Russia I disagree with, it's really not that bad to be honest.

Saudi sure, but it's that difficult that agencies are realistically the only way around it

Angola...well...goes without saying.

Yes - visa assistance for this is absolutely necessary. I thought I read all the instructions perfectly, sent my entire packet off to our firm's visa assistant in Houston, and the next morning the lady phoned me back asking me to fix 6 errors! A couple of them were Indian address formats I had no idea were wrong, one was the fact that my passport photo background wasn't pure white enough, and others were minor differences in company names (e.g., ACME in one place and ACME, Inc. in another place). She said absolutely, yes, they will reject you for any of these. I'm 100% certain the assistance is the only way I got this visa turned around quickly.

On the positive side, they did give me a 5 year visa. That was another thing the visa assistant recommended: ask for the max allowable, and you might get it or get less. It's pretty random.

I also used this same firm to do a Peruvian business visa, which required me to gather a lot of paperwork, submit fingerprints and a statement from my village police that I wasn't a criminal. It processed fine, but then I arrived in Lima at midnight and the immigration officer didn't even look at it. :mad: Tourists don't need a visa, so I guess the guy just assumed I was there for Machu Picchu.

I did a Chinese tourist visa on my own in Washington DC and it was no problem at all.

India used to be quite a nightmare -- but the last time I needed a visa in 2017 I just applied online and paid the money and got the visa online within about 4 hours (I think they said expect 24+ but also I've had several visas to India). The online application is a bit onerous but having filled them out before (and yes, filling them out several times online due to crashes or whatever glitches their system always seems to have), it was quite frankly easy. and they gave me 2x entries for a business visa.

Russia was more complicated as expected, with invitation letters, etc. needed for business, but overall just time-consuming. Very much enjoyed my trip there, totally worth it.

The most difficult is Thailand if you want a "business" visa to live in Thailand, even after 15 years of owning my own company, every year is a new episode...every 3 months it seems the rules change, have to fly to another country to get an extension, or in most cases flying back to your home country, only getting 3 months that needs to be extended in country, but if you travel it creates timing issues...overall very complicated when trying to manage it vs. a work permit that has different dates and government agencies... Tourist visas are pretty easy.

That's crazy! Thinking back 10 years there have been multiple places I have stayed where I would have no hope of figuring out the name or address. Assuming it's not major tourist season my wife much prefers to check out a place in person before deciding whether to stay there.

Here in the US there's one night I don't even know what town I was in. I had more time than I actually needed for the drive and there were multiple national parks within easy reach. I picked the basic route, figured out approximately the latest I could be at various locations and then figured so long as I didn't bust the timeline simply look at what I wanted to and when I got tired stop at a motel in the next town. What town that was, I don't know.

While the USA-Canada border is nowhere as casual as it was pre-9/11, it's still very easy to do a lot of border-hopping in a short period of time. A few years back, I ended up on a family trip to do a half marathon covering parts of both Maine and New Brunswick and it was probably 10 border crossings over a long weekend, including ones for such thing as '15 minutes in Canada spent picking up other half of race packet' and '10 minutes in Canada before discovering the good restaurant on the island had a giant tour bus parked in front of it, so we bailed and went back to the States'.

If I don't know the name or address (and in some countries there is no such thing as an "address" in the western sense of the word), I just put "Hotel - unknown" or "Address - unknown" for that date. They don't actually read the paperwork you provide as a routine course of action! :)

I'm not even sure on dates.

The United States. I am from a western country, and never needed a visa to the US for tourism or business. But to study, work or immigrate, it's a different story.

My student and work visas weren't much of an issue, although it certainly has gotten more bureaucratic over the years. But my immigrant visa?

Chest x-rays. Blood samples. Fingerprints. Criminal history searches from every jurisdiction I ever lived in. Affidavits. Interviews. Employment and residential histories. More interviews. Military background checks (simply to prove that I had no military background.) Requests for evidence asking for paperwork previously submitted. Interminable waits while you get little to no feedback on what is happening with your petition. Fees that must be paid in specific ways, and online systems that simply don't work.

Now, I understand an immigrant visa is a much bigger deal than a 90-day visit. And most of these may not even be unreasonable. But the sum of them, as well as a processing time measured in years, certainly qualifies as the most onerous visa process I've ever been through.

Extreme vetting? It's already here.

Without a doubt, US.

156 pages for a business visa. I especially liked how badly designed the forms were and how, when they changed the forms over time, they simply updated the instructions at the front without removing prior edition instructions - meaning you open the forms up and are presented with 4+ sets of differing instructions on how to complete the form and where to send it. No notation to ignore all instruction sets except whichever one is at the top. Detailing *every* trip for the last 10 years was also entertaining. Getting police reports from each country lived in in the last 15 years was a pain in the bum. USCIS taking 9 months to process it was also rather special. Then, when they finally got to it, they asked for info that had already been supplied. I presume even they couldn't be bothered reading all 156 pages. The compulsory visit to the embassy in another country (no embassy in the one I was in at the time) and the local employee staff yelling at everyone, telling you your visa packet is incomplete and will be denied, only to have the actual State Dept visa officer approve it instantly five minutes later just added to the fun. Not cheap either. US$1250 in the end when all the fees & add on's were totaled.

