Chinese Visa Application Service Centre — Local services in London

I’m not one for writing that many reviews, unless I have pretty strong feelings about critical reviews that are maybe not due to the person/company providing the service, but perhaps the customer/reviewee.

My partner and I are off to China and thus we needed to organise tourist visas. I did some preliminary research and we were considering using an agency, but as you have to attend in person in order to submit finger prints I could not really see what the value add of using an agency would be. Then I looked at the visa centres website and thoroughly digested the instructions, I mean I read them two or three times and actually printed them all out and marked up all the salient instructions and made a list of all the documents needed, see below:

1. Print out of your appointment booking that you have to do at the end of the online visa submission process
2. Print out of the visa application after completing it online (this was straightforward, the only issue was submitting compliant photographs, more on that later!)
3. Print out and complete the debit card authorisation form for the card(s) to be used to pay for the visa
4. Flight and hotel confirmation printouts, several copies for good measure
5. Current passport photographs (took 4 each just in case more than one was required)
6. Scans of passports, couple of copies for good measure
7. Scan of old passport (mine had an old Chinese visa in it and thus I had to declare this when I completed the online application)
8. The actual old passport (just in case they wanted to see the real thing, in the end they did not check this to be honest)
9. We were getting our passports sent back to us in the post thus we provided prepaid Royal Mail tracked envelopes, address filled out, adhesive tracking numbers removed and stored somewhere safe

After reading that it can get busy we booked for 09:00 slots after completing the online visa application. We were using the London visa centre. We arrived at the centre at about 08:40 and joined the queue. The doors opened at about 08:50 and we ushered to join the 09:00 appointment queue to get our passports checked. Queues are formed for each appointment time slot.

A lady was checking the visa application forms and was looking for ones where the photograph had failed to meet their requirements. I did try my hardest to upload ones that I thought would comply, but their automatic checking software failed them after 3 upload attempts, so I did it what it said and just made sure we had passport photographs with us when we attended in person.

As ours photographs had failed we were put into a smaller queue to see someone to get our passports scanned, submit passport photographs and have a webcam picture taken. This took about 20 minutes to complete including queuing. The gent gave us one ticket as we were a couple and we sat and waited for our slot. About 15 minutes later we were given our counter number.

The lady checked our paperwork, taking copies of the visa application, the flight/hotel confirmation print outs, debit card forms, took our finger prints etc. All we had to do was fill out one form she gave us with the name and address of our places of work. It took about 20 minutes to ‘process’ the pair of us. She then gave us another ticket, sent us downstairs where there were counters so we could pay for the visas. We waited to pay for about 10 minutes. We were done.

We left the building just after 10:00. So from the point of joining the queue to leaving the building was about 1 hour and 20 odd minutes.

It was clear from observing the other folks that you just need to be fully prepared with your paperwork. As others have said, just read very, very carefully their instructions on the website. You can’t go wrong if you do!

I found everyone we dealt with friendly and polite. They said it would take 5 to 10 days to process and send our passports and post them back. The passports were in the post back to us in 4 working...

I’m writing this review having just collected my passport and visa from the London Visa Centre.

Overall the process is very efficient and quick, as long as you make sure you have all the required documentation with you as laid out on the website.

I applied for a tourist ‘L’ visa approx 1 month before leaving for china. I needed to show the following documents: original passport photocopy of the passport bio page completed printed application form, signed and dated on page 1 and 6 printed copies of my return flights to China printed invitation letter from my tour guide. If travelling independently, you will need a copy of all your hotel bookings for your entire stay. passport photos

I attended the visa centre on a Wednesday morning and arrived at 7.55am. There were 8 people in front of me and the queue did gradually build up fairly soon afterwards. At approx. 8.50am a member of staff started to hand out tickets for those in the queue- both for those applying for a visa and those collecting. Tickets are allocated per individual or group so I had ticket no. 7.

