Travel visas

Iryna Rasko / Shutterstock.com

• Know the visa requirements for all destination countries — Find out well in advance what the entry requirements are for all the countries you want to visit. Do not assume any right of entry just because you have a rich country passport.
• Make sure you get the correct type of travel visa — A “tourist” visa (also called “visitor visa” or “temporary residence visa”) may not be correct for some travelers. There are transit visas, student visas, business visas, research visas, journalist visas, retirement visas and more.
• Get the number of entries right — Check your proposed itinerary and figure out whether you need single, double or multiple entry.
• How long can you stay on the visa? Can it be renewed without leaving? — Visas have standard maximum days of duration. You cannot exceed that stay without penalty, but some countries allow you to extend your visa. Others require you to leave and get a new one.
• Get visa information only from the most credible sources — Be careful where you get visa information, since requirements can change overnight. Don’t rely on travel agents. Even government websites are sometimes slow to update. Airlines seem to keep the best information.

Travel visas are legal documents issued by national governments, usually as a stamp or sticker in your passport, but sometimes as a separate paper. The visa indicates that the government grants you conditional permission to enter the country.

It is not a guarantee of entry. At the border or airport, you could be denied entry for any number of reasons, justified or not. Fortunately, a visa is almost always good enough to get you in.

The challenge is to get the visa in the first place. They vary in type, difficulty and cost. Most independent travelers will need a simple “tourist” or “temporary residence” visa. But even those can be single or multiple entry. They vary in time between issuance and entry to the country and the duration of your stay. 

Many governments seem quite reluctant to let you in to meet the people, appreciate the culture and spend money. Saudi Arabia doesn’t even have a tourist or temporary residence visa.

For “tourists,” there are really just two issues. First, what passport are you carrying? They want to assess whether you’re an economic migrant or not. So good luck to those of you holding passports from middle and poor countries. Second, they want to know that you have enough money to support yourself. That’s hard to establish these days, when everyone uses debit and credit cards, but coming from a rich country is a proxy for wealth.

Finally, you have to jump through ALL the hoops a government puts in front of you. You must be complete and accurate or you might fail to get that precious visa.

A visa is not a guarantee of entry

In addition to the visa, you may have to show:

• Proof of onward passage — You may asked to show tickets to ensure you leave the country before the visa expires. That can be difficult for independent travelers with flexible plans. If you might face this requirement, you can:
  • Buy a fully refundable (expensive) ticket before you are scheduled to arrive, then cancel the ticket once you’re in. Be very sure of the refund conditions on this ticket, as you don’t want to be stuck with it.
  • Rent a ticket for USD 9.99 from www.flyonward.com. This will give you a real ticket to use for crossing borders.
  • Fake it. Create a booking at an OTA for a flight that leaves on the last day you are allowed to be in the country. Do not complete the purchase. Get as far as the confirmation page, copy all the flight details and paste them into a blank document. Make sure there’s nothing on the page to indicate that the booking is not complete and print a hard copy. This is not a true booking, of course, so there’s always a risk you’ll be caught.
  • If you’re leaving over a land border, it might be difficult or impossible to get legitimate bus or train tickets, even if you were prepared to commit to a date. But you could show accommodation bookings for the country next door, starting the day you are required to leave the country.
• An address for your accommodation in the country — If you are following our methodology, you will already have the booking for (at least) your first night’s stay. That’s usually enough. If you want to appear a little more upscale, you can book a nice hotel prior to travel, print the confirmation, then cancel the booking
• An International Certificate of Vaccination — Some countries require proof that you’re vaccinated against a disease that they’re battling.
• Evidence of sufficient funds to support yourself — This is almost never requested now that everyone travels with debit and credit cards. That said, there are still rare reports of immigration officers asking for such evidence. A securely stored pdf of a reasonably recent bank statement should do. Make sure it shows not just your low-balance debit card account, but the savings account where the bulk of your travel money is kept.

Ultimately, an immigration officer can decide whether or not to give you a hard time. In some countries, the officer may be fishing for a bribe or just not like the look of you. Have all your documents ready. Be cleanly groomed and dressed, confident, polite, but not overly friendly.

While there is little risk of refusal from some countries, do not prepay expenses for transportation, accommodation or experiences in countries requiring a visa in advance until your visa is granted.

Do you need a travel visa?

Even if you have a Henley Friendly passport and can gain access to most countries visa free or with a visa-on-arrival, do not make any assumptions. if your passport is not Henley Friendly, you’ll need a visa-in-advance for many countries.

 All the visa issues in these bullet points are discussed in detail lower on the page.

• Make a list of your destination countries — List the countries you plan to visit and the ones that you might visit.
• Find out the requirements for entry for each one — Based upon your passport and the purpose and duration of your proposed visit, find out if a visa is needed. If so, what are the requirements and conditions (see below). It’s important to be thorough and read all the fine print on each one or you could run into visa trouble en route.
• Plot your trip on a calendar and plan your visas —  List your countries in expected order and estimate how long you want to stay in each one. If you’ve used our guidelines for planning your trip duration, you’ll have a pretty good idea how many days you’ll need. Be sure to give yourself adequate contingency time in addition to time spent on core experiences. Does the visa you want for Country X provide for enough days to cover the duration of your expected visit? If not, can the visa be extended in-country?
• Create a calendar of approximate entry and exit dates — Some visas are valid for only a short time after they are issued. For example, suppose the visa for Country X is valid for entry up to 90 days after it is issued. If you don’t plan to arrive at Country X for six months, you’ll have to get the visa while traveling. 
• Learn the broad requirements for each country — (Info sources below.)
  • Visa-free.
  • Visa-on-arrival.
  • Visa in advance, obtained in a third country (usually neighboring capital).
  • Visa in advance from your home country only.
  • Visa requiring an official invitation. 
• Make any adjustments to your travel plans — Your research may suggest that you change the order of countries in your itinerary. This could be due to short visa validity for a country near the end of your trip. Or it could be because your existing itinerary would require a multiple entry visa for one of the countries.

Where to find accurate visa information

You need accurate up-to-date information on travel visa requirements, because getting them wrong can cause costly delays or even block you entirely from visiting a country.

Visa requirements are specific to your nationality and the reasons you want to visit the country. Requirements change, often with no announcement and for reasons known only to the foreign bureaucrats who create them.

Project Visa

Project Visa is your first stop. It offers accessible visa information and links directly to government sources of information. Every country page is dated, so be sure to check. Visa rules change without notice, so the older the date stamp, the more important to check alternative sources of information.

Project Visa is volunteer run. Your donation helps keep them going. 

IATA Timatic database

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) collects passenger travel requirements on behalf of its member airlines and makes the information accessible through a searchable database called Timatic. If a country’s immigration service rejects an airline passenger because the passenger has insufficient documentation, the airline has to take him back to where he came from. This is a costly hassle for the airlines, so Timatic allows an airline to check entry requirements for any nationality of passenger trying to enter any country. The database simply must to be up-to-date and accurate.

Go to the Timatic consumer portal and enter your details. 

It does not ask your name or anything personal. If you cannot access Timatic through this IATA site, try the pages on KLM or United Airlines that give you Timatic access.

There’s also a workaround to get the information you need from Timatic:

• Web search — Do a search for, “visa requirements for citizens of [your country].” Example: “visa requirements for  citizens of Ireland”.
• Choose result — Pick the Wikipedia page from the results — this page gets most of its data from Timatic. The page nicely presents the results in a map and table, so you can get an overview for your visa requirements anywhere in the world — your entire trip at a glance. Caution: do not assume that the map and table are kept entirely up to date.
• Go down the table to your destination country and click the footnote link — At the bottom of the page, click on the external link — it goes to the page for your nationality in that destination country in the Timatic database.
• Check the Timatic page — These pages are date stamped to the minute, so you know the information is current. And they state clearly the entry requirements you need to know. There are other links on that page that may also be useful.

