Embassy report: Chinese Visa in Yerevan

[jubohe]

Hey !! Congrats for the visa

What documents did you have? Did you mention you were travelling by land or did you have fake plane tickets ?

Thanks in advance !

[merodrem]

Thanks! The only serious document I had was an admission letter from a mandarin school in Yangshuo. They ask you about your itinerary in the official visa application form, I said I was flying to there without giving any plane ticket. It passed.

[bergf]

One week. Applications are to be submitted on Tuesday mornings, and the visa is ready for next Tuesday in the afternoon.

Amazing, congrats. Some hope for me as I'm currently also on my way east by land.

Did you have a Turkish stamp in your passport when you got the visa? I've heard reports of Chinese visa refusal because of this.

[merodrem]

Did you have a Turkish stamp in your passport when you got the visa?

Yes turkish stamp, even stamp from Irak. No problem. But it's always best to avoid it. If you're a european citizen, it's very likely that you can enter Turkey with your national ID and avoid the stamp on your passport.

[Cyclingdahu]

There was another cost that I forgot to mention: the lawyer asked me to make (at my expenses!) legal translation of my passport.

Stupid question: did you translate it to Chinese or Armenian? Thanks!

[merodrem]

Armenian.

[Myosotis]

Hi, do you know what the lawyer mentioned on "do you have another nationality or permanent residency permit" on the online form cova.mfa.gov.cn ?

And do they keep your visa for a day or during the entire process ?

I will try my luck anytime soon also for Russian visa

[lucie_alba]

Hello dear privileged travellers!
You, who are desperately looking for a chinese consulate accepting applications without residence permit, you who gave up on a chinese visa on the road and expect a miracle, I am so happy to be the person bringing light to Chinaless travel perspectives: I GOT THE CHINESE VISA IN YEREVAAAAN

This is how it happend:
I'm a belgian resident with a belgian passport, on my way by land to China. Like you all, I slowly realised that according to all reports Caucasus and Central Asia is a dead end for the visa without residency. Anyway, I'm a bit stubborn and still tried embassies on my way. No for Romania, no for Bulgaria, No for Turkey, no for Georgia...and here came Yerevan. It went as simple as that on the phone with the embassy: "Oh you're not resident? Then you have to ask a lawyer to apply for you. here is his contact: [email protected]". Boom.
The process is a bit upsetting because the lawyer asked 40'000AMD(100$) and all he does is filling the form from cova.mfa.gov.cn that you could fill by yourself. Honestly I don't get it, maybe if you have time you could first try without passing by the lawyer, but they told me it was necessary without residency.
Nevertheless, I got one last stress at the consulate where the employee asked me for residency. I put my best fake relaxed smile and said "Residency? oh, no need. I can stay visa free in Armenia" and showed them the stamp on my passport. The result? Today I just got back my passport with a double-entry 2x60 days chinese visa.
Note: I should mention here that I applied for X2 study visa because I'll be studying 3 weeks chinese there. But I think it is irrelevant as the lawyer said that he could also do L tourist visa.

Faith is back!

Hey, giving us all some faith again

Maybe a silly question, so the lawyer filled out the application for you, then he sent you the application, you printed it, and just showed at the Chinese consulate in Yerevan on Tuesday ? Or you also had to make some sort of appointment at the consulate ?

Enjoy China, luck you

[merodrem]

Maybe a silly question, so the lawyer filled out the application for you, then he sent you the application, you printed it, and just showed at the Chinese consulate in Yerevan on Tuesday ? Or you also had to make some sort of appointment at the consulate ?

The lawyer made the appointment.

Ever since I posted my report you guys have been asking or PM me about every single detail that you would anyway figure out by yourself while applying. I feel like the next question is if we push or pull the entrance door of the consulate I already gave all relevant information, from now on I will stop replying to this thread.

[Cyclingdahu]

Hello everyone! Thanks to @merodrem's advice we were able to collect our tourist visa this morning, without the help of a lawyer!

We asked 60 days tourist visa, 6 months validity, and this is exactly what we got!

Here's how we did it:

Filled in (very thorougly) the questionnaire https://cova.mfa.gov.cn/

Booked an appointment at the embassy through the same website (the option comes at the end, when you complete the questionnaire).

Once at the embassy, we provided the following documents (printed):

- The filled in questionnaire and booking appointment confirmation from the website

- Flight bookings (trip.com). In cour case it was Seoul>Beijing Shangai>Hanoi

- Hotel bookings (trip.com) for the whole trip

- A list of the transportation we would take once inside the country (to transit between cities). We actually just printed the busses timetables since it was not possible to book ahead.

- Letter of Invitation (provided by a chinese friend)

- 2 passport photos (we went to AG photo in Yerevan, cost was 1000AMD pp for 4 pictures). There you can also print your documents.

- We also gave them a copy of our previous Chinese visas (we already visited in 2014).


Overall the process was really quick, and they seemed confused by the amount of documents we provided (I don't think we would have needed to provide the list of transportation inside the country, or the copy of our older visas, for example).
Not sure the LOI is needed also. Maybe somebody can try without it?


Once at the embassy, they did not ask any special questions, just took our documents, our fingerprints, and that was it.

The normal processing time is 1 week (they keep your passport), cost is 19'000 AMD. We asked for express and were able to retrieve our passport they day after. The price is 26'000 AMD for express (7'000 AMD extra).

Once every document was collected, we were handed a small receipt ("pickup form") with the price of the visa, and had to go to Ameria Bank to pay the visa fee there. We went to the Ameriabank Mashtots Branch (underground) where the staff spoke English and seemed used to this transaction with the embassy.

At the bank, they look at your "pickup form", make the payment (cash)and give you a receipt.

We came back to the embassy with our bank receipt and our "pickup form", and collected our visas.

The embassy is located here: 40.157708, 44.466011
Consulate for visa application is open on Tuesdays, 9:00 to 12:00.


On that day, we met 5 other travelers (German, French, Netherlands), who all applied with the lawyer. We all got our visas!

Good luck to everybody!

We have a Swiss passport (with a Turkish stamp).