Report: Tehran, Chinese VIsa

[JeroenZon]

Tuesday june 4, 2019
Individual traveller from Amsterdam to China

Rejected immediately by the lady with the glasses, because:
- no Letter of Invitation
- no copy of the id of the person who is inviting me
- no Letter of No Objections (LONO)from the Dutch embassy
- you cannot enter in Beihai (was only the name of a hotel in Urumqi)
- no booked flight (but I am travelling by public transport)
- no itinerary of your travelling scheme and hotelbookings (I added five hotels in the applicationform)
So, suddenly for me it was still necessary to have a LOI and a LONO.
Next sunday I will try again (maybe some people have their day off)

[steven]

Not a good idea to mention Urumqi...

[Gotokazakhstan]

For information, the embassy is closed all week except Sunday morning and Tuesday (02-08/06/19). So I did not hand in my application. I was warned there would be a backlog, because it comes at the same time as public holidays in Iran and a lot of tours were handing in group applications.

[Kanter]

Hi there,

Thanks for all advices given, quite usefull. I would like to enter in China by train, coming from Ulan Bator. Is there any feedback about this situation?

Do you think it is possible to show an airplane ticket, delete it after and going by train? Or there is a nota on visa showing the type of transport you will use.

An other solution would be to book train but not sure to be OK 3 months before.

Do I have to leave my passport there during embassy working process?

Thanks!!

[AlbertoBoero]

Hi there,

Thanks for all advices given, quite usefull. I would like to enter in China by train, coming from Ulan Bator. Is there any feedback about this situation?

Do you think it is possible to show an airplane ticket, delete it after and going by train? Or there is a nota on visa showing the type of transport you will use.

An other solution would be to book train but not sure to be OK 3 months before.

Do I have to leave my passport there during embassy working process?

Thanks!!

Hey,

We booked flight tickets eventhough we will enter China over land. I don't think they accept a train ticket. There are many ways to get a temporary flight ticket which you can cancel after the application. We used a 'pay later' option from Turkish airlines, but there are other websites too you can use.

You have to leave your passport. We traveled for 12 days in Iran with just a copy of our passports. It was never an isaue with busses or hotels (train might be difficult).

[AlbertoBoero]

We collected our Chinese visa in Teheran. Our first attempt was rejected. We put a couple of overnight trains in out travel itinerary, and because of this, we didn't had a hotel reservation for each night.

Second application was approved.

We had a little trouble getting the flight itinerary with booking code. Both agent.ru and Yatra didn't work, we didn't get the PRN.
We eventually used the website of Turkish airlines. In the beginning of the booking process, you can select the 'full flexible' option. This allows you to make a reservation for the flight. We got the tickets +booking number in our mailbox (with big signs we had to pay in 24 hours). When you forward this email, you are able to just delete this text.
We handed in a printed version of our forwarded (and adjusted:p) email. And this was accepted.

After our application was approved, we decided to travel to other cities in Iran for 10 days. We had no trouble booking busses without our passports. Also hotels didn't have a problem with it.
We collected our passports, with visa, 10 days later.
We paid $40 for each visa.
In the neighborhood of the Embassy are several exchange offices to change Euro's to dollars.

[fwierna]

Hello everybody and thanks in advance for all the info posted here, it's been incredible useful for all my planning and now I know what to bring and what to expect!
I read it all, but there's something I couldn't find or didn't understand correctly.

I'm planning to apply for the Chinese visa once in Teheran (it's seem to be easier), but then keep travelling for two months (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) until I finally enter China, so I wouldn't be entering China directly from Iran, but from Russia.

- Do they consider cases like this or they reject them immediately because 1. more than one month to enter China, 2. not entering from Iran?

Thank you very much for any clarification about this!
Cheers!

[BakuBound]

The general rule is that the more orthodox more run-of-the-mill your application, the less the risk of problems.

So I think a ticket and proposed itinerary say Tehran - Beijing - Tokyo would be less likely to be problematical. But applying in a place like Tehran always involves fair risk, no matter what you do.

[ArnoAgape]

Hello hello the community!!

Thanks to all your advice, I spent only 5 minutes in the embassy and it was good!

I am a French guy, hitchhiking alone from France to Thailand. During my trip, I will have to cross the Chinese border from Kirghizistan to Xinjian. Obviously, I didn't mention at all this region during my request. I don't know when exactly I will cross the border but I needed 90 days to enter and single entry 30 days in the country. The cost for it is $40 (don't forget to have a $100 bill issued after 2009 when you will collect your visa). The turnaround is 4 days only! (I will take it on Thursday 27th!)
Anyway, I will sum up and attach all the documents you will need:

• Your passport (they will keep it during the application)

• Color copy of your passport

• Two ID photos (whatever the size!), one will be stuck on your form

• Copy of the form filled that you can find here or in the attachment below.

• Color copy of your Iranian visa (I don't know if you need to copy it in color, but I did)

• Copy of ALL YOUR ITINERARY PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN IN A WORD DOC

• Copy of your hotel reservations on Booking.com (take ones you can cancel for free and no prepayment requested!)

• Copy of your flights! I did it on Yatra.com with the "hold" option.

All in yellow can be found in the attachment below.
Attachment: http://bit.ly/2LgCq14

As I wanted to have 90 days to enter in the country, I said I would fly from Tehran the 17th August (which represents 54 days from today).

I will stay in touch with you guys again, thank you so much for your help!

[hiwybi]

We just collected a 2x 60 day double entry visa in Tehran. We had Irish and Portuguese passports and it cost us 60$ each.

Our documents were:
-Flight bookings from Bishkek-Beijing (sept 15) and Shanghai-Lisbon (dec 20) through Expedia.com
-60 day itinerary from Beijing to Hong Kong and 30 days ish from Hong Kong to Shanghai
-bookings for every single place we will "stay" through booking.com
-color copy of passport
-2 passport photos (check the requirements on the embassy website - there is also a shop nearby who knows)
- the form we filled in typed and then printed, don't know if it's compulsory but it kept the lady with glasses happy

The embassy is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 0845. Best to go early!