Government web pages

It’s always a good idea not to rely on a single source for something as important as travel visa requirements. The obvious authoritative source should be the web page of the very institution empowered to grant your visa — the government of your destination country. Unfortunately, not all government websites are very user-friendly and some are not updated promptly when the rules change, so your results may vary.

Example: you want to know the travel visa requirements for Mozambique.

• If you search for “government of mozambique visa,” you won’t find any government site in the results.
• If you search, “government of mozambique,” you’ll find the main portal, but it’s entirely in Portuguese, with no parallel site in English. You can get Google to translate it for you, only to discover that there’s no page at all on visa requirements.
• Check the Mozambique embassy accredited to your country. That embassy may be in a neighboring country — for Canadians, for example, the Mozambique embassy in Washington, DC is accredited to Canada. The embassy should have visa instructions in your language.
• If that fails, you will have to rely on Timatic.

Keep in mind that even government websites may not be up to date and accurate. Small and poor nations may not update their websites as often as they should, so a change in visa requirements may not appear for a period after issuance. The websites of companies contracted by national governments to manage the front end of visa processing can be notoriously inaccurate. Do not rely on them.

Do not use

These sources are potentially unreliable or at least out-of-date.

• Travel agents — Do not rely on travel agents to get it right, especially foreign travel agents who may not be aware of conditions affecting your nationality. They usually consult some of the same sources as you can yourself, but you won’t know whether they’re being diligent.
• Government tourist websites — Be careful of government tourist websites for your destination country, since they are yet one more step removed from the immigration policy-makers and may not present up-to-date information.
• Any printed information outside an embassy or high commission — The origin and date of the information may not be known.

Visa conditions

This stuff is critical — read the fine print in the IATA Timatic and government information.

Visa free, electronic travel authorization, visa-on-arrival or visa-in-advance

• Visa free — An increasing number of countries will let you in with just your passport — they may not even stamp it.
• Visa-on-arrival — Other countries will grant you a visa when you show up at the airport or border. It’s almost as easy as an entry stamp.
• Visa-in-advance — If your passport is not Henley Friendly, even countries that grant visas-on-arrival to many travelers could require that you get your visa in advance. Other countries (here’s looking at you, Australia) require a visa in advance for almost everyone.
  • Some less hospitable countries will not permit you to get a visa in a third country — you must apply for your visa at their embassy in your home country. The worst of them even require you to make a personal appearance. So, if you’re a Russian from Vladivostok, you have to go all the way to Moscow to get a South African visa. If you’re Chinese from Guangdong, you have to go all the way to Beijing.
  • Hyper-restrictive countries may allow you in only as part of a tour group or if you have a local sponsor (usually an organization) willing to vouch for you. If you choose to go by tour — few independent travelers do because of the restricted movement and high expense — the tour company will probably handle your visa for you.
• Electronic travel authorization — A few countries have introduced an “Electronic Travel Authorization.” It applies mainly to air travelers and not those arriving by land or sea. Unfortunately, the “eTA” is really a re-introduction of the visa-in-advance, since you need to obtain it before you travel and many of the detailed information requirements for a visa-in-advance re-appear in the eTA. It’s sole benefit for travelers is that many can apply for the eTA online. Even that benefit is missing for other travelers, who must process the application through a travel agent, airline or visa office of the destination country. A modest fee applies and the resulting eTA is usually valid for 1 to 5 years. 

Keep in mind that, even if you’re eligible for visa free or visa-on-arrival access, there are still benefits to getting your visas in advance, at least for any country with difficult visa requirements. The main one is that uncertainty about visas is removed. If your application for a visa-on-arrival is denied, you have no choice but to turn back to where your journey originated that day — and maybe that country needs a new visa from you, too. If there are any difficulties with a visa-in-advance application, at least you’re sitting comfortably at home with some time to solve the problem.

Single, double or multiple entry

For most trips, you’ll only need to enter a country once. But sometimes, you will need to enter more than once, especially if you need to travel through the country to reach your next destination. For example, if you enter China and make your way down to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong is considered an exit. To get back in to China, you need a double entry visa. If you then wander through China over to Macau, you’re leaving again and would need a multiple entry visa to get back into China.

