What Standard Documents Are Required For Online Visa Application?

By Author: Arvind Sharma
Total Articles: 22
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The standard documents, required for an offline and online visa application are:

• Valid Passport
• Photographs
• Duly completed and signed visa application form
• Proof of sufficient finances to support the travel and stay in the country
• Proof of travel – flight ticket and hotel accommodation confirmations

However, different types of visa require different types of documents that are essential for complete visa processing and approval. When you use any visa application services, you must understand the type of visa you need as well as the supporting documents well enough. For employment visa, you will need the proof of employment. The supporting documents vary from country to country, though. But, it includes confirming documents from the employer and educational qualifications. Quite a few countries want to ensure that citizens with the same skill set are not available locally before allowing a foreign national to avail the benefits of local opportunities.

For a transit visa, you need the visa of your final destination and flight tickets. For business visa, you ...
... need all the documents supporting your business documents. Most importantly, you need the documents that demonstrate your financial ability and proven business records. When you apply for a medical travel visa, you need the medical documents.

As you can see, the visa processing for different types of visas is different and so are the documents. So, every embassy has a written list of supporting documents that will be necessary for the approval. When you avail the third party visa application services such as CKGS or VFS, you will receive the case-specific information about visa processing and supporting documents. However, generically, standard visa approval involves the following process:

• Gathering the documents: Visa services define the supporting documents and allow the applicant to present the ones that best suited for approval.
• Submission of the documents: The documents are submitted to the respective embassy or consulate along with the fees on the scheduled date. This process varies considerably based on the data, type of visa, applicant and the country he/she intends to visit.
• Returning the documents: Whether your visa is accepted or rejected, the processed documents are returned to the applicant or the visa processing agency.

Though, the online visa application process is tedious, travel and transit visa is processed much faster than business or employment visa. The supporting documents that need to be verified are more complex and more important, which tends to slow down the process.

About the Author:

Arvind Sharma is an employee of Cox and Kings Global Services. Along with wanting to ensure that travellers have extensive information about Visa application services, he also prefers to research about Visa processing and applying for a Visa online for additional aid.