Visa for Belarus
Visa for Belarus
Every EU citizen (or EU passport holder) can apply for visa in any EU country. Non-EU citizens (or non-EU passport holders) have to apply in their home country.
The are several requirements you have to meet to successfully apply for a (group) visa.
Documents required for a visa application:
- a duly completed visa application form;
- a photograph of yourself - size 35x45mm, full face, against a light background, photos older than 6 months are not accepted!);
- a foreign travel document (passport) - has to be valid for 90 days after the expected departure from Belarus;
- a medical insurance contract - with coverage in Belarus for a minimum of 10 000 EUR (You need a letter/email from your insurance company that states you are covered in Belarus for the dates you will be in the country. It is not enough to simply show your policy coverage. You will need to print this letter and send it with your application.);
- visa support documents (confirming the purpose of the visit);
- a confirmation of the paid consular fee.
To apply for a group visa the group must consist of at least 5 people and not more than 30 people.
The price of a group visa is 10 EUR per person. For an individual visa it is 60 EUR (people of some nationalities have the price lowered to as much as 25 EUR). Consular fees in Euro are listed here (in Russian): http://mfa.gov.by/upload/123/1.pdf
A consular office makes a decision about granting a visa within 5 working days (can be shortened to 2 working days for a higher/double price).
For a short term visa (type C) support documents confirming the purpose of the visit are required. There are 2 kinds of support documents: for tourism or for private purposes.
To get support documents for the purpose of tourism you need to ask:
- a Belarusian tourist company to send to the consulate (and a copy to us) an application with a commitment of the company that we will comply to the rules of stay in Belarus (here is an example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e1pgnxrreziyqdt/exampleinvitationfromtouristagency.pdf?dl=0 );
- a rural tourist business to send to the consulate an application with a stated purpose, period of stay and the services provided to us and a commitment of the company that we will comply to the rules of stay in Belarus.
To get support documents for the private purposes you need an original invitation issued by the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus.
For the purpose of tourism you can stay in Belarus for 30 days, for private purposes it is 90 days.
Registration
Police registration form
"Within 5 business days after arrival to Belarus visitors are required to visit the local police office (OGIM - Citizenship and Immigration Authority) and register at the apartment they are staying. You must visit it with the host of your apartment. Thereafter, local police authorities will put a registration stamp on the migration form (tiny little paper one half of which was torn out at the border), which will be attached to the visitor’s passport. If the visitor is staying in a hotel, the registration will be carried out directly upon check-in. This is the form that needed to be filled in and taken to the police in 2009."
After you enter Belarus you need to register at a place of your stay (hotel, recreational institution, farmstead) within 5 working days. After that you can roam the country freely for the next 4 days but on the 5th day you have to register again at a new place (or the place you stayed at before). The only way to circumvent this is if you get invited by a local, then you need to go to a registration office just once together with the host.
As a group you have to remember that the same people must enter and exit the country together. If you don't want to go all the way from border to border with the group, you must get an individual visa.
Links:
http://mfa.gov.by/en/visa/ Page of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus. Contains all the requirements for a visa application.
http://shantidom.by/visa/ Instructions for getting visas.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/belarus/travel-insurance
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g294447-s602/Belarus:Crossing.The.Border.html