• Transit through an airport might count as a single entry — If the country requires transit visas for travelers with your passport, simply passing through an airport en route to a third country may count as an entry. So, if you’ve already visited or intend to visit, you’ll need a double or multiple entry visa.
• Any other conditions on multiple entry? — There may be other conditions, too, such as a minimum period between entries. At one time, India required two months between entries, greatly complicating visits to Nepal or Sri Lanka.
• Cost — Multiple entry visas almost always cost more than single entry ones.

Validity (enter before) dates

There are TWO date ranges to note. The first one is the time between date of issue and your entry into the country.

• Beware short validity periods — Many countries will let you use your visa up to a year or more after it is issued. The United States gives multiple entry visas up to 10 years in validity. However, some less welcoming countries may grant validity for as few as 30 – 90 days. Make sure your travel plans will get you there before your visa expires. 
• Specific dates — Some comparatively closed countries will grant only specific dates that may be associated with an arranged visit. You cannot arrive before the entry validity date and you cannot leave after the exit date, but you can arrive after the entry date and leave before the exit date. If you are looking at this type of visa, try to arrange the validity to start a few days before your scheduled arrival and end a week or so after your scheduled departure. This helps accommodate any flexibility in your arrival dates or deal with problems you encounter inside the country that slow you down.
• Staying in-country beyond the visa expiry date — Validity usually means that you can enter at any time up to the expiry date and stay the normal duration, even if that is beyond the expiry date of the visa. You need to be sure about this — for some countries, the expiry date of the visa is also the last day you can be in the country.

Duration of stay upon entry

The second date range is the maximum duration of your visit after you enter the country. For “tourists” the maximum duration is standard, often 30, 60 or 90 days. If your passport is not Henley Friendly, you may be given a shorter duration. Some visas allow you to split your time — Schengen allows you 90 days in any 180 calendar period.

• If asked, always request the maximum — When you’re filling out a visa form, pay attention to your answer when asked how long your visit will be. If you thought you would be there for two weeks and write “14 days”, you may get a 14-day visa. Study the government visa information and know what the maximum duration of visit is for your type of visa and state that duration, just in case you love the place and 14 days turns into 30.
• Exact dates — There are more restrictive regimes, too, where the validity dates and duration of stay dates are the same. These visas give you a precise entry and exit date, although you may arrive after the stated entry date and leave before the exit date.

Extendability

All too often, long-term travelers fall in love with a country and want to stay longer. Will it require excessive effort and cost?

• Get a longer visa — If the conventional visa allows only a short stay and you think you’ll want to stay longer, the simplest solution is to get a visa that allows a longer stay. This option may not be available and will almost always cost more, but it’s much less hassle than spending time and effort dealing with bureaucracy, possibly traveling to different city just to get an extension.
• Do not overstay — Some travelers just lose track of their exit deadlines. In some countries, that’s no big deal — as long as you don’t overstay too long, you just pay a fine upon exit. But don’t assume this will work. You can end up in a swamp of trouble from overstaying even a single day.
• Simple extension — Friendly countries may require you to visit an immigration office and pay a fee for an extension. Such extensions may be as long as your original entry permit, but are often shorter.
• Leave and come back — In some countries where you can get a visa-on-arrival, you have to go to the border, exit and come back.
• Leave, wait, re-apply — Yet other countries don’t allow the border run. You have to leave, apply for an entirely new visa at their embassy in an neighboring country and then return. Sometimes, there’s a mandatory waiting time between visits.

Special documents

There are unexpected requirements that some countries put on their visas. They can be found only by diligent reading of ALL the travel visa requirements. For example, at time of writing, if you want to take a child under 18 into South Africa, you need to carry the child’s original birth certificate with both parent’s names on it. If both parents are not on the trip, you need an affidavit no more than 4 months old from the non-traveling parent granting permission. Alternatively, you need original legal documents proving sole custody or guardianship.

Types of visa

What is the purpose of your visit? For most travelers, it will be “visitor” or “tourist.” Beyond that, things can get complicated.

