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Visa to Russia

Step by step guide: how to get travel visa. Visa FAQ.


1. Find you visa support provider

Russian travel agency or agency in your country, your business partner or your host could issue the invitation for you. Order your invitation at least two or three weeks before your visit to the Russian consulate, and remember that it will take them another 2 weeks to issue your visa.

Define your preferred length of stay and passport details to you visa support provider. It may be additional requirements from them to issue the invitation to you.

2. Receive the invitation

The invitation is the same that visa support, or tourist confirmation or voucher.

Preparing an invitation normally takes from few hours up to several days. It contains from 2 parts. The first is the accommodation voucher. The second confirms that person or company invites you. Invitation needed to all types of visa.

There are different types of invitations, each for type of visa you need: travel, business etc.

Make sure that company, which issue invitation to you, has an office in that city, where you are coming. Just ask "Where could I register my visa", and they should provide you with contacts and address.

3. Ask for details

in your local Russian consulate, then apply for visa and wait.

For travel visa you may apply with a copy, i.e. your visa provider must send scanned copy via e-mail or the original via express or regular mail to you. For business visa you need to apply the original invitation You have to call Russian Embassy or Consulate to receive information pertaining to processing visa in your country. Here is the list of Russian Embassies and Consulates.

Consulate stuff will provide you with information about passport, photos, application and invitation form. They will issue your visa in 2 weeks (may be faster - it depends on how much you'll pay). Approximately, you will spend about 1 week preparing your papers, and it will cost you ~ USD 50 or 60, if your agency will charge for registration of your visa before you come to Russia.

Russian Visa

and migration card.

Russian visa is a double-sided sheet of paper, inserted in your passport. It contains your personal data, delegated length of stay, name of the company, which issue visa to you and some other information.

The migration card is an arrival/departure control form. It contains from 2 sheets. Keep the second part in your passport until you are leaving Russia. If you lose it, nothing serious will be beside some extra money as a penalty fee, and a lot of wasted time on the border.

Registering your Visa

The registration is just a stamp on another form, which would attached to your visa in PVU. This stamp may be in your migration card too.

It is not your obligation to register your visa. Normally your travel company that issued an invitation does it in several days, or the hotel stuff makes it during your first days you are staying there.

It is possible if you traveling trough TranSib railroad, or came first in the city, where your travel agency did not have office. For example: you have arrival in Moscow to the conference and then you planning to go to St.Pete, where your visa provider is. Do nothing. Your tickets to the place you're in are the documents, which confirm how long you are here. Show your tickets, say that "I have no possibility/time for registration and register your visa after your reach your visa support for whole time of stay in Russia.

You have to register you visa in 3 working days (i.e. except holidays). If you don't do this, you may be charged at the border on departure or in case of passport control on the streets. You may be pressured by ugly policemen's: this is rare in Moscow and seems that it never happened in other cities. You can say "Transit", or "Tri: dnya" (Tree days). Please, don't be afraid, you haven't do anything wrong. If they didn't want to leave you, say "I have to call my embassy." Write down his ID and name. It works.


Where is your registration?!

Transit visa

72 hours visa needed if you're crossing the country or need to change the airports. The requirements and the prices depend on the country you're in, so the best thing to do is to contact the Russian consulate and they'll explain the details according to youê situation. You don't have to obtain the visa invitation to get transit visa.



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Q: I would like to travel independently around the country. Should I get flights first or the visa and how do I get one easily?

A:Travel visa is OK to you. First you should find the visa support provider in Russia or in your country. Getting the visa won't be a problem in most cases. But to be safe - arrange a visa first.




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Q: It's not completely clear to me all that stuff about registration. I'll spend one night in hotel, and they will register me for that day. Can landowner register me if I'll stay in apartments? Or should I register myself?

A: In case of private accommodation, you both - your host and you - should take a part in registration process. The landowner should prepare some papers, and you both should visit PVU and some other places. If you're rent the apartments, which are managed by the estate company, the process looks quite easy. Those companies offer registering as a separate service for a small fee - so you save you time and nerves.

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Q: What if i'll lost my papers?

A: Go to police station (MILICIYA or OVD), in the place where you're lost passport. They will issue to you a paper, which will confirm, that this is true.

Contact your embassy after you lost the passport: probably they may ask for a copy of your Russian visa (Did you have it?).

If you also lost your plane ticket with the date of return; if you don't, book a new flight and get the printed confirmation of booking.

Make some passport-sized photos on a special paper and go to your embassy to get a new passport.

Take all these papers (document from the police, ticket, photos, new passport, copy of your visa) and take it to the office of the travel agency that issued your visa support.

Then you'll be charged, and a new visa will be issued to you n a few days.




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