Chinese Visa – UK Application

Posted on 02. Aug, 2010 by Kirsty in Planning

All of the Visa’s are sorted out by the Chinese Visa Application Service Centre. Their website is really easy to navigate and is full of useful information, including flow diagrams of how to apply and how long it will take. It is a very simple process all you need to do is fill in a two page form, with all the basics including name, occupation and where you are planning to go.

There seems to be two sticking points however that may make the process a bit more tricky, if you are a journalist or you want to travel to Tibet. Both of these may result in being called in for an Interview so best to avoid if possible.

There are a range of visas that you can apply for but the one for us was of course ‘tourist’. We could either apply for a 30 day single entry visa or a 60 day double entry and seeing as we’re not quite sure how long we are plan on being in China, we could have been cutting it fine with just 30 days. Also remembering we planned on visiting Hong Kong before entering back into China, the double entry visa was definitely the one for us.

Creative Commons: Max Braun

There are two main ways you can apply for your visa:

Via post

This is the option we went for and found it very simple. All of the necessary documents are easily found on the website along with information on how to go about filling them in. Once you have filled in your application form, a payment authorisation form and completed your checklist, you simply send it all off by recorded delivery and your done. All that’s left is wait to receive your passport complete with visa back in the post.

The website advises that applying by post can take between 5 – 14 days, however we got it bang on the five mark which makes it just as quick as applying direct to the centre. The only negative of applying by post is that it cost us £30 more. £20 more in administration fees and £10 to send it via special delivery.

Direct to the centre

You can apply for either standard or express service in the centre depending on your needs. The express will give you a visa in three days and is £15 more expensive and the standard will give you a visa in four. You have to fill in the application form exactly the same as the postal service and book an appointment online to be seen at the centre. You then go to the centre at the allotted time and hand in your application form then return three/four days later to pick you your passport and visa.

We opted to for the postal service as there are only two centres (Manchester and London) and we don’t live anywhere near them.

The experience of getting a Visa for China was made very easy by an efficient process, lets just wait and see what it’s like when we want to enter Vietnam.

Title Image: Creative Commons – Flickr – Simon Hua

Tags: china, planning, tips