How to get A Russian Visa in 10 “Easy” steps

Getting a Russian visa sounds quite daunting. It is one of the only countries Americans need to get a visa in advance, requiring exact entrance and exit dates and paying through the nose for the privilege. The most intimidating part is the need to be "invited" before you can enter the country.  This however turns out to be a complete scam. Any number of websites have been set up to print out your official form for a fee.  Moreover, any hotel or travel agency you book a room, a tour or a ticket with can also send you this form, sometimes for free. So that is the least of your concerns.  Another Big Brother move is the requirement that you officially register with the government once you arrive in Russia but your hotel will do that for you automatically so easy peasy.

The biggest pain is you cannot simply go to the Russian consulate nearest you and request information. The Russian government has farmed out anything to do with visas to a website where theoretically you can do everything online and mail in your passport.  In practice this means there is no human being who will tell you exactly what you need and how to put it together.  Each regional office has its own variation of what the requirements are and you do not find out till you have submitted your application if you have in fact done it properly.  So, this post is a template what I did and what I would tell my husband or daughter or friend if they were an American applying for a Russian visa through the NYC office.

I personally preferred to print out the online application and physically bring it into their office even though that meant a 2 hour drive from Philly.  I used it as an excuse to see old friends and just felt more comfortable that way.  Just as well too since once I got there there were any number of small issues the agency had with my application and as far as I could see they found some problem with every other applicant in the office.  Since the problems could generally be resolved with an extra $25 "assistance" fee per application this might be another scam but at least I could talk it though with a real, live person.  

STEP BY STEP - WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

1. Find your passport 

• Make sure it is valid for 6 months after the trip.
• Make sure it has two empty pages. 

2. Make an appointment at "Invisa Logistics Services LLC" - this is the agency that handles all visas for Russia

• Go  to http://ils-usa.com and click on "make an appointment"
• Check that you are going to the right office - the NYC (not Washington D.C.) office handles all applicants from Pennsylvania for example.
• Select the date you think you will have all your stuff together by. You can always change the date later if you aren’t ready but you need a definite date for when you fill out the application.

3. Apply for a Letter of Invitation, otherwise known as LOI or “Visa Support letter”

• Go to http://www.gotorussia.com/visa_services_russia_support.htm  
• Choose which visa you need (I choose a single entry tourist visa). 
• It will cost $20 and be emailed to you in 24 hours.

• Don't bother springing for the guaranteed one hour delivery - all 3 of our letters were emailed to me within 20 minutes of ordering them with the regular $20 service.
• CAREFULLY check the spelling of your name.  My name was spelled Ainlav instead of Ainlay and the visa lady threw it out. Fortunately I just had to email gotorussia and they sent me a corrected form in less than 20 mins which I then emailed to the visa agency.

4. Fill out your visa application online   

• Go to https://visa.kdmid.ru/PetitionChoice.aspx 
  
• Print out your Visa Application reference number! You need it if you ever leave your page and want to go back to it or want to check it/print it out after you have finished.
  
• Have ready: your passport info, dates of travel, cities to visit & addresses of hotels in those cities, the reference number from your LOI. 
• Your LOI agent may have written out your cities and hotels in Russian on your letter so make sure they match the ones you are putting down on your application - the visa people don’t care where you are staying (you can visit anywhere you like once you are in Russia), they do care if they are not the same on the two forms.
• Always click on save draft as you go through the pages. 

• Fill out the application form and print it right away. Make sure you have your reference number before you leave the website!
• Don’t forget to sign it after you print it out.

5. Get a visa photo printed

• Go to http://www.ruscon.org/forms/PhotoSpecs.htm and  check the requirements for Russian visa photos.
  
• Attach it to your application.

6. Write up a cover letter stating your name, dates of travel and reason for your visit

7. Check that you have fulfilled all the visa requirements.

• Go to http://ils-usa.com/visa-Requirements/
• Anyone born outside the US but applying for a visa in a Russian consulate here has to show proof of a green card or US citizenship.
• Anyone traveling with a child but not with their spouse has to attach a copy of the spouse’s passport and the child’s birth certificate. On the website they say you don’t need this but when I turned up at the NYC office they said they always request this, go figure. 
• US citizen’s are not required to have proof of health or travel insurance (of course, like the above, this could change but at least in NYC, this was true)
• If you put your profession down as housewife, you do not have to show three months worth of bank statements.  If you put your profession down as “self employed,” you do.

8. Take all your documents and go to your appointment at Invisa 

• The address in NYC is 

80 Maiden Lane, 
Suite 302
NYC 10038
Tel  212-430-5990
E-mail: [email protected]

• Bring your Visa Fee in cash or money order.

• They will probably find something wrong with your application, but can generally fix it right in the office with a missing document added later via email or an extra charge added on (so bring extra cash). The Visa agents at Invisa were actually surprisingly nice. Get the email address of the agent you worked with just in case you have questions or problems later.

9. Return on the date they tell you to pick up your passport and visa

10.  Do a happy dance