At 9am the doors opened and you are let into a large seating area. There is a member of staff (Solomon) who clearly tells you to gather all the paperwork necessary so that it is ready to hand when you are called up. There are computers to print out documents should you need. There are multiple large screens displaying the ticket number and which counter to go to with a bell sound to alert you to when a ticket is called up. They started to call up the ticket numbers within a couple of minutes of us entering the building.

Once called up, the whole process took about 5 minutes. They will take a photo of you and take your fingerprints You are then given a slip with a ticket number to go downstairs to pay. There is another seating area downstairs which is for payment and collection only- again you wait until your ticket is called up and you can pay by debit card or cash only- no Amex.

In total- I arrived at the centre at 07.55, entered the building at 09.00 and was out by 09.17.

I then returned to collect my passport today, 6 days after my initial visit (and the 4th working day after my initial visit).

I got to the centre at 10.35am. There was no queue outside but there was a queue of 7 people ahead of me inside. I noted that the tickets being called for application were around no. 65-67 at this time.

Solomon was at the counter and was ensuring people had printed and signed the application form- a lot of people hadn’t so please make sure you do this so that the queue can move forward efficiently.

Solomon then called out for anyone collecting and handed out tickets so we didn’t have to queue further. You then go downstairs and wait for your ticket to be called. I had one person ahead of me and I was called up and collected my passport within a couple of minutes.

For the collection visit, I arrived at 10.35 and left at 10.45.

I hope this review is helpful for those who aren’t sure why to expect. It is very efficient as long as you have the correct documents and have signed and dated the application form. I would advise coming mid-week as I heard queues on Mondays and Fridays are much longer.

Note that there is not covered or seating areas outside, so if you do come early and queue outside then be prepared to stand and plan for any poor weather...

After reading mixed opinions on the visa centre, I was a bit apprehensive about travelling there yesterday to apply for a Chinese visa for the first time.

Straight off the bat, it didn't start great. When we arrived, there was a queue of about 5 people at the reception desk, but no sign of any receptionist. This was about 10:45am when we arrived. For about 5 minutes there was no sign of anyone, and no note on the desk to say otherwise. In terms of actual staff helping out customers, there were only 2 people actively walking around helping people out, one of whom later sat behind the counter issuing visas.

We were issued with our ticket and began the wait to be called. There are a few big screen TVs dotted around the interior with big text as to which tickets are being called, and which respective counter to go to, so no complaints there. For people who maybe haven't printed off documents there is a computer station with 4 computers (3 working at the time) where you can browse online to collect and print off any stuff you didn't bring with you. It's not the most secure and I wouldn't trust it personally as it's shared by everyone visiting the visa centre who uses them, and they still use Windows 7. Be sure to clear your login details, and any downloaded files before you finish up using them.

I saw some signage on the wall which advised me to print a copy of my passport, even though I wasn't aware this was required for just a tourist visa. I had some confusion when I came to print, as there is a large photocopier next to the computer station, with accompanying signage advising that you have to insert coins into an ancient looking machine to be able to print documents. I spent a solid 2 minutes scratching my head figuring out how this works, before one of the staff came over to point me in the right direction. It turns out that the printer next to the computer station is no longer functional, and any documents that you print actually get printed on a small desk printer on the main reception desk! There is no signage to point this out at all, so I don't understand why they don't completely remove the printer as it's clearly no longer functional.

Anyway, after that fiasco, we had been waiting about an hour total, as there were 18 people in front of us in the queue at the time we received our ticket. Our number popped up on the screen and we made our way across to the counter, only to find someone sat there already. My best guess is that maybe the officers behind the counter press a button to call the next person, but accidentally pressed it twice? This was very annoying as by the time the next person left the desk we were going to, there had already been 5 other people called to free desks who had been waiting for 30 minutes less, very frustrating!!!

When we sat down with the visa officer, we presented all the required documents along with taking of biometrics, and this took maybe 5 minutes total, so this was the easiest part of the whole thing. I do think that given the number of people waiting, especially by the time we left at about midday, that they could really do with some extra staffing levels, as there are 30+ counters, but only 6 or 7 visa officers working on that day (Tuesday).

All in all a relatively smooth experience, but one that could be so easily improved with just a few small things...