How i got 5 years multiple entry visa from india!
Learn how to get long valid multiple entry visa for Indians
Japan is one of the beautiful and at the same time most under-rated destination for Indians in my opinion. Not many Indians I have come crossed are much aware of the fact that what this beautiful country has to offer in the form of tourism. Lately, Japan this year has simplified visa rules for Indians and come out some pretty cool different categories where you get the opportunity to get long valid multiple entry tourist visas for up to 5 years and I was recently one of the lucky ones to score them!
Various categories of Japan Visas for Indians
Let us discuss first about all the various categories of different visa for Japan briefly:
- Short-term visa: This allows stay up to 90 days for tourism, business, attending conferences, visiting friends/acquaintance, etc., and it does not include paid activities.
- Single Entry visa for short stay with the purpose of tourism for Indians Students: In this category – students, graduate students & alumni (within 3 years of graduation) of universities in India are allowed to submit their certificate of student status or graduation instead of the document confirming their financial capability in the application for single entry visa for short-term stay with the purpose of tourism.
- Short-term visa Multiple Entry: This is the one of the most important category where the Japan government has come out with different application procedure giving the benefit of ease of documentations and more chances of getting long valid multiple entry tourist visas. We will discuss about in details later here.
- Medical Visa: This is mainly meant for services related to medical check-up and treatment. This visa is not only issued to patients but also to accompanying persons also if necessary.
- Transit Visa: As the name suggest, if you are transiting through Japan for tourism, sightseeing and simply at rest, you can get a visa for maximum stay up to 15 days.
Conditions for Multiple Entry Visas
For all Indian nationals who wishes to apply for multiple entry visa, any of the following possible categories can be opted:
- Any Individual who has travel records of “Temporary Visitor” to Japan twice or more in last three years.
- Any Individual who travel records as “Temporary Visitor” to Japan in the last 3 years and has financial capacity to pay the travel expense.
- Any Individual who travel records as “Temporary Visitor” to Japan and any of the G7 countries in last 3 years.
- Any Individual who sufficient financial capacity.
- Spouse or Children’s of the individual who has sufficient financial capacity.
If you have read all 5 categories above, then what it simply conveys is that If you have great international travel history or If you can show that have financially sound money (including savings & investments) then you can anytime can get the benefits of getting long valid multiple entry visa for maximum 5 years (for each stay up to 3 months)
How I got 5 years Multiple entry visa for Japan?
I mainly gained the benefit of 3rd category under Multiple entry visitor. How it works? First, we need to know which all countries come in the part of G7 (full form for Group of seven):
United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan & United Kingdom
What it requires in this category is any individual who has in past 3 years traveled to Japan and any minimum any one of these other 6 countries within past 3 years, he is eligible for getting the possibility of long valid multiple entry visa.
Now you would probably think, how does it benefit much as we have to go through all the hassle of showing long documentation! Well, let me jot down the what are the documents is required in this category:
– Covering Letter
– Application form (with Photo)
– Passport (with old passport if any)
– Copies of Previous visa and entry stamps of Japan travel + G7 country.
That’s it! Basically, they don’t need any of your documents. Your simple travel history is all what is required in this case!
In my case, I was already lucky to being travel to almost every single G7 country including Japan in past 3 years. The whole process was super easy, I filled the online application, took necessary copies of passport and visa stamps and went to VFS for documents submission. To my surprise, not even the VFS officers had much idea of what this category has to offer and it took them a while to extract the relevant category checklist and explore through the requirements. Since I was already carrying some extra documents, so they included my temporary flight ticket and one ITR copy along with my application and submitted my case. (Although it wasn’t required as per the checklist and was simply optional). Exactly after 5 days, I went for my passport collection and got my 5 years visa stamp!
What most people also don’t know is Japan has one of the strongest passports in the world and having a visa from Japan definitely adds a lot of weightage to your travel history. Strong travel history sometimes surpasses the needs of showing financial savings in many visa cases and it becomes very ease to travel anywhere in the world without much worries of getting visa approvals!
I currently hold 10 years Multiple entry US visa, 5 years multiple entry Canada visa, 5 years multiple entry Schengen visa and 5 years multiple entry Japan visa and have traveled to all these countries and many other in last 3 – 5 years. Being having an Indian passport, it’s never easy to get long valid visas but there are people I know who travel internationally much often and simply don’t know how to reap the benefits of building their travel history. Even If you are not a hard-core traveler, just being knowing different ways of how international travel works, you always have opportunities open to building long travel history.
Conclusion
If you have not visited Japan before and planning a trip somewhere in near future, I would definitely recommend going for Japan! The visa process is easy and Japan is one the most welcoming country full of rich culture and advancement!
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