How to Get a Chinese Tourist Visa from Abroad

How to Get a Chinese Tourist Visa from Abroad

— Update 7 Sep, 2016 —

 Thanks a blog reader who informed us about the change of the visa process. As of the end of August 2016, the embassy is not giving visas to foreigners not residents in Mongolia. There is a lof of people with interrupted travel plans wandering about Ulaanbaatar. They even canceled visas of some Swiss women who had already been granted the visas but had been out on a tour and didn’t collect them in time. No nationalities are getting visas – we’ve talked to Americans, French, Swiss, Italian, Israeli, and we’re Dutch. Be aware of that before coming and don’t plan on getting your visa here for the next little while at least. No one is quite sure why they’ve changed. Apparently, it’s also affecting other regional offices (such as Korea, Vietnam, and Hong Kong) so get very recent information before making plans.

— Original article —  

Getting a Chinese visa can be very easy, but many people find it difficult as the process is designed to confuse and make it difficult for the applicant.

I got my visa at the Chinese embassy in Ulaanbaatar but not before making multiple trips to the embassy after they rejected me twice.

Why is getting a Chinese Visa difficult and expensive?

It seems complicated because you have to answer a lot of questions and provide details about your trip long in advance which are difficult for independent travelers who don’t follow a fixed schedule. Who knows the exact dates of entering and leaving the country or the exact cities to visit? Who want to buy a flight ticket to China if they are not sure if they can enter the country. Who wants to book accommodation for the entire 30 days?

Asking people from the Chinese embassy makes it worse because they will confirm what you read online that you will need to provide all of the above. Also, your online research indicates that you need to apply in your home country. Obviously, travel agencies will confirm the complication to convince you to let them shoulder the burden for a fee which is not cheap.

The person at the Chinese embassy in Prague even shouted and hung up on me when I told her I couldn’t possibly know and arrange everything three months in advance. “No you need to provide all these things before we even look at your application.” she shot back at me.  Frustrated, I decided to do it later in Mongolia.

Why getting a Chinese Visa is Easy and Cheap

Who says you have to be truthful? The Chinese government doesn’t care when and how you enter the country or where you stay during your holiday. There is no specific entry and exit date on the visa. The only date is the date you have to enter by which is 3 months after the issue date and the validity of your visa, e.g. 30 days. So if your visa is issued on Jan 1st, you need to enter before April 1st or March X whichever metric used for 90 days, and you can stay up to 30 days. I’m not sure though if you enter on March 31st,  do you still have 30 days to stay which exceeds the April 1st deadline. Please double-check on this.

You can apply in a foreign country other than the country of your citizenship and residency (both applicable to me). In fact, it might be cheaper for passport holders from developed countries, e.g. western Europe, to apply outside their countries. After some research, I find 3 common fee structures: USA (highest), Others (lowest) and the citizens of the country where the embassy located (mid-range, a little more expensive than “Others”).

In Ulaanbaatar, nationalities other than Mongolian, Romanian and Americans pay only $30 for a single-entry visa while Mongolians pay $53. In Prague, “Others” pay €30 while Czechs pay €50. In the UK, “Others” pay 20 GBP will UK citizens pay 30 GBP. Americans pay the highest everywhere, at least $100. (Thank you politics!)

Must-have to apply for a Chinese Visa

1. Invitation letter: You can arrange with a travel agency. But pay no more than $15. If you know someone from China, you can ask them to send you an invitation letter (sample provided below). Make sure you get a signature from the person or the signature from the ‘inviter’ plus the stamp of the travel agency. The embassy personnel grilled me about the signature.

2. Flight reservation: You DO NOT need to book a flight or buy a train ticket to get in and out of China. Get an airline to send you a confirmation of the flight reservation for FREE. Tell them you will buy the ticket once you get your visa. Make sure to get a STAMP. Get this if you don’t fly unless you have a similar confirmation for your train for a bus ticket.

3. Hotel Booking: Book a hotel or a cheap hostel for the first 2, 3 nights in China. You lose a couple of dollars as a deposit. Most hostels in developing country don’t accept your credit card, thus can not charge if you don’t show up. Alternatively, you can just cancel them right after getting your booking confirmation.

4. Application form: Fill out every question. Use travel guides, travel websites to get the names, addresses and phone numbers of hostels/hotels in China. It doesn’t matter if you stay with them or not. But the first hotel you stay in China should match your booking confirmation.

After my last trip (4th) back to the embassy, the people there didn’t even look let alone read my application or hotel booking confirmation. They only checked for the invitation letter.

Note: Bear in mind that things change. There might be other requirements. Procedures and requirements vary from embassy to embassy for different passport holders. Even the same personnel in the same embassy can behave differently.

A sample invitation letter for a Chinese Visa

If you arrange for a letter with a person from China, make sure to get a copy of the inviter’s passport/id picture and his signature. That person must be a citizen or at least a resident.

If you arrange it with a travel agency, make sure you also get a signature (doesn’t need to be signed by the inviter) and a stamp from the company.

Below is my invitation letter

Visa Office
Chinese Embassy
[City of the Chinese embassy]

Subject: tourist visa for [your name] passport no. [passport no.]

Hello,
My name is [name] I.D [id no.].
I am living in [city in China] and I want to invite [you] [passport no.] to be my guest.
She will arrive from Ulaanbaatar to [city] by flight in [date] and will stay in China until [date, 30 days from arrival] and then she will take a flight from [city] to [country outside China].

[your name] schedule in China:

[date] arrive in [city x]
[date] [city x] city tour
[date] arrive in [city y]
[date] [city y] city tour
[date] arrive in [city z]
[date] [city z] city tour
[date] flight from [city z] to [country]

Please give her a tourist visa for 3o days immediately.
Thank you very much.
[inviter’s name]
My phone number is [inviter’s phone number]

You can read more on Chinese visa from this site.