Chinese Visa in Ulaan Baatar (Mongolia)

[julistan]

Application of a 60 days accepted. Pick it up next wednesday. No special question asked except a letter to explain that your consulate keeps your old passeport and
Which countries i had been since 1st january 2015...
(Off course dont ever mention Turkey)

[julistan]

Picked up the 62 days visa. It seems they add 5 days to your own request days.
Another french citizen got rejected (they refund the 30$).
According to what she told me, she apparently made the mistake to mention "Tibet" (coming from Nepal with a tour) and not China in the field " last visited countries in the last 12 months" on the application form.
As said in previous post, another person got the same issue writing HK and not China.

[andrewLP]

Things changed in June 2019: applicants for Chinese visa must get a voucher, come again another day to hand in the passport and the documents and come a third time to pick up the passport. Vouchers are given out only on Tuesdays, 9:30 until 12:00. The embassy is also open on monday, wednesday and friday the same time. No entry without any voucher these days though. The lines for vouchers on tuesdays are pretty long, some people even spend the night in front of the embassy to make sure to get a voucher.

I recommend showing up latest on tuesday morning at 6:00. It is unclear how many vouchers are given out, i heard numbers between 50 and 160. The queuing process is chaotic, people squeeze in and push. In order to get a voucher applicants must bring a filled in visa application form (filled in by computer or with BLACK (!) pen, passport, copy of passport, copy of Mongolian entry stamp, all accommodation bookings for the intended time of stay, flight/train tickets into china and out of china. Embassy staff will check if everything is complete. If yes, the applicant will get a voucher with a date. He must come back this date to hand in the passport and documents.

The date on the voucher is either upcoming Wednesday (which is the day after), next Friday or Monday. It‘s not predictable which dates will be handed out. Dates can not be chosen. With a voucher, getting into the embassy on that date is guaranteed, the waiting time can be one or two hours though, depending on the number of people showing up with vouchers and where in the line you are handing in everything (the same documents which are necessary to get the the voucher) shouldn‘t take too long. The visa can be payed at the bank next to the embassy.

With the payment receipt from the bank (make sure they give you the right one!), the passport can be picked up between 16:00 and 17:00 the same day (express) or the same time a couple of days later (regular, they will tell you when when you are handing in the documents). You get back with the receipt, get the passport and that‘s it, with a little bit of luck!

[sylvb74]

Hi all,
We are french family.
We followed the advise of Caravanistan, perfect.
Arrived Tuesday morning, 5AM, get vouchers.
Arrived next Monday, gave all documents for six, agency documents passeport and mongolian copy, photo.
Went to the bank to pay, 180$ for standard workflow.

Back friday afternoon to pickup visa.

We did not get them.
Our 4 children have been accepted, the 2 parents 'need a chinese government authorization'. Embassy gave us few minutes to decide between 2 options:
- option 1, let our 6 passports and wait 30 days or more to get, maybe, this authorization,
- option 2, pickup 6 passports but this cancel the visa workflow and so no visa.

We decided to cancel and change plan.
We get a ticket for a bank cashback. We get 180$ back.

So even if you have paid, you can be rejected.
Note, we have turkish stamp on our 6 passports.

[petrusferraz]

I went there yesterday (10-08), a Friday. It was attached to the wall an advertisement saying all the information people wrote here. Because of the increasing number of Mongolians applying to a Chinese visa, they established a new rule: In order to apply to a visa, you need to go on Tuesday to get a voucher. The consulate service center opens at 9.30am, but a French woman in the line told us that she had arrived at 5am and it was already crowded. Two lines, one for Mongolians and another one for foreigners. Anyway, arriving at 5am she was able to get a voucher.

In possession of this voucher, you go back to the embassy in another day. She could return on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, her visa was refused, because of the Turkish stamp. She was there on Friday just to get a coupon and get her cash back at the bank.
Next Tuesday, my wife and I are going to apply to our visa. So next week I will post a new update.

[Gizmo]

I have been reading this post and we had also planned to get our China visa in Mongolia. We changed our plans after reading the new Tuesday voucher rule, so I want to post our alternative that worked really well, in case this in an option for others. We also met a lady on the train who had gone through the application in Mongolia and got the visa, but her husband did not get it!

