The Ultimate Guide To Your Russian Visa
Getting a Russian visa should be a straightforward process. And it actually is, believe it or not. However, for those not well-acquainted with the delightful quills of post-Soviet bureaucracy, the quest for the much-coveted sticker could easily turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
The huge amount of often confusing and sometimes even contradictory information one can find in the internet doesn’t help either; especially in the case of the so-called business visa, which, for reasons unknown to us, is still described as “the visa for people seeking to do business in Russia”, when, in fact, this is a kind of a misleading urban myth…
1929 Soviet Visa
Here you will find your ultimate guide to obtain a Russian visa for your next trip to this vast and fascinating land of absurd paperworks.
This post is exclusively aimed at those who wish to visit Russia for tourism and leisure. Hence, we have included only the essential info a traveller would need to get through the red-tape with minimum hassle. More specifically, we will explain you the difference between a tourist and a business visa and eventually reveal you how and when you can use a business visa for travel purposes. Superfluous knowledge and distracting advices on how to obtain odd types of visa (such as family or student visas) are deliberately not included. If you need support with those, just send us an email at info@soviettours.com and we will be happy to assist!
Please note: this piece of information was first posted in November 2019. We try our best to update the content whenever we receive the news of an upcoming change in Russia’s visa system. However, we cannot guarantee we will always be as quick as the capricious whims of Russian lawmakers.
Double-Check Whether You Do Really Need a Visa
For the last couple of years Russia has been slowly but steadily easing its notoriously annoying visa policy. Citizens of most post-Soviet and Latin American countries do NOT need a visa at all to visit Russia. The same if you are from South Africa, Israel, Thailand, Laos, South Korea, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and a bunch of other more obscure nations such as Nauru and Samoa. Moreover, even if you are not eligible for full visa-free access, you might still be able to visit certain areas of the country (notably Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad and the Far East) without the need of getting that damned sticker glued on your passport.
2021 May Update: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on May 26 easing restrictions on tourists coming to Russia by allowing them to stay in the country for up to 6 months if they have hotel bookings. “The law allows the issuance of ordinary tourist visas for up to six months for citizens of all countries, regardless of the ‘principle of reciprocity’ — the existence of a similar policy of these countries in relation to tourists from the Russian Federation,” it states.
2023 August Update: the unified electronic visa (e-visa) was officially introduced in Russia for citizens of the EU, China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Norway, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and others (see map below). The E-Visa is a single entry visa, which is valid for a period of 60 days from the date of issue, and allows a period of stay in the Russian Federation of up to 16 days from the date of entry. Foreign citizens have the right to freedom of movement within the entire territory of Russia. The 16-day e-visas are issued for private or business visit, tourism, as well as for participating in scientific, cultural, socio-political, economic, sporting events. The application can be submitted no earlier than 40 days and no later than 4 days before the expected date of entry.
Tourist Or Business Visa? Time & Entries
First and foremost let’s immediately debunk the myth: you do NOT need to have any business interest in Russia in order to obtain a business visa. The vast majority of travellers getting a business visa are actually visiting for travel purposes. Everyone knows that, it is perfectly legal and yet it is still unbelievably difficult to find any official information regarding the use of the business visa for travel purposes. Finally, here we come, with a bullet list to clear your doubts:
a) Like so many other things in Russia, the adjectival noun “business” is, in fact, just a label… there is no correlation whatsoever with its actual meaning.
b) You can legally use a business visa for travel purposes.
c) Both the tourist visa and the business visa require a so-called invitation to be obtained.
d) If you apply for a tourist visa your invitation will be issued by either the local travel agency you are booking your trip with or (if you are travelling independently) by a spurious travel agency the representatives of which you will never meet. If you have booked a tour with us, we will point you to a reliable online visa service or an equally trustworthy visa agency located not far from where you live.
e) If you apply for a business visa, no matter whether you are taking a guided tour or you opted for independent travel, your invitation will be issued by an equally spurious business entity, whose owners probably don’t even know what real business travel is.
f) There is, indeed, a shady invitation-market in Russia driven by more-or-less real entities indifferently issuing business or tourist support documents. The said entities (especially those issuing the business invitation) are almost invariably just shell companies whose only “business” is, in fact, providing “business” or “tourist” invitations to people (you) they will never meet. Of course, they don’t do that for free. Russian authorities are well aware of this practice but they have always turned a blind eye…
Ok, ok… stop! I got that. No need to give me such a deep insight into the dark side of Russian bureaucracy... I just need to know whether I need a tourist or business visa for God’s sake!
