What is a visa? What are the types of visas?

A visa is an endorsement, stamp, or enclosure (such as a separate paper visa) on a passport or other travel document held by a citizen of a country or region to indicate that he or she is allowed to enter or leave the country (or pass through its borders before going to a third country).

A visa is a permit granted by the governmental authorities of a country in accordance with the laws and regulations of that country for foreigners who apply to enter, leave, or pass through the country.

According to the principles of international law, any sovereign state has the right to decide on its own whether to allow foreigners to enter or leave its country, to grant visas, to deny visas or to cancel visas already issued in accordance with its own laws.

The visa is usually attached to the passport or other international travel document held by the applicant. In exceptional cases, with a valid passport or other international travel document can be done in another white paper. With the development of technology, some countries are now auditing electronic visas and biological visas, which greatly enhance the anti-counterfeiting effect of visas.

Visas play an important role in a country's ability to check and control people entering and leaving the country, maintain homeland security, and avoid illegal immigrants and criminals.

While a passport is the holder's national identity and identification document, a visa is a permit for a sovereign state to allow foreign citizens or its own citizens to enter, leave, or pass through its borders.

Visas are generally endorsed on passports, or on other travel documents that replace passports, and some grant separate paper visas. Such as the United States and Canada's immigration visa is a large A4 paper, Singapore for foreigners also issued a separate paper visa, visa generally must be used with the passport, in order to have validity.

The visa can be divided into six types: exit visa, entry visa, exit visa, entry/exit visa, re-entry visa and transit visa according to the entry/exit status. The exit visa only allows the holder to leave the country, if you need to enter the country, you must apply for another entry visa. The entry visa allows the holder to enter the country only, and if he/she needs to leave the country, he/she must apply for an exit visa. Entry/Exit visa holders are able to leave the country and can re-enter the country. Holders of several entry and exit visas are allowed to enter and leave the country during the validity of the visa.

Depending on the reason for entry and exit, it can be divided into diplomatic visa, official visa, immigrant visa, non-immigrant visa, privileged visa, tourist visa, work visa, student visa, business visa and family visa. The situation is different for each country.

According to the length of time, there are long-term and short-term visas. The concept of long-term visa is to stay in the country of departure for more than 3 months. Long-term visas are generally required for a longer period of time, regardless of the purpose of the visit. A visa for a stay of less than 3 months in the country of previous departure is called a short-term visa, and the time required to apply for a short-term visa is relatively short.

According to the frequency of entry into the country can be divided into: a single entry and several entry visa

According to the total number of applications: individual visa and group visa

According to the convenience provided to the holder: there are separate paper visas, visas on arrival, etc.

Most of the world's country visas are divided into: diplomatic visas, official (officer) visas and general visas.

Immigrant and non-immigrant visas

Depending on the purpose of entry of the applicant, the visa can be divided into immigrant and non-immigrant visas. An immigrant visa means that the applicant has been granted permanent residence in the country to which he or she is going and can become a legal citizen of that country after a certain period of residence. And non-immigrant visa can be divided into several types such as business, labor, study, tourism, medical and so on.

III. Visa at the port of entry

The port visa window refers to applying forvisa extension hong kong a visa (also known as visa on arrival) at the port of entry of the country you are going to. Generally speaking, to apply for a port visa, the inviter must submit an application to the immigration authorities in his home country in advance, and after approval, the permission will be sent to the visiting personnel. The latter leaves the country with this confirmation and gets a visa when arriving at the port of the former country.

The large countries that issue port visas to foreign citizens are usually West Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and parts of our country in Oceania, such as Thailand, Singapore, Singapore, etc.

IV. Visas

Visas, on the other hand, have different ways and designations in development. For example, endorsement type visa, chapter type visa, sticker type visa, and also organic reading visa, individual visa, team visa, etc.

(1) Visa with endorsement

It refers to a simple textual endorsement on a valid passport, indicating the specific requirements for permitting the holder to enter or leave the country. Most of the early visas were issued in this way.

(2) Stamped visa

It means that the fixed format of the visa is engraved on the seal, and when making the visa, the seal is stamped on the visa page of the applicant's passport or other travel document, and the required contents are filled in, and the whole process is made by hand. With the development of technology, it was changed to a visa machine instead, or the contents of the visa are printed on the passport by computer in a fixed format.

(3) Sticker visa

The paper sticker visa is made in a fixed format on a special paper for visa, and the printed visa is stuck on the applicant's passport with stickers. The sticker visa is usually made by computer printing. The U.S. sticker visa also has the applicant's photo scanned onto the white paper. Canada's sticker visa does not have the applicant's photo on it, but comes with a tamper-evident mark and is sealed with a plastic sealing technique.

(4) Separate paper visa

It is a special type of visa that must be used in conjunction with a passport or other international travel document held by the applicant. The objective of granting a separate visa varies from country to country.

(5) Machine Readable Visa

MachineReadableVisas (MRV) are visas that are intended to be read by equipment. The ICAO Machine Readable Travel Document Advisory Service has developed a technology for reading and identifying visas with equipment based on the machine readable passport technology. This type of technology greatly simplifies international travel procedures and shortens clearance times.

(6) Electronic visas

Some countries also use the Internet and magnetic card research to develop "electronic visa" or "hidden visa". Countries such as Australia and Singapore have started to use these visas.

(7) Individual and Group Visas

An individual visa is a visa that is attached to each applicant's passport or other international travel document. A group visa is a visa that is attached to a group roster. It is important that the person holding the same group visa enters and leaves the country with the group.

V. Schengen Visa

SchengenVisa is a visa issued under the Schengen Agreement. This agreement is named after the Schengen signature in Luxembourg, which defines a single visa policy for member states.

As a result of this agreement, a visa issued by any Schengen Member State is considered valid in all other Member States without the need for an additional visa. The country that implements this agreement is commonly referred to as a "Schengen country".

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