John, I'm commenting specifically on your recollection of China requiring people having visited China before it would consider a multi-entry visa. It doesn't appear to be true - if it was true before. The visa application form I downloaded from the Chinese Consulate in Chicago (just now) lists choice of visa types and number of planned entries to China on page one while the question about whether one has visited China before is on page two of two pages. I could not find any indication that the stated condition was implied. I applied for and received a one-year multi-entry visa last year not having visited with a new US passport. Thanks, Jerry (my own opinions, not my employer's.) -- Jerry Huang, AT&T Labs, +1 630 810 7679 (+1 630 719 4389, soon) -----Original Message----- From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John C Klensin Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 12:29 PM To: Ole Jacobsen Cc: IETF-Discussion list Subject: Re: Visas and Costs --On Monday, September 21, 2009 10:10 -0700 Ole Jacobsen <ole@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Just a couple of comments regarding cost and visas, speaking > from personal experience. >... > Visa: > > If you are a US citizen, the visa fee is $130 here in the US. > For non-US citizens, the fee is only $30 :-) However, be very > careful about visa validity. As a Norwegian citizen, I can > (in San Francisco) only get a visa that is valid for 3 > months, single entry, but the clock starts on the day it is > ISSUED, not, as one might expect, when you arrive in China in > spite of the fact that the form asks when you will be >... > Depending on where you are from and where you apply, > multi-entry visas for a year or even more may be available. > Express service (1-2 days) may also be available for a fee, > but in June in San Francisco, this was NOT available and the > process took a week. All these are things to watch out for > especially if you travel a lot since of course the consulate > or embassy will hold your passport while processing the visa > application. Two additional observations may be useful. In the US, someone must appear in person at the embassy or consulate -- there is no mail-in service, at least for US citizens. In practice, that means that if one is in a city with a consulate (or close to one), one has to use a visa service as an intermediary. Their fees can easily exceed the visa fees themselves unless one works for a company that has a special deal with one of them. More important, they often require far more documentation than the embassy nominally requires, presumably to be sure that they have what they need if the embassy (or local consulate) starts asking questions about the traveler. That additional documentation may include confirmed flight or hotel reservations, letters of endorsement or guarantee (in addition to meeting invitations, etc.). So, especially if one cannot appear in person, one should get started early or be prepared to pay even higher fees. If I remember correctly from the embassy's web site, part of the documentation requirement for a multiple-entry visa is previous visits to China and associated visas. I.e., if you haven't had at least a couple of single-entry visas, there is no point thinking about a multiple-entry one. john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf