current one with $100 and a form, and wait 4-8 weeks to get a new one (and your own one back)"? You can either do it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. There is more money and slightly more paperwork involved with using a 3rd party company but it will get done much faster.
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Apr 7, 2017 01:48
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Ok, thanks. I still have a year, so time isn't a big deal. Was just wondering if I had missed an option.
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Apr 7, 2017 08:09
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Saladman posted:Ugh, and countries with f'ing airport exit taxes. Just include it in your airport fees, you bastards. At least Costa Rica finally did that. When I traveled from Belize to Mexico, I went by boat. So not only did I have to pay an exit fee, I also had a 500 peso entry fee that I never really realized was a thing because it's always included with airport fees when flying. Thank goodness I had a bunch of pesos with me already!
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Apr 8, 2017 05:10
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One thing to note is that for most visas you need at least one page left in your passport so they can slap the sticker on it. Sometimes border agents just seem to stamp wherever they feel like it and my passport had a lot of pages with like one or two stamps in it, unfortuately it got to a point where I had no space left, although when entering visa-waver countries they would just find space somewhere and stamp it. I tried to apply for a visa for China and they wouldn't let me do it, telling me that even if there's one stamp in the corner somewhere, they won't be able to use the page. At the time the price difference between adding new pages and just getting a new passport with double the standard pages was minuscule, so I just got a new one.
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Apr 9, 2017 02:02
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Original_Z posted:One thing to note is that for most visas you need at least one page left in your passport so they can slap the sticker on it. Sometimes border agents just seem to stamp wherever they feel like it and my passport had a lot of pages with like one or two stamps in it, unfortunately it got to a point where I had no space left, although when entering visa-waver countries they would just find space somewhere and stamp it. I tried to apply for a visa for China and they wouldn't let me do it, telling me that even if there's one stamp in the corner somewhere, they won't be able to use the page. At the time the price difference between adding new pages and just getting a new passport with double the standard pages was minuscule, so I just got a new one. When I was working as a courier people would send us their full passports all the time, or they would be like "but but but the last 3 pages are blank" The last 3 pages of the US passport are endorsement/amendment pages, they don't get that much use anymore now that you can't add pages but those last 3 pages are NOT VISA PAGES. Even though passport control will stamp them sometimes you are gonna be hard pressed to find a consulate that will put a full page Visa on one of those pages. So if your passport is full but you have the endorsement pages open, you could very well run into some problems crossing borders so beware.
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Apr 10, 2017 02:20
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What about for countries that use terrible adhesive to put in full page visas, like Kenya that does it even for stupid transfer visas? I had two like that in my last passport and just pulled them out and I never had any trouble, but I wonder if thatd actually legal or not. Kind of seemed like it should be okay? Not any different from Israel or Cuba stamping sheets outside your passport really but I'm not a legal expert on this or anything.
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Apr 10, 2017 10:02
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And I know this is common sense, but don't forget to sign your passport! I did a school trip to the United States. We drove across the border no problem, but when we tried to get back into Canada it turned out two of the students hadn't signed their passports and instead of driving through we all had to go inside and get processed in there.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:40
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The other week a buddy and I were flying back to the U.S from Europe and he got stopped when we were leaving Prague because he didn't have an entry stamp from when he arrived in Paris. They let him through but how serious could this have been if the officer was a dick? From what I've read not stamping incoming travelers passports seems to be a commonly occurring thing in Paris.