Sure… in light of what has been said above, the sole critical factors that shall drive your decision on the type of visa you need are: 1) the planned length of your stay, 2) the planned number of entries into the country.
IF YOU PLAN TO STAY 30 DAYS OR LESS AND ENTRY/EXIT RUSSIA NO MORE THAN TWO TIMES, YOU SHALL APPLY FOR A TOURIST VISA.
IF YOU PLAN TO STAY MORE THAN 30 DAYS AND ENTRY/EXIT RUSSIA MORE THAN TWICE OR IF YOU WISH TO BE FLEXIBLE AND GO BACK AND FORTH TO/FROM RUSSIA OVER AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME THEN YOU SHALL APPLY FOR A BUSINESS VISA.
Where to apply?
So now that you have understood how this bizarre invitation bazaar works, you will probably want to know how to go forth.
Let’s be straight and clear: since we are not a Russia-based company, we are not able to provide an invitation under our firm’s name. If you found a non-Russian tour operator pretending it can issue an invitation for you… well they are basically lying or rather they are not telling the full story. The truth, in fact, is that they are gonna buy your invitation from one of those shell companies mentioned above and then resell it to you for a higher price. We, at Soviet Tours, have no interest at all in making profits with visas and invitations. We prefer to leave the scraps of the paltry visa trade to our competitors and rather focus on our unique journeys across and beyond the former USSR. This, of course, also means that the following advices are equally pertinent both to the independent travellers and to those booking a tour with us.
STEP 1 - BUY AN INVITATION: once you know which kind of visa you need, the first thing you shall do is to apply for an invitation. Your best bet will be to use the services of a specialised visa agency. Independent travellers can google for a visa service in their proximities or just apply online at one of the many virtual visa agencies to be found on the web (such as WaytoRussia). If you have booked a tour with us, we will point you to a reliable online visa service or an equally trustworthy visa agency located not far from where you live.
STEP 2 - APPLICATION FORM, HEALTH INSURANCE & MORE: the invitation is not the only document you need to obtain a Russian visa. Besides the obvious application form, two passport-sized photos and the passport itself, you also need an health insurance cover for the whole length of your Russian sojourn. You can buy that from your usual insurer, take one online (that’s cheapest way) or ask the visa agency to get one for you (but they’ll add a commission fee for the service). Sometimes (especially if applying for a so-called business visa) you might also be asked to provide a bank and/or credit card statement and an hotel booking at least for the first couple of nights. The application form can be found everywhere online, but you shall download it from the official webpage of your local Russian consulate/embassy, as there might be minor variations from form to form according to the country you will apply for your visa in. If you delegated the entire visa procedure to a visa agency, they will surely email you the correct application form. Please note: in the application form there is a section where they will ask you for the cities you intend to visit in Russia. This is, once again, just a formality. No one really checks the list and once you get your Russian visa you can travel (almost) everywhere around the country without even visiting once the cities you mentioned in the application as their names are not transcribed in the actual visa. Hence, if you intend to visit unusual places (such as mountainous Ingushetia) there is no need to mention that in the application form and raise unnecessary suspiciousness.
STEP 3 - CONSULATE APPOINTMENT OR VISA COURIER: once you have gathered the documents listed above you just need to finalise your application either with a personal appointment at your local Russian consulate or by mailing them the paperwork (mailing without “e”, that is per old fashioned post or Fedex). If applying through a visa agency, they will take care of the correspondence with the consulate. On that note, we suggest you to pay a couple of bucks more to your visa agency and free your mind from the hassle of having to communicate with an invariably obtuse embassy clerk.
STEP 4 - НИ ПУХА НИ ПЕРА! “Neither fluff nor feather” say the Russians to wish you Good Luck!