Baltic States – CIS, Belarus, Lithuania, Markets and Companies, Tourism

The Lithuanian government has on Monday decided to bring back the consular fee for a visa request for Belarusian citizens and apply a 50% discount. Under a decision made in 2011, such a fee has not been taken so far at all.

"The bill proposes applying a 50% discount to Belarusian citizens on the consular fee for national visa requests. It would be a parity "mirror" decision as the Belarusian also apply the same discount to out citizens," Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said.

According to the minister, under the new rules, Belarusian citizens will have to pay 60 euros for visas, and the new rules will come into force as of July.

Figures from the Foreign Ministry show that 44,966 national visas were issued to Belarusian citizens in 2011-2019, and the non-received consular fee exceeded 2.6 mln euros.

The Foreign Ministry says Belarus has been informed about the plans to reintroduce the consular fee and is not against but only asked for the changes to come into forces after the agreement with the EU on the facilitation of visa issuance comes into forces on July 1.

Belarus is currently on the list of countries worst-hit by the coronavirus and foreigners are allowed to come to Lithuania from this country only in exceptional cases with the mandatory 14-day isolation.