Embassy reports: Chinese visa in Kathmandu

[steven]

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

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

[hirider]

Hello,

Is it possible to get a Chinese visa in Katmandu?

I will be there soon, my other option is to go back to Phnom Penh and get it there OR fly to HK (not preferable).

Mikolaj

[skyba]

*Chinese Visa in Kathmandu*

I just got single entry 90 days visa, 90 days to enter. I had french passport. I gave:
* Flight confirmation INTO china (Copied, modified and printed an old KIWI.com booking confirmation email), and set the date about 70 days from the application date
* A itinerary through different cities with cancelable hotel confirmations from booking.com (including Kunming, Xian, Shanghai, Beijing, ...) for a 3 month itinerary within china. My itinerary went in and out of China, yet they didnt give me multiple entry. See below how to get multiple entry. My itinerary included 72 consecutive days in china, then one exit to HK, then back.
* 1 picture
* passport (for multiple passport holders, they only take the one which has the nepali visa)
* 40 USD in local currency

processing time was 4 working days (40 USD) or 3 days (60 USD).


A friend of mine applied the same day and got 10 years valid multiple (unlimited) entries valid 60 days each. She gave

* flight confirmation (just a printed email with dates)
* a letter from her aunt (an american who has immigrated in china) written in chinese saying that her niece will be visiting her a few times in the future. The same could probably work with a letter from a friend (Or people you met on couchsurfing), but they should show their chinese ID / work permit documents
* She also gave a letter from her employer endorsing the occasional travel to china, but this might not be necessary
* passport, picture, 40 usd


The lady on the counter will tell you they "don't make multiple entries, only single entry 30 days visa". However you can try your luck and apply for "multiple entry visa". In any case, provide a long itinerary with confirmations will give you longer validity. A letter from a local living there might give you the 10 year, multiple entry jackpot.

STAMPS: I had Pakistani, Turkish, Iranian, Azerbaijan stamp on my passport among others. It was no problem.

Hope this helps!
Basile

[bwv812]

The 10-year visa is dependant on what passport you have. I believe the only passports that qualify are USA, Canada, some UK, Argentina, Israel, and HK.

[alexis]

Hello,

We made it in Kathmandu ! It worked.
We asked for multiple entries, but the lady told us it was not possible for french people ( even if we had all the documents for it. She confirmed that should be ok for Canada, us, Argentina citizens)so we asked for double entries valid for 6 months, 60 days for each stay.

We just needed to provide flight booking to enter China, then another one to Hong Kong and then another one from Hong Kong to Beijing.
Also we provided hostel booking for all our stays, bank accounts statement, and copy of our Nepali visa.
And finally a daily itinerary of our trip for three months in total, we did it by hand in 30 minutes with touristical places to visit we find on internet for each city and some Chinese classes.

We came back 4 days later, on 28th of June and we got our Visa !
So it's really a good option !!!

We are traveling from Paris to Tokyo, so we left our bikes in Kirghistan and flight from Bishkek to Kathmandu, we enjoyed trekking there for 2 weeks and then we applied for the visa during the last week.

Hope it will help.
Good luck.

[Morgane]

Hello,
Some Spanish friends got their visa request rejected yesterday. They asked for a 30 days, single entry visa to China mainland. They gave all the documents but the embassy called them the following morning to tell them their visa was rejected, whithout reason (they didn't have to pay).

Hypothesis :
- they said they wanted to visit Xinjiang...
- they had turkish stamps in their passport
- they had Pakistani visa in their passport

The Chinese embassy probably didn't like the combination of the 3 :p
So, if you plan to go to Xinjiang, better to lie !

[Morgane]

My boyfriend and I (french and spanish) just got our Chinese visa at Kathmandu Embassy today ! It was a bit stressfull because I met several foreigners (spanish, duth, german) who got their visa denied without explanations.

We went to the Embassy on Monday morning. It opens at 9:30am. It was very, very busy because the Consular section of the Embassy was closed from last Wednesday (1st of May) to Monday. On a normal day, coming at 9am to queue is fine, no need to be there earlier.
After a bag scanning, they give you a ticket for counter 3.

