HOW TO: Chinese Visa Application, Astana, Kazakhstan (June 2017)
Recent updated on getting a Chinese visa from a bordering country.
Chinese visa laws change almost daily, making it incredibly difficult to find reliable information on your personal visa situation. For example, we left China 1 week ago (13th June 2017) and everyone we knew who had gone for a visa-run to neighbouring countries in the last month were declined.
A few websites we found useful during our research are:
We arrived in Kazakhstan, where the online information said we can not get any type of visa. We were also speaking to travel/visa agents in China and in Kazakhstan who all said it would be impossible without residency in Kazakhstan. The agents we used were:
Almaty agent:
Name: Nazmetova
Mobile: +77754447494
Astana agent: Name: Lazzat Talgat
Address: Astana cit St, 40 Kenesary, BC, <7 Continent>, floor 9, No910
Mobile: +77026757376
Telephone: +77172968765
Email: talgat_astana@bk.ru
Website: www.tamirlan-ns.kz
With our hope of approval starting to fall apart a little we got together the paperwork needed for a tourist visa and went to the Chinese Consulate in Astana… where we applied for 1 month single entry visa… but were offered a 2 year, multiple entry visa, with 30 days per stay.
Price: 33,600Tinge ($100 approx., or $30 approx. for 30 day single entry)
Processing time: 7 days
Paperwork needed:
passport
copy of passport
2 x passport photo*
bank statement saying you have enough money to fund trip
visa application documents**
reservations for flights in AND out of China***
reservations for hotels throughout trip****
Office opening times: 9-12am Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Office Address: 28, Kabanbay Batyr Avenue, Astana (close to Khan Shatyr shopping mall)
After handing over passports we received a piece of paper as a receipt, which we must take to Qazkom Bank, No.12, Dostyk Street. We have 6 days to pay the total cost.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know! This is our experience in Astana, Kazakhstan, in mid-June 2017, but PLEASE REMEMBER Chinese visa laws change ALL THE TIME.
If you liked this post, you might also like our blog post outlining the details of getting a Mongolian Visa in Astana.
Thanks for reading this far! We appreciate your time, and if you have any questions or suggestions please let us know by going to the 'Contact' page or heading over to Vagabonshoe on Facebook.
*They are VERY picky about this. We almost missed out on getting ours done on time because the line was huge for me to get my photos re-taken. It costs 750Tinge and is done in the first little building on the right of the gate to the Consulates (with a ‘V’ shaped roof).
**Can be found here.
***Can be faked through this website with a step by step guide here.
****We did this through Booking.com by finding hotels that are ‘book now, pay later’.
