Russian Visa

Russian soldier

Soldiers Marching into Moscow

Everybody needs a visa for Russia (except for some reason Thai, Brazil and Argentine passport holders). The Russian tourist visa is issued against supporting documents confirming a pre-booked itinerary and tour confirmation and has fixed entry and exit dates. The visa has a fixed length, depending on the tour itinerary and for a maximum of 30 days. Once you have booked a tour with us we can supply these documents as an email attachment so you can make the visa application at your local embassy. We also offer a visa service through our Beijing office (for holders of a Chinese residence visa) or Hong Kong office (if present in Hong Kong at the time of application)

Restrictions

The official regulations for visa application are very strict but each Embassy enforces these regulations to a different degree. Officially you can only apply for a Russian visa from your country of residence.

Russian Embasy Beijing

The Russian embassy in Beijing is open from Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 12pm for personal applications. The regular application takes a full week, so apply on a Tuesday, collect on a Tuesday for example. The express application is issued overnight. However, as a travel agent, we are only allowed to apply for the visa on a Tuesday or Friday in Beijing. The Russian Embassy in Beijing enforces the rules very strictly and we can only offer a tourist visa service if you are living in China with an official 'residence visa'. We can only apply for the Russian visa in Beijing if you are an official resident and with the original support documents supplied from Moscow, which means we need extra notice to have this paperwork sent to us. Transit visas (no stopping in Mongolia or Russia) are possible with the original tickets for the journey. Click here for a pricelist

Russian Consulate Hong Kong

UPDATE February 2011 - The Russian embassy in Hong Kong has a new consul who has imposed some very strict application procedures.
The express application has been withdrawn, all visa applications take seven days.
Most nationalities must have a valid HK ID card or have been resident in Hong Kong for at least 30 days (they check entry stamps on your passport). There is a list of exemptions who can still apply without an ID card, please check with us directly if you can apply in Hong Kong if you are there only for a short time.

The Embassy is open from Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 5pm. If you are living in Hong Kong, the regular application takes five days, eg. apply on Monday, collect the following Monday. The express application is issued overnight. We need your passport one day in advance to prepare the application. You need to complete the visa application forms available from our download page. You can click here for visa prices.

Transit Russian Visa

We do not arrange ticket only services and specialise in stop-over tours on the Trans-Siberian route with a tourist visa. If you wish to travel with a transit visa across Russia, you generally need to make these arrangements yourself. We can sometimes help arrange the ticket services if you are stuck in Beijing and wish to travel quicly across Russia - it really depends how busy we are!

It is usually enough to provide your travel tickets into and onward from Russia, along with a visa for your destination country, unless you are a citizen of, or do not require a visa for that country. The period of time covered by a transit visa is generally 3 days, implying that transit visas are for people whole are changing flights/transport in Russia. The maximum validity of a transit visa is 10 days. For a direct train from Beijing to Moscow, taking 6 days, you should have a few days spare in moscow before departing onwards from Russia.

Download our info sheet about applying for transit visas.

Registering your Russian Visa

The purpose of the registration is to notify the immigration authories about the place of your stay while you're in Russia. In Russia the registration of your visa is in addition to the landing card you fill out when you enter the country. Everyone entering Russia must have their Russian visa registered within 72 hours upon arrival. Prior to registering at a hotel or place of residence your train ticket acts as proof of how long you have been in Russia. You are not required to register until your train jounrey (that originated outside of Russia) terminates in the city of your destination. You must then do so within 72 hours.

Officially, it's not your obligation to register your visa, this rests with the accommodating party, usually the same agent who has arranged your invitation documents. However, if you don't register your visa, you may be fined as well as deported (although the latter is very unlikely). At the very least, you will have a tough time explaining yourself to over zealous officials.

Medicare Insurance

Now COMPULSORY for Schengen Members, including: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, France, Israel, Finland, Norway and Estonia. It is necessary that the Insurance Company (local or worldwide) has an agreement with the relevant Russian insurance company (Ingosstrakh or "Rosno') although this is not as strict as it once was. Citizens of these countries must send us a copy of their insurance document if we are obtaining the Russian visa for you either in Beijing or Hong Kong.

Visa regulations change frequently and often without warning

ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK FOR YOURSELF!

Although we try to keep these pages as up-to-date as we can we accept no liability for any inaccuracies in the information contained.