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Apr 11, 2017 18:39
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birds posted:The other week a buddy and I were flying back to the U.S from Europe and he got stopped when we were leaving Prague because he didn't have an entry stamp from when he arrived in Paris. They let him through but how serious could this have been if the officer was a dick? From what I've read not stamping incoming travelers passports seems to be a commonly occurring thing in Paris. I got stamped in Paris despite having a valid EU residence permit, so I don't know wtf. I was always kind of afraid this might cause issues since I don't have a matching exit stamp, but it's been like 2 years and no one has ever cared. I also got let through in Paris after a flight from Nairobi about 8 years ago with an expired visa, an overstay of ±100 of the last 180 days, and no residence permit. I had a good reason (my first permit was still in processing) and probably could have talked my way out of it, but I didn't even need to. I wonder if the guy could tell from his computer and i was flagged as "good to go" but I kind of doubt it. Probably just stamped by rote. Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 22:09
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Saladman posted:What about for countries that use terrible adhesive to put in full page visas, like Kenya that does it even for stupid transfer visas? I had two like that in my last passport and just pulled them out and I never had any trouble, but I wonder if thatd actually legal or not. Kind of seemed like it should be okay? Not any different from Israel or Cuba stamping sheets outside your passport really but I'm not a legal expert on this or anything. If your intentions are not nefarious then everything will be ok. If the adhesive is garbage and the visa falls out then just tape it back in or carry it loose. I had a client who had no available pages left to apply for a Chinese visa so he took out an old visa. There was glue residue and it was suspicious. The Consulate caught on and denied his visa application unless he showed up in person to explain, which wasn't gonna happen. Brazil glues and puts tape over their visas for this reason. Cuba is an outlier but the Israel situation is why the State Dept offers a 2nd passport so you can travel between Israel and Saudi for example. Vietnam has a loose leaf visa as well.
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Apr 12, 2017 01:13
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I drove to the United States today to drop an (American) friend off on that side of the border so her mom could pick her up, and I could pick up a parcel that I'd had shipped there. The border agent questioned her as to how "she came to be born in France". Apparently she wasn't American enough for him. Then he didn't believe us when we said we had no food in the car. Apparently we had "too much luggage" for there to be no food at all in it.
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Apr 12, 2017 02:48
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Asked in another thread but just wanted to check, I was planning on buying a one-way flight to Italy and stay with family for awhile. Would I get denied because I don't have a return flight or an itinerary? Flight is from US, I'm a US citizen.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:10
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succ posted:Asked in another thread but just wanted to check, I was planning on buying a one-way flight to Italy and stay with family for awhile. Would I get denied because I don't have a return flight or an itinerary? Flight is from US, I'm a US citizen. No, you'll be fine. Immigration will just stamp your passport after you tell them you're visiting for tourism. Or more likely, they won't even ask and they'll just stamp your passport without a second thought. I did this a few years ago and looked into it, and I doubt anything has changed since 2009. That said, it's almost certainly going to be cheaper for you to get a round-trip ticket and just get a flexible / adjustable end-date than it is to buy two one-ways. E: Just keep in mind that you do have to leave within 3 months. Don't overstay your visa. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 23:08
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When I booked my one-way flight to Belize, the majority of sites I read said I needed paper proof of leaving the country within 30 days, or I would have to physically leave then come back, otherwise I would be refused entry into the country. There were also a few that said I just had to be honest about my reasons for being there and there were a lot of snowbirds and extended vacationers that never had a problem. Since I was planning on leaving the country by boat with no cash, and it was a very common thing to do, I took my chances and had no proof of departure upon entry. No one even asked about my intentions until I extended my visa the first time at the immigration office after being there for 30 days.
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Apr 24, 2017 08:32
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A related question you've probably had to deal with: yellow fever vaccination cards. I see those are now lifetime valid instead of just 10 years. Or at least supposedly they're valid. Are all countries following the new WHO guidelines or will I get harassed in rwanda or whenever because my card expired in 2017 according to the date printed on it? Is there any way to get a new card without a new dose of the vaccine, ie one that doesn't have the expiration date? I kind of guess not since it has the handwritten signature of my vaccinating doctor on it. I remember it hurt my arm for days after so I'm not really super keen on getting it again if it's unnecessary. My card is also in poor condition since I've travelled with it a lot and only figured I needed to take care of it for 10 years. Surprisingly I don't find a whole lot of info about it online. I've also only been checked once ever, in Cameroon, despite having been to several yellow fever countries.
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Apr 24, 2017 09:01
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Casual Yogurt posted:Passport Cards ($30) are awesome if you go to Mexico, Canada by car/foot or go on a cruise. You can only get one when you renew or get a new passport you can't apply for just the card if you have a valid passport. I get harassed a lot by the police so I like using it as my ID cuz it doesn't have my address on it. You can absolutely get a US passport card on its own. I did just that last year. It's really good as a back-up form of ID that fits in your wallet, so that you can easily prove your identity to a US embassy abroad (say, because you lost your US passport book...).
