Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, Good for Business, Legislation, Transport

"I'm sincerely glad that the visa service in Ivangorod has reached a new level, which means that visa applicants no longer have to spend their time standing in lines, but they have the opportunity to submit the visa application and receive a visa quickly and conveniently. The inhabitants of Ivangorod, our dear neighbors, are particularly important to us and it is our special wish that applying for a visa to Estonia would be easy and at a high level of quality," Viktoria Tuulas, consul general of the Republic of Estonia in St. Petersburg, said in a press release.

The Estonian consulate general in St. Petersburg has been engaging in cooperation with VFS Global since 2013.

The service of VFS Global enables people living outside the Russian cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Pskov, where Estonia has its consular missions, to file applications for an Estonian visa at regional offices of VFS Global near their home, saving time and money.

The offices of VFS Global in Russia are situated in St. Petersburg, Vyborg, Novgorod, Vologda, Petrozavodsk, Arhangelsk, Murmansk and Ivangorod.

The visa application center counsels visa applicants, accepts visa applications from them, provides facilities for photographing and taking of fingerprints, and forwards the applications to the consulate. After the visa application has been processed the travel document is returned to the applicant via the visa application center.

Visa applications are processed at the Estonian consulate general in St. Petersburg in five workdays.

A spokesperson for the Estonian Foreign Ministry told BNS about 150-200 applications for an Estonian visa are filed per month in Ivangorod and another as much in nearby Kingissepp.

VFS Global is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Kuoni Group, a public-listed company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

VFS Global runs 1,862 application centers serving 48 client governments in 124 countries.