If you want to visit us in Beijing, you’ll need a Chinese visa. In this post we explain all the steps you have to go through to come and climb the Great wall with us, eat hot pot with us, and explore one of the oldest (and largest) cities in the world.
Executive summary
Since there’s a lot of information and details about the unfamiliar visa process we’ll start with an executive summary of what you need to do to visit us.
- You’ll need to get a Tourist “L Visa”. It will probably last for up to 10 years. You can stay for 60 days at a time, and you can re-enter multiple times.
- The visa validity numbers are subject to change. The main “gotcha” is that you need to have at least a year of validity left on your passport.
- We recommend using VisaRite to get your visa, but you can also go in person to the consulate.
- There are six documents that you’ll need: Your passport (plus photocopy), the Visa application form, a passport picture, an invitation letter from me, a photocopy of my passport, and a photocopy of my residence permit.
- It will take about 1 week to get your visa, with a few days on either end for shipping if you’re using a shipping service.
If you’re coming to visit us, I encourage you to read more below to get the details. The visa process is prone to error- most of us have never done it, and we don’t get prompt feedback. We’re happy to have a Skype call to assuage your concerns.
Chinese visa types and characteristics
Chinese visas are passport-page-sized stickers that are glued into the pages of your passport. The visa looks like this. When you land in Beijing, you have to present your passport to the China customs official, who will look for your valid Chinese visa. If you have one, she or he will stamp a page in your passport with the date, and you go on your way to meet us at the airport. Technically, you can visit Beijing and some other cities for up to 72 hours without a visa. But you probably don’t want to sit through 28 hours of airplane travel just to see us for 72 hours. Besides, the 72 hour visa-free entry needs to be a layover for another destination. So if you happen to be going to Seoul, or Japan or whatever– it might make sense to skip the visa process. Otherwise, read on.
There are many types of visas. Chances are that you will just be visiting for leisure, so you’ll want a tourist visa. If you were moving here for work, then you’d need a work visa, and the process is much more complicated. Different countries have different regulations and visa limitations. We’ll be writing from our experience as Americans.
Visas all have different letters. For example, the work visa is the Z visa. The tourist visa is the L visa. You can only have one valid China visa at a time. So for example you could not have both a Z and L visa at the same time. The old one would have to be cancelled to get the new one. The visas are characterized by three main numbers, described below. The numbers are different for all the visa types.
- Duration of longest stay
- Number of entries
- Validity of the visa.
The Duration of longest stay means how long you can stay during each visit. So for example if the duration of longest stay is 30 days, then you are allowed to stay for 30 days after you enter the country until you have to leave the country. The penalty for overstaying a visa varies, but suffice it to say, you do not want to overstay your visa. The L visa’s Duration of longest stay is 60 days.
The Number of entries means how many times you can enter China on your visa. So for example if your visa has 2 for its number of entries, you can enter China twice, before the visa is voided out (literally stamped with a big red “CANCELLED”). The L visa generally has unlimited re-entries, meaning that you can go in and out as much as you want.
The Validity of the visa is how long the visa will last until it expires. So for example, if your visa is valid for 1 year, it will expire 1 year after the issue date. The validity of the visa is not fixed, nor predictable, and depends on the visa type, and the whim of the Chinese embassy or consulate. But, generally speaking, for Americans in the year 2016, the L visa’ validity has been 10 years, if your passport is valid for that long. If your passport expires before 10 years it will either be 1 or 2 years, or however long your passport is valid for.
How to get the visa
To get a visa in the United States there are a few options.
- Mail your passport and all supporting documents to a private company that will deal with the process for you.
- Visit one of the 5 Chinese consulates or embassy in person.
From our experience, we recommend option 1 if you have the money. We used VisaRite and would highly recommend them to anyone. They were professional and fast and answered several of my phone calls patiently. They do this every day for hundreds of visas, so they know what to expect– they review your documents and tell you if something is lacking. Their staff speak English perfectly. We especially recommend going with a private company like VisaRite if you don’t happen to live in one of the 5 cities that has a consulate or embassy. Even if you do happen to live in one of those cities, the wait times are long, the staff are rude, you can’t be on your phone or take pictures, you can’t bring in your expensive New York City iced coffee or snacks, and you have to go twice– once to apply for the visa, and again to pick it up. If you don’t believe me about how bad the experience is likely to be, you should consult some of these Yelp reviews to know what you can expect. In either case you will need the same documentation, which we describe below.
It will take about 1 week turnaround to get your passport back with the visa, so definitely don’t plan to travel somewhere where you’d need a passport during that time. And definitely give yourself ample time before you are planning to travel to China. It is conceivable that you will have to reapply for the visa if something went wrong. The cost of the visa is at least $140, but the VisaRite service costs more, plus shipping.
The documents you’ll need from us
There are 3 common documents you will need to get a China L visa. The VisaRite website for the L Visa has detailed information and links for each document. To summarize, following their numbering scheme, you will need:
- Actual passport, plus a photocopy of the name page
- One Visa Application Form V.2013 per person
- One recent passport-type photograph
Now, if you were staying in a hotel you would just need the common documents, a copy of your hotel info, and a copy of your round trip airfare. But don’t stay in a hotel! We have a guest room! In this case, you an invitation letter and supporting documents:
- Invitation letter (We will provide this for you)
- A photocopy of my passport page
- A photocopy of my residence permit
Once you have your travel dates planned, I can provide you with scans of these documents. So you will need all six of these documents in hand if you visit the consulate, or stuffed in a FedEx envelope if you are using VisaRite (or equivalent). Yes, it’s a bit scary mailing your passport around, and I was incredulous at first, but the Chinese Consulate must have your passport to affix the visa, so there’s no other way around it.