Report: Tehran, Chinese VIsa

[steven]

Please read and post reports on the embassy of China in Tehran below.

We summarize all info on the China visa page, under embassy reports.

All info on the letter of no objection in Tehran is compiled at the LONO in Tehran page.

[walthi]

Applied (11.06.15) in Tehran for a 90 days China visa with 90 days to enter china.

• Letter of support from your embassy
  2 pictures
  Form V.2013 filled out
  40 $

Pick up 4 working days later, or 70 $ for next working day.

Then the big news when I picked it up. Since 14.06.15, they embassy in Tehran issue China visa with only 30 days to enter china. So I was one of the last one getting 90 days to enter.

[Frogs On Wheels]

Same for us. We applied on the 11/6 - 1 French and 1 Turkish. We got the visa with 3 months in China and 3 months to enter. They started to hesitate to issue such a visa for a Turkish national but eventually accepted our request.

On the 14/6 and 15/6, some of our fellow cyclists applied - 1 Portuguese, 1 German plus 2 other ones. Only one of them got 3 months to enter. The rest only got 1 month.

On the 18/6, 2 other cyclists we met applied for 3+3 months without any question. So getting a visa here for China is still worth trying. Looks very random.

[nuria]

I am in Teheran waiting for my Chinese visa. The man said me the rules have changed and they only issue visas 1+1. After lots of petitions (I need one month to travel onto Iran, don't plan come back to tehran, bla bla, he saw my uzbek visa and my China visa of last year issued in Honk Kong for 60 days, he was interested on this I don't know why ) and after consulting his collegue or superior, he said: ok 60 days to enter and 30 days visa, extend there in China if you want.

I will confirm when I have my visa.
Check the embassies opening hours cause after Ramadan are 3 days holidays.
Nuria.

[lesmolletsauvages]

That's official, we were at the chinese ambassy this morning, they said it is only possible to give 1 month visa and 1 month to enter. Totally impossible for us in bycicle and with our other visas.
We really tried to insist and discuss it but even after asking to his collegue, the guy said no.
I said that we had to ask in the other contries on our way.
Maybe if you have chance you can have 2 month to enter as said above, but we didn't succeed.
And an other info, for the french people they ask for confirmation of hotel booking for the time you want to stay.
I don't know why only french. You need to go on hotelbooking.com and book for your nights. you can cancel afterwards.
You need to choose the hotels that don't need the credit card, like those ones :
https://www.booking.com/hotel/cn/da-li- ... _confemail
https://www.booking.com/hotel/cn/little ... _confemail
https://www.booking.com/hotel/cn/ke-shi ... _confemail

Hope it helps and that you will be more lucky than us

[nuria]

Finally, we have the Chinese Visa for 30 days and 90 days to enter.
but is not the rule, the rule is 30+30. We had lucky with our story.

I have heard than in Almaty is again easy (30+30) only paying 35€ to some one, check it.

[lesmolletsauvages]

Infos on chinese visa in teheran...
We heard this story from many people who succeded to get theyr visa with 3 months to enter by insisting 2 or 3 times and so finally we tried today.
And it worked, the woman told me that we would get 3 months to enter.
So you have probably to try until you meet the employee in the good mood.
What helps is if you can show that you already have ouzbek and/or tadjik visa and that the dates show that you can not make it without the 3 months. ( you can say that you already came before and that an other person told you to come back when you will have all the visas)

An other important info, it is better not to fill your form in the office that is indicated on caravanistan, I don't know if it is new, but the women took our money and filled the form really uncorrectly, she didn't pay a lot of attention to it, and we are not the only ones, better to download the file which is on the chinese website, the link is on caravanistan, and fill it yourself... Or to check it with a lot of attention when she finishes

Good luck to everybody

[steven]

Your visa reports have already made a significant impact on the cycle tourist community, lesmolletsauvages. Hoping for more!

[ivars]

Somewhat a late update, but better later than never, right?
Maybe it still helps someone - our experience with extension, April 2015
(I post here a part of my blog article, if you are interested about the rest of the story about Iran, you can read it here).

Consular section located on Aghdasiyeh Rd [GPS: 35.8042, 51.4774].
Hours: Sun, Tue, Thu 8:45-12:15 & 14:30-16:30, but Thursday afternoon is only for receiving.

Things you will need are here – http://ir.chineseembassy.org/eng/lsfw/ .

We didn't actually get the chance to apply for the visa because they said that we cannot do it if we don't have an embassy in Tehran thus we can't get the letter. Later, turned out that this is not true - if you don't have an embassy here you can get the letter from another (at least, if you are from EU and go to another EU members' embassy).

[SPR11]

Got our Chinese visa in Tehran on the 19th of April.Three months to enter and one month to stay. Asked for more months to stay several times but was told I would just have to extend it in China, which according to the clerk is easy.

We told them we were cycling and heading to Pakistan first, and after showing our Pakistani visa there were no questions about why we needed three months to enter.

Getting the LNOs was easy but time consuming:
Netherlands 30 euros, one hour(had to wait for the consul to show up)
Denmark (for British citizen) free but two hours waiting time. Normally it costs 30 euros but because they felt bad we had to wait so long we got it for free.

Make sure to mail ahead if you're a British citizen, so they know you'll be coming. We got a little stick from the clerk when we came in ("why are you not going to the British embassy?") but because we mailed the consul a couple of days earlier this was smoothed over quickly.