• Tourist / visitor / temporary residence — There are several names for the same type of visa. This is the one most used by travelers, as it is intended for visits that exclude any of the categories below (except transit).
• Transit — You may be required to have a transit visa simply to pass through a country on your way to somewhere else. While some countries won’t require it if you remain in the international transfer area of an airport, the United States is notorious for requiring a transit visa even for that.
  • If your passport is from a rich country, you probably won’t need a transit visa for most countries. If you carry a passport that is not Henley Friendly, it’s much more likely that you’ll need one.
  • Transit visas must be obtained in advance. They are not issued upon arrival.
  • Proof of onward transport is sometimes required before you fly into the country or cross a land border.
  • You will usually be limited to a 24 hour stay.
  • Always check long enough in advance, so that, should you require it, you have time to obtain it.
  • Given the time, trouble and expense, you might consider alternative routing so that you don’t transit that country at all.
• Business — Most countries are quite welcoming to business people, although application procedures are more complicated and costs are higher.
  • Some countries want to see an invitation from a domestic business, establishing that a business purpose exists.
  • Many business people, especially before any commercial relationships are established, travel on visitor visas. However, this can get you into difficulties if your true purpose becomes known.
• Study — You need to have an acceptance letter from a government-approved institution to get a study visa. They are timed to match the school year.
• Work — All countries don’t want you taking a job from a local person, so you need a very good reason to qualify for a work visa. There are special cases, such as teaching English, where demand outstrips supply in many countries. There are also special visas for young travelers to take low-end work in countries like Australia.
• Retirement — Many countries understand that retirees come to stay for a long time and spend lots of money to do so. They are a clear economic benefit for the country receiving them. For that reason, there is a special category for retirees to get long-term residence. Note that you may have to prove a stream of income and private health care.
• Immigration — Immigration is a complex process, with many unique requirements country-by-country. It is beyond the scope of this website to get in to the details.
• Journalist, film making or research — Many countries reserve a special place in hell for journalists, film makers and researchers. They’re suspicious of your motives and what you might find and publicize that will put the country or its leadership in a bad light. If you declare yourself to be one of these foreign devils, you can expect many bureaucratic hoops, extra costs, delays and restrictions.
• Diplomatic or foreign government employee — If you are traveling on a diplomatic passport, you still have diplomatic protocols to observe, even when entering a third country for tourism purposes. Many governments are suspicious of travelers with links to governments, especially membership (or ex-membership) in a foreign military. International organizations are also subject to scrutiny, depending upon the activities the organization pursues. Organizations engaged in advocacy work, especially human rights, often run into visa obstacles.

Applying for a travel visa

The government of your destination country wants to know who you are and why you want to enter. Almost all governments approve of tourists, who are visiting only temporarily. But the visa for tourists (also called “visitor” or “temporary residence”) is often abused by economic migrants and others who are not tourists. So, what should be a simple application can become complicated.

Where to apply

There are three places to apply, although not all three are available for all visas.