There, you have to give :
- copy of the passport
- copy of the Nepalese visa
- application form (available online) + 1 passport photo
- 3 months bank statement showing that you have more than 1700€ (not sure of the exact amount) on your account.
- Itinerary DAY by DAY with the name of the hotels, the activities, the train or plane numbers... Everything was fake in our case.
- hotel bookings of all the nights in China (booked on booking.com and cancelled for free just after getting the visa)
- plane tickets IN and OUT of China (apparently you can also write in the itinerary that you will go out by train to Mongolia, it's fine) : we did fake tickets on returnflight.net.

They quickly ckeck the documents and tell us to come back 4 days later (on Thursday).
The following day, we went there again just to check everything was good and hopefully we did it because they needed more info about my boyfriend's job (he is self employed). They didn't call us (we don't have local number) to tell us we had to come again so hopefully we did it !

4 days later (on Thursday), we got our visa. We paid just before getting the passport back : 4000rs + 150rs (bank fees) per person for regular visa. For express visa (in 3 days), the price is 5300rs if I remember well. They don't do faster at the Kathmandu Embassy.
So easy finally ! But be sure to have the papers ready.

[fernfunkost]

We (German couple) just received our Chinese visa in Kathmandu. The process was rather straightforward once you got all the documents listed in the post above (plus: you also need to have a copy of previous Chinese visas if this applies to you).

We went to the embassy about half an hour before opening, it was enough. Application as well as pick-up didn't take more than 45 minutes to an hour, so much less stressful than getting the Chinese visa in other places (we are looking at you, dreadful Chinese embassy in Ulan Bator!).

- we didn't know what exactly a 3-months bank statement is, so we just did a screen shot of our current bank account balance with the name and date visible
- we want to go to Xinjiang, but we of course did not mention it at all. All our itinerary data was completeley made up as it was the last two times and it never caused us problems, so don't be shy to just give any plausible itinerary
- we did also fake our tickets on returnflight.net (thanks for the link, Morgane!)

We have the following unfavourable stamps:Iran, Turkey, Kazakhstan, but got the visa anyway, so don't be put off by that. The lady at the application desk did not like our Iranian visas in particular, she made a post-it on our passports saying that there has been a recent visit to Iran for LESS THAN 30 DAYS. As she specifically indicated that, we assume that the duration of your stay in those countries matters. The lady did not really notice our Turkish or Kazakh stamps, but we have been in both countries less than 30 days as well. We were granted a Chinese visa before (in Ulan Bator, 6 months ago) and extended it in China (second visa). We are not sure how this influenced our chances.

We submitted the application two weeks ago and left for a trekking trip, came back and picked it up. Easy.

Good luck everyone!

[Tepezcu]

I applied for a 6 months validity and double entry (30 days duration per entry) visa with a german passport (I have double nationality). Required documents (LOI, itinerary, and flight reservations) were provided by a travel agency (100$).

The day I submitted all the documents, I was required to go through all the stamps I had on my passport, including turquish (stay > 1 month) and pakistani (stay < 1 month). Even though, they told me, that the process would take 3 working days (express process application).

The next day in the evening they called me to tell me, that the process it could take 1 month or more. They asked me, if I wanted to continue with the process, and I said yes.

From that day, I wrote several e-mails, visited the visa center and the embassy several times and had to withdraw my passport once to extend my nepali visa. During this time, I did not get any information but "your passport is under verification". After exactly 7 weeks, I could withdraw my passport with the granted required visa. Other applicants, in similar situation (same stamps on their passports), who applied some days after me, they got their visas the same day like me. Applicants without these stamps on their passports got the visas in 3-4 working days. Some of them applied preparing all the documents by themselves, so they could save the 100$ for the travel agency.

People in the visa center and the embassy were polite and answered the e-mails, but without being able to give any information.

[Alibobo]

My 2cts the extra verification could be because of different reason (not only stamps in passport coming from Muslim countries)

Do you have a beard? Sounds crazy but if you do like i was back in 20 something i speed up my application process by shaving otherwise the officer had to check one by one my application photo with a bunch a Taliban look a like database...