Changing to an immigrant/PermRes visa was/is even worse. Over 600 pages and $4500 so far - still one step left that will take at least 6 months from the time I apply and costs another $950. 18 months from start to landing, and I'm told that's quick-ish. I work with someone from the Phillipines and they said their visa took 8 years to be approved.

Brazil was easy. We paid an agent who I'm pretty sure paid bribes to get it all done quickly and had the business visa back within 72 hours.

Except that the consulate in Toronto requested confirmation of all booking of hotels listed on the letter of invitation.

Had to make refundable reservations at all the hotels on Expedia. Pointless exercise of course since I just cancelled them after since after you're in Russia, noone cares where u stay.


As for other visas, I remember having to mail in applications for Syria (2005), Myanmar (2008), and I think Vietnam (2008). Iran was also a mail away while they still had an embassy in Canada (2011)

India is a pain in the butt in person, really strict on photo size, background, and the agency that processes the applications is only open like 10am-2pm

Someone mentioned Uzbekistan, that was easy once I figured out you get one on arrival assuming your country doesn't have a Uzbek embassy.
Turkmenistan was not hard but you did require booking a package thru an agency.

There seem to be two different conversations going on here:

Those who it seems having to do almost anything at all makes them the worst, when seemingly what they have to do is normal and pedestrian, and.........

Those who have gotten their fair share of visas and know what "worst" means.

So for example at anytime in the last 30 years getting a Brazilian visa as a US citizen is an absolute walk in the park, while those who are dealing with Angola, various 'stans, Russia at various times, know what worst can be.

I have been getting Chinese visas since the mid 1980's. other than the 6 months or so before the Olympics it has always been pretty straight forward, and has progressed up to 10 year visas. I have always found Russia to be either ridiculously difficult or extremely fast and easy depending on the political climate at the time, or using the examples of stating everywhere you have been for example, it has ranged from, "just fill out the space on the page" to, "we want every detail of the last 10 years and will match passport stamps to your details"

The ones that I have found to be the worst are from secondary countries to strange European outposts or small Caribbean islands. Try being a Turk who wants to visit St. Lucia by land in the years after the UK consulate was bombed in IST, Not easy. How about a Turk with valid long term UK, Schengen and US visas who wants to visit Reunion. Should be simple, but is a huge pain.

How does anyone visit St. Lucia by land?

Oops, sorry, I meant BY AIR. Meaning that a Turk visiting on a cruise does not need a visa, while one by plane does, but St. Lucia only has a few missions around the World and has a deal with the UK to issue visas in certain places like Turkey. This is something that maybe something like 100 Turks have ever done, as the vast majority who visit St. Lucia do so by sea. So when something happens, like the UK consulate is bombed, no one thinks of this sort of thing, so that when let's say a year after the bombing a Turkish person has planned their trip to St. Lucia, they are told they can get their visa at the consulate in Istanbul (but not Embassy in Ankara), but the UK is NOT issuing them. So the person appeals to the UK home office who at first says that it should then be done in Nicosia - which for whatever reason is the other European place (at the time) that needed a visa to St. Lucia. However of course at the time Turkish passport holders could almost never enter Southern Cyprus, and to do so would mean traveling from IST to ATH and then Cyprus, if one could do so.....oh yeah, and getting a Cypriot visa, because at the time Cyprus was not yet Schengen! Which meant dealing with the St. Lucia High Commission in London, whose response of course was that it had to be done in ones home country at the UK Consulate in ones home city!!

Now the really really really funny thing about all this was that when it was all sorted, the passport agent in St. Lucia did not even look for a visa, just simply opened the passport to a random page and stamped it!

This reminds me of my saga to try and get a Direct Airside Transit Visa for the Isle of Man issued in Ghana. Due to a really vague loophole in their immigration regulations, a non-EU airline crewmember who enters the UK on the 7-day crewmember concession and then wishes to transit via the Isle of Man between two domestic points in the UK must hold a Direct Airside Transit Visa for IOM. They have never in their history issued one of these however. So I decided to try and apply for one. The British High Commission in Accra represented the interests of the IOM, but had never issued an IOM visa of any type either. So for 3 months there was back and forth until the deputy visa section chief (who is also a friend of mine) just called me one day and offered to pay for the direct flight herself if I would just agree to drop the application. I didn't actually want to fly LGW-IOM-MAN (but the IOM DATV would have been a cool one to have) so I agreed to back down! :)

Not correct. They sometimes ask for Father's name depending on the form and the consulate (rare now), but they have never asked for Grandparents names in the 20 years I have been getting visas for Myanmar