We are a family of five on a one-year world trip. We have German passports, but did not get the visa at home as we left over four months ago and the visa costs at home are horrendous. We travelled via Japan and South Korea to Irkutsk, the by train to Mongolia and China.
Luckily I read the change of rule while in Japan and found out that foreigners can apply for a China Visa in Seoul through the official Chinese visa agency. The Mongolian procedure sounded too risky and random for us, so we changed our Korea schedule to stay a whole week in Seoul and get the visa there.
The procedure is straight forward. It takes 4 working days if the application is submitted before 11:30 am. Express service is only possible if you live in Korea. The office is right across from the main train station, easy access. Lots of staff and booths, very professional. They have a photo booth on site, so don’t waste money getting them done anywhere else (regulations are very specific, we had to get three re-done).
Cost was also cheap, about 50 USD per person and you can pay by credit card. The most important thing is that the agent go through the application and make sure everything possibly needed is included.

Here is the link to their website. They even answered the phone:
https://www.visaforchina.org/SEL1_EN/

Only one person could apply for the whole family. So it might be an option for people stuck in Mongolia to plan a short trip to Seoul to get this done, instead of wasting time in Mongolia.

I hope this can help others travellers.

[rhinomaxil]

Hello,

I got my Chinese visa in Ulaanbaatar mid-August.

I can confirm that you now need to get a voucher first on Tuesday only. With this voucher you get an appointment for the actual visa application on Wednesday, Friday or Monday. I was able to get the voucher even though I joined the queue at 11am, but then I got the appointment only on Monday so if your time in Ulaanbaatar is limited you should arrive early. The only documents I needed were the visa application (I think it’s available online), a copy of my passport, a copy of my Mongolian visa, the flight reservation in and out of the country (you can get fake ones for free at Airmarket offices in Ulaanbaatar), and hotel reservations (booking.com reservations that are later cancellable are sufficient). You should have all those documents already when you come for the voucher on Tuesday, even though you don’t submit them then. I wasn’t asked for any insurance certificate, bank account statements or anything else. The only additional document necessary is a statement that your old passport is expired and was returned to your home authority. They have a template form you can photograph when you come for the voucher on Tuesday and then submit it with your application when you come back for the actual application.

I came back the next Monday at 9am to submit my application. I was the only foreigner so it took me less than 15 minutes but at first the policeman at the entrance wanted me to join the queue with all the Mongols so it might be that you have to come earlier or queue a long time if you’re not as lucky.

They didn’t ask me any questions (but other tourists I had met before were asked some questions - nothing difficult though). I have a Turkish stamp on my passport but I still got the visa. I also have visas from countries such as Taiwan and Iran on my passport but it was no problem. On the visa application, you need to list all the countries you’ve been to in the last 3 years so I mentioned Turkey, Iran, etc. (but NOT Taiwan as it is China) as it was not used to hide since the stamps were on my passport.

I got my visa 4 days later and was able to get my guesthouse collect it for me as I was in the Gobi at that time. I just gave them a copy of my passport, the bank receipt you get when you pay the visa fee at the Golomt bank, and a handwritten letter in English saying that authorize XXX to collect my passport on my behalf.

All in all it was fairly easy for me but maybe I was just very lucky!

[svenbln]

My wife and I finally got our visas for China at the embassy in Ulaanbaatar this week. The queuing to get the vouchers on the Tuesday before was actually rather civilized. Different queues for Mongolians and foreigners. My passport is from 2017, hers from 2013. I was asked for my old one, she wasn't. I was even asked for my very old one from the 1990's. Luckily I had them all, but we witnessed someone else, who had been to China in the 70's or 80's, being asked for that old passport with the visa. When he said that he didn't have it anymore, his application was rejected. So if you have been to China before, but don't have your old passport anymore, you might consider not giving that information in your application.

[petrusferraz]

Well, I´m coming back tomorrow to get a voucher. It seems obvious, but I´ve got rejected last time because my reservations were in Brazilian Portuguese. They are very stricted about it: every document has to be in English or Chinese.

[petrusferraz]

The procedure is still exactly like @rhinomaxil explained above.
In my case, I was called in to a quick interview. They asked how long I will stay in China, what is the purpose of my travel and which cities I was going to visit. Oddly, all the information was written down on the form, so I have to say the interview was absolutely pointless.
The fee can be paid in US dollars or in tugruk. In the last case, they use the official rate of the day for conversion.
To get the voucher, it took me around 4 hours. But, if you arrive on the line at 9:30h or at noon, it doesn´t matter, you will just need to wait more in the line.
To get the pick-up form, on the second day at the embassy, it took me one hour. Plus one hour at the bank, because it was the back to school day and the bank was crowded with students paying some school tax.

IMPORTANT TIP: Never mention that you are going to cross to China by land. Unless you´ve got a train ticket, which can be tricky to buy in advance, just go to an Air Market and get a flight resevation for free. They don´t even ask anything, just print the reservation for you.