• Visa-in-advance at the country’s diplomatic post in your home country — You sit comfortably at home and apply for visas one after the other from the embassies or high commissions of the countries in your itinerary. Not only will you reduce the risk of having a visa refused, you also will not waste precious travel time getting visas while on the road.
  • If a destination country does not have an embassy, consulate or high commission in your country, it will have one accredited to your country in another country nearby.
  • For some restrictive countries, getting a visa in your home country (or their embassy in a neighboring country accredited to your country) is the only option. They will not allow you to apply from a third country or at the border.
  • You must ensure that you are not getting a visa so far in advance that it is no longer valid when you show up at the airport or border.
• Visa-in-advance at the country’s diplomatic post in a third country — If you haven’t decided in advance where your journey will take you, then you may have to get visas while on the road. Except for the restrictive countries cited above, you should be able to apply at any embassy or high commission of your destination country. However, you’ll most often do it in a neighboring country not long before your intended arrival date in the visa country.
  • Even if there’s an embassy or high commission, you need to be sure that they will accept visa applications from “tourists” of your nationality. If you have a passport that’s not Henley Friendly, they may not.
  • Apply as far in advance as you can. Don’t time it so that you expect your visa a day or two before scheduled departure from the city. If there’s any delay issuing your visa, your departure could also be delayed.
  • Diverting to a capital city to get a visa, then waiting there for it, may put a crimp in your travel. The capital of a larger country might be quite far away from where you are. Do you want to go all the way to Brasilia from Rio, to Canberra from Queensland or to Pretoria from Cape Town, just to get a visa? Furthermore, some capital cities are pretty boring and you wouldn’t spend time there if you weren’t getting a visa. It may be possible to get a visa by sending your application via courier, but some governments won’t accept an application that way from a foreigner with no residential address in the country.
  • Since the embassy would normally have to issue the visa within a day or two, it doesn’t have the time for deeper screening of your application. Consequently, the visa may be valid for a shorter duration than a visa granted from the embassy in your home country.
  • While you’re waiting, you will not have your passport with you. While you can carry photocopies, hotels in some countries and government officials in pretty much all of them will want to see your passport. So, while your visa is being processed, you might be limited in what you can do and where you can go.
• Visa-on-arrival at an international airport, land border or sea port — Many countries will issue you a visitor visa-on-arrival, if you have a Henley Friendly passport.
  • If you carry a passport lower on the Henley Index, a visa-on-arrival may not be available and you’ll have to apply in advance. 
  • There is no guarantee that you will receive a visa-on-arrival. Even if you hold the best passport in the world, you may be refused if you don’t have other supports, such as proof of onward transportation.
  • Any other type of visa — student, business, working etc. — will not be available on arrival and must be applied for in advance.

The key is to know, at least approximately, what countries you want to visit and when. Then check their application process. It makes sense to collect all the difficult ones in advance. Others may be easy to get during your travels.

Processing time

There’s a big difference between applying in person and applying via courier. Applying in person, notably from a neighboring country, can often be completed while you wait or in just a day or two… or sometimes much longer. Applying from afar, using couriers, will usually take at least a week and often much longer.

• Apply before you leave home — It’s usually easier to apply for visas from home, with plenty of lead time before departure. This is especially true for countries with difficult requirements. You may not get everything right on the first try.

• Short visa validity — Some visas are valid the day they’re issued and the clock is running. Others require you to be at the airport or border within 30 days, 90 days or 10 years. You can’t get a visa too far in advance if it will expire before you arrive. If one of your visas will cramp your timing, get it last.
• Fees — Applying from home will be more costly because of courier fees. Further, some countries charge more for a visa obtained in your home country than they charge walk-in applicants at their embassies in third countries. 

• Processing times — If you apply in person, the immigration official will tell you when to return. If you have to apply from a distance via courier (don’t use regular mail!), timing is much less certain.
  • The more restrictive your destination country or the lower your passport on the Henley Index, the longer it will take to get your visa. Don’t underestimate how obstructive bureaucracy can be. They may have your passport for a month or more.
  • If your passport is from a country that grants passports to its citizens without rigorous identity and security checks, or if your country is infamous for bureaucratic corruption, the visa-issuing embassy might want to contact your embassy to establish that your passport is genuine. That could take a very long time.
• Rush service — If you’re in a rush, some countries offer “expedited” service for a higher fee. If available, this service may not be offered on their website, so it makes sense to ask. If you’re submitting the application in person, embassy staff for some countries might expect a bribe to speed up or even guarantee your visa. DO NOT offer!

How to fill out a visa application

Most countries have clear and generous travel visa requirements, so filling out an application, whether on arrival or in advance, is no big deal. However, less-welcoming countries can throw various barriers and traps to limit who can visit, how long they can visit and how much it will cost for entry permission. The fact that they’re making it difficult means that someone is paying attention to your answers on the form.

Sometimes, the form may not have a provision for all the important details. For example, there may not be anywhere on the form to show that you’re a permanent resident in a rich country — a status that can ease visa restrictions on passports low in the Henley Index.

Read the application carefully and make sure to get it right.

