Melo Villareal
Russia approves e-visa for Filipino Passport Holders starting 2021
Good news for Filipino passport holders! Starting 2021, you can now visit just about any place in Russia. May it be the all wonderful Moscow or delight at the classical architectures in St. Petersburg, to capture Instagram-worthy pictures in the filming locations of your favorite Russian movies or to backpack toward the Russian North where you can relish the soothing beauty of nature. All these will be made possible soon by just applying for e-visas.
The country is opening itself up to neighboring nations like the Philippines to boost Russia’s tourism and promote business and humanitarian guest trips. Traveling to Russia is now more convenient. You will not be required for invitations and other documents to prove your travel purpose.
With this, foreigners can freely enter the country through its designated checkpoints. They can now tour around every part of Russia and stay there for eight to 16 days from the date of entry. Note that the consular fee is worth $40, while it is free for children below six years old.
To Apply for E-visas, just follow these steps:
- Submit an application for e-visas at https://evisa.kdmid.ru/ (As of now, the application is put on hold due to the pandemic but keep yourself posted for announcements on this website.)
- You can fill in an application form for an e-visa on this website not earlier than 20 days and no later than 4 days before the intended date of entry into the Russian Federation.
- Your passport must be valid for at least 6 months from the date you applied for an e-visa. Your passport must have free space for border crossing stamps.
- The e-visa is free. It will take 4 calendar days to complete the process of your application.
- E-visa is a single-entry visa and issued for 30 calendar days from the date of its issuance.
- Just remember one simple rule: if you pass through the passport control when entering on Monday, you must pass the passport control for exit no later than the next Monday.
If you entered on Tuesday, you must exit no later than the next week’s Tuesday (and so on for each day of the week). In any case, you must exit no later than the visa expiry date, even if your period of stay is less than 8 days.
For instance, you entered on Monday, and the visa expires’ validity period on Sunday: in this case, you must exit no later than Sunday.
A more detailed E-visa application procedure:
Before you fill in your application form, make sure you have the following:
- A web browser with JavaScript. They support the following browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge.
- Software for PDF file viewing and printing. Adobe Acrobat Reader is recommended.
- Your valid national passport.
- Choose the tips language from the relevant drop-down list. Tips will clarify the meaning of the questions you need to answer.
If you have chosen Russian as the tips language, all answers to the questions in the application must be entered only in Russian, except for surnames, given names, addresses, and names of institutions that are required to be entered in English.
All your answers must be only in English using the Latin alphabet characters if you have chosen English.
- Confirm that you agree to the automatic processing, transfer, and storage of data provided in your application for e-visa purposes.
- To start a new application, click the “Proceed to Fill in the Application” button.
- To continue filling in, edit, review, or print the completed application choose the “Retrieve Application” menu item.
- Enter your personal e-mail address, confirm it, and enter your password for this site and confirm it.
- Write down or print the Application ID displayed in the top left corner of the page.
It will be required to continue your application if the session has been disconnected. To save your draft application, click the “Save the Draft” button.
Your e-visa application form will be available within 30 days since it’s last to save.
- Proceed to fill in the fields of the application. Follow the tips on each page of the application—fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
If you have made any errors while filling in the form or have not filled in the required fields, they will be highlighted, and a message will appear under them, indicating the error you need to fix.
- Upload your digital color photo in the JPEG format. The photo must meet the following requirements.
- Click the button sending the application, and wait for the confirmation of its acceptance for processing.
After sending your application:
Visit the site to follow up on the status of your application. Your application status will be changed either to “Visa issued” or “Visa denied” downloadable via PDF file. You will also receive updates through your email address.
- Download and print the notification with your e-visa. Otherwise, save the information set out in the notification so that you could visually present it to representatives of a transport company when getting on a vehicle and passport control officers at a national border checkpoint when entering the Russian Federation.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not save the PDF file with the result of your application examination on the computer that can be accessed by those who have no permission to view or record your personal data.
If you save the file to the hard drive of a public computer, for instance, in an Internet café or a library, other users may find and open it.
- If you have not received notification of e-visa grant or e-visa refusal within four days, you can apply for a visa as per standard procedure at a diplomatic mission or consular office of the Russian Federation.
- ATTENTION! Notification of the e-visa grant does not guarantee your entry into the Russian Federation. You can be denied entry at a border crossing point should the circumstances referred to in Federal Law No. 114 FZ “On the Procedure of Exit from the Russian Federation and Entry into the Russian Federation” of August 15, 1996, arise.
For more concerns, you can visit the website to check the full step by step process on applying for e-visas. Since the Russian embassy in the Philippines just shared the news, expect an update on the website and changes on their rules and procedures.
References:
- https://news.abs-cbn.com/
- https://evisa.kdmid.ru/
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