E-visas to be available for St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region

From 1 October 2019*, foreign citizens will be able to enter Russia with single-entry electronic visas at border control posts located in Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.

With this type of visa, foreign citizens will only be able to travel within Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region for a maximum of eight days.

Obtaining e-visas will not be available to all foreigners, but only to citizens of states to be approved by the Russian government.

Electronic visas will be issued by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs based on applications that foreign citizens will complete on a special website. A foreign citizen must apply for a visa no later than four calendar days before the planned trip. The consular fee for issuing an e-visa will not be charged.

It will be possible to use e-visas for business, tourism and humanitarian purposes.

Comment: do not overstay

Foreign citizens using the e-visa entry procedure should ensure they do not overstay and do not leave the borders of Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region where the visas will be valid.

E-visas for Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region are an extension of the electronic visa system already in place in the Kaliningrad Region and the Far Eastern Federal District. The regions that can be entered with electronic visas will probably be expanded in the future, and in the long term electronic visas will be valid throughout the country.

If you have any questions on the matters referred to in this eAlert, do not hesitate to contact CMS Russia experts Valeriy Fedoreev, Christophe Huet and Ekaterina Elekchyan or your regular contact at CMS Russia.

* In Russian