Both visa-on-arrival and visa-in-advance have forms to fill out, although the visa-on-arrival may be quite brief. You can improve your chances for approval and staying as long as you wish by knowing what to say and what not to say on your application.

• Type of visa — In most cases, you will want a single-entry tourist visa (also called “visitor” or “temporary residence”). However, if there’s a chance you will want to exit the country and return within the validity period, you could consider a double or multiple entry visa.
• Citizenship — There’s no way around stating your citizenship, but, if you are a dual citizen, then you should already have checked the visa requirements for both.
  • Citizens from Henley Friendly countries (rich countries) have visa-free access to more countries than those further down the Henley rankings. However, if you have an unfortunate passport but are a permanent resident of a rich country, you may no longer be so constrained. For example, if you’re a Philippine citizen, you require a visa to visit Jamaica. But if you’re also a permanent resident of Canada, then you can travel to Jamaica visa free. If there’s no place for such information on the apply-in-advance visa application, it can’t hurt to attach a photocopy of the document that establishes your status in a rich country.
• Reason for your visit — Whether a check box or a written response, your reason is “tourism.” There’s no reason to say anything else unless you are really intending to do business, study, work or some other activity that requires another type of visa. Don’t get creative!
• Occupation — Be careful with this one. A harmless occupation is best — manager, teacher, builder, student.
  • If you have any ties to the military, police or other type of government office at home, never say so. Some countries are very sensitive about these occupations and may deny your visa.
  • If you say you’re a journalist, film-maker or researcher, you may not be eligible for a tourist visa, since there are often special, more restrictive visas for these professions, whether you’re practicing it in the destination country or not.
  • The same goes for religious occupations, if your religion is not the majority one in the destination country, as you might be suspected of trying to convert the locals.
• Religion — This is another loaded question, usually asked by countries who are cautious about “rival” religions.
  • If the question is not mandatory, don’t answer it.
  • Try to avoid admitting to a “rival” religion. You can stand up for your beliefs, but there may be consequences. For example, stating that you’re Jewish in the visa application of many Muslim countries will draw special scrutiny, since many of these same countries prohibit entry to all Israelis. A Jew may not hold an Israeli passport or even sympathize with Israel, but suspicion and mistrust remain. Due to recent events, many Muslims are getting a second look at immigration, too.
  • Most travelers holding Western passports (except for some visible minority citizens) are assumed to be Christian and it’s often worth it to confirm that assumption and check the box. Devout religious people of any faith often regard non-religious people (especially declared atheists) as immoral and worthy of suspicion.
• Duration of proposed stay — Specify the maximum number of days allowed in the visa category (you need to know this in advance). If you don’t, the official may give you exactly the (lesser) number of days you specified.
• Address in country — Since any visitor (except a “fly and flop” resort tourist) may be expected to move around the country, it’s strange that this question is asked. If you don’t have longer term pre-arranged accommodation, state the name and address of your first night hotel. For a visa-in-advance, you can even make a hotel booking before submitting your visa application and then cancel it once the visa is issued. If you don’t intend to keep the booking, you might as well make it for a well-known upscale hotel in your city of arrival.
• Health — Countries are sensitive about contagious disease and seek to bar admission to anyone who could be considered a health risk. If you really are sick with something nasty, don’t deny it, but don’t set yourself up for rejection by listing any ailment.
  • Such contagions as Ebola, SARS, Yellow fever and drug-resistant Tuberculosis are cause for alarm. If you’re coming from countries where these are prevalent, you may have to prove that you’re healthy. In a worst case scenario, you could be rejected or even quarantined.
  • It used to be that HIV-positive persons were widely banned and testing results mandatory. That has much reduced in recent years, but there are still countries who (technically at least) ban HIV-positive people from entry. Check for up-to-date information.
• Criminal record — States regularly bar anyone with a criminal record. No politician (or immigration officer) ever lost his job for being tough on crime, so there’s often a disproportionate reaction to criminal records for things like marijuana possession or criminal mischief. More reasonable countries will limit the ban to crimes in recent years that drew a prison sentence of, say, 12 months or more.
  • Unless you’re a seriously bad criminal on an international database, a foreign government is not going to know about your record. If you’re not a risk to yourself and others, you can fudge your answer here. Don’t confess that you were convicted of criminal mischief in 1983. If you do, the official could be duty-bound to deny you entry.