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Apr 26, 2017 12:34
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Anyone have experience with Russian tourist visas? This will be my first time applying for a visa. We're unclear on how to satisfy the "invitation from Russia" requirement. We're visiting my fiancee's family. Also, I had a question I posted in my Russia thread: Thought of 1 more question - my fiancee says when she travels to Russia she uses her Russian passport for entry and exit into the country, and then when she comes back to the US she uses her American passport. Couldn't that create an issue when she gets back to the US?
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Apr 27, 2017 02:08
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She doesn't show them her Russian passport. Where would the problem arise?
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Apr 27, 2017 04:08
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Its Miller Time posted:Anyone have experience with Russian tourist visas? This will be my first time applying for a visa. We're unclear on how to satisfy the "invitation from Russia" requirement. We're visiting my fiancee's family. This is the first result for googling "russia visa invitation" and seems decent, maybe look into that? http://waytorussia.net/Travel/VisaSupport.html And no, using a secondary passport overseas won't cause a problem with you go back to the USA. Immigration officers don't look through your passport to ensure you're accounted for at all times. Just don't try and enter on one passport and leave on another, that will definitely cause issues!
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Apr 27, 2017 19:48
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Its Miller Time posted:Thought of 1 more question - my fiancee says when she travels to Russia she uses her Russian passport for entry and exit into the country, and then when she comes back to the US she uses her American passport. Couldn't that create an issue when she gets back to the US? It's illegal for an American citizen to enter or exit the US with a non-US passport. This is true for a number of other countries. Russia does actually permit dual citizenship (so that US passport isn't a crime in itself), but Russia is... complicated... I can't think of a situation where a dual national not showing the country's own passport is a good idea. If not criminal, then it's at least a very quick ticket to Secondary.
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Apr 28, 2017 13:23
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Its Miller Time posted:Anyone have experience with Russian tourist visas? This will be my first time applying for a visa. We're unclear on how to satisfy the "invitation from Russia" requirement. We're visiting my fiancee's family. This got me once while I was going in to/out of Germany. I had both an EU/US passport and didn't feel like waiting in line to get a stamp in my US passport so I just walked through the EU citizen line when going in to Germany. When I was flying out they checked my US Passport for an entry stamp and couldn't find it. They asked me about it and didn't care, but warned me not to do it again. I'm sure they could have made a bigger deal of it.
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Apr 30, 2017 03:08
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Residency Evil posted:This got me once while I was going in to/out of Germany. I had both an EU/US passport and didn't feel like waiting in line to get a stamp in my US passport so I just walked through the EU citizen line when going in to Germany. When I was flying out they checked my US Passport for an entry stamp and couldn't find it. They asked me about it and didn't care, but warned me not to do it again. I'm sure they could have made a bigger deal of it. Why didn't you just hand them your EU passport when you were going out? I always play matchies with my EU/Canadian passports.
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Apr 30, 2017 05:50
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HookShot posted:Why didn't you just hand them your EU passport when you were going out? I always play matchies with my EU/Canadian passports. Wouldn't I have to show them a valid way of getting in to the US before I could get on the plane, such as a Visa or Green Card?
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May 15, 2017 04:05
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Residency Evil posted:Wouldn't I have to show them a valid way of getting in to the US before I could get on the plane, such as a Visa or Green Card?
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May 15, 2017 04:31
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I checked the US State Dept website but am not clear on the answer: can it be any *faster* to get a US Passport Card or is it only cheaper, and if we want fast we need a full passport but Expedited? Some schedules shifted and it looks like my cousin might come visit me in Montreal from the US, and it's actually easier for him to be driven across the border and then fly from Vancouver, so for a land-crossing a Passport Card should work. But we want it in like 3-4 weeks though, so should we go Card (expedited not an option?) or full Passport (with expedited)?
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May 15, 2017 19:58
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HookShot posted:The exit customs people don't give a poo poo if you're allowed into your destination, especially if you hand them an EU passport (which means even if the USA denies you you just get sent back to the EU where you're a citizen). The only people who might care are the airline, some of them will check to make sure you can get into your destination country, but they have nothing to do with exit customs, just show them your US passport and you're fine. Huh, didn't know that, thanks. While we're on the topic, is there any reason for me to keep my EU passport active if I have no real plans on ever going back? I moved when I was 1 so I think the chances are slim.
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May 16, 2017 00:20
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