Photos

For a visa-on-arrival, you may have your photo taken at the immigration booth, but for a visa-in-advance, you will need to supply at least one photo and more commonly two.

• Ensure exact compliance — The application will tell you the dimensions of the photo, whether color or black & white (or either), how much of the frame should be your face, whether or not you can wear eyeglasses, what color of backdrop is acceptable and maybe other conditions. Do not compromise. Many is the traveler whose application was rejected simply because of an “incorrect” photo.
• Date and source — Photos are supposed to be recent, often no more than 6 months old. Sometimes, the name of the photographer is also required. Passport photographers are accustomed to this, will stamp the reverse side of your prints and date them.
• Extra photos — Check on the visa requirements of any other destinations to find out whether photos are required and get them made at the same time. Again, make sure they comply with the guidelines for each country. It’s a good idea to carry at least two spare photos. They may be needed for a visa extension, a permit to enter a restricted zone, a driver’s license or the visa of a country you hadn’t planned to visit.

Fees

Governments charge fees to defray the cost of visa administration. Governments of poor countries will also charge reciprocal visa fees — if your country charges $100 for a visa to nationals of Country X, then Country X may charge $100 for you. Poor countries with popular tourist attractions, such as Kenya, charge a big fee to earn revenue for the treasury.

• Visa free — Visa free entry is also cost free.
• Visa-on-arrival — These may be free or come with a fee not usually more than $50. 
• Visa-in-advance — These always have a fee, sometimes $70, $100 or more. Fees may vary, though, depending upon where you apply. For example, at time of writing, a Vietnam visa in Thailand cost more than the same visa acquired in Cambodia. For some reason, visas acquired in your home country are often more expensive than those acquired from the country next door to your destination.
• Electronic Travel Authority — These pseudo-visas are $20 or less.

Usually, the fee amount is clear. Seek out current printed information, especially at airports and border crossings, since immigration officers in some disreputable countries have been known to put a “personal service fee” on top.

Some countries, such as the United States, tack on an additional fee to visa holders when they cross the border.

Payments are usually in hard currency. For a visa-on-arrival, USD cash is preferred, but more and more immigration services are accepting credit cards. Another corruption technique used by immigration officers in some countries is to fail to make correct change for hard currency banknotes, so “Viva Plastic!”

Some countries issue receipts for payment, while others regard the visa itself as proof of payment. If you are issued a receipt in a poor country, keep it handy. Sometimes there is a checkpoint before you leave the airport or border where you will be asked to produce the receipt. This is a good thing — the country is trying to dampen corruption.

When to use a visa processing service

The more complex the visa application process, the more you might consider a visa service with experience dealing with your destination country. Commercial visa processing services have no formal influence with the issuing authority, but they do know the rules and may also know the people.

You still must know your itinerary and dates before you engage the company. When you hire them, they will provide you with the forms, instruct you how to fill them out, check that you have done them correctly, then take the forms, photographs, supporting documents and payment to the embassy or consulate. When the visa is issued, they will pick up your passport and send it back to you.

Apart from the visa fee charged by the destination country government, the visa processing company will charge a fee (commonly $60 – $100). There are also courier costs that you would still have to incur if your applied yourself.

Some situations may make a visa processing service even more helpful.

• Rush visas — If you need a visa in a hurry and therefore need a smooth and trouble-free application process, a visa service can help. This is especially the case if you need more than one visa in a short amount of time.
• For countries with highly restrictive visa requirements — Countries that are sensitive about visitors create difficult visa application processes. Russia, China, Iran and many others can be difficult, especially if you’re not traveling with a tour company. A visa processing firm should know about those sensitivities, where the obstacles are and how to overcome them.

Beware of fraudulent visa processing operations, many of them online. Use only well-established international companies or companies specifically mentioned by the destination government.