MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. The total cost of obtaining an e-visa for foreign citizens, including all fees and expenses, will not exceed $52, head of the consular department at the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexey Klimov said on Thursday.
"To obtain a visa, a foreigner will need to pay a fee through a special website using a bank card. As expected, the total amount, taking into account the consular fee, bank commission, transaction costs of the payment system, as well as the fee for preliminary verification of documents, will not exceed $52 (subject to currency fluctuations)," he said in an interview with the Telegram channel of the consular department.
As the official noted, for children under the age of six, the cost of a visa, taking into account only the transaction costs of the payment system, will not exceed two US dollars.
"The preserved possibility for citizens of EU member states to apply for e-visas, as well as their low cost (compared to the 80 euro visa fee that Russians are now being charged for obtaining a Schengen visa) is our asymmetric response to the clearly unfriendly steps of the EU to tighten visa policies towards our fellow citizens, which show up in a delay in the consideration of visa applications, a sharp increase in both the number of visa refusals and a reduction in the number of entries. The issuance of multiple Schengen visas to Russians, unfortunately, has already become more of an exception," the head of the consular department added.
On Wednesday, at a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova asked the head of state to support the proposal to launch electronic visas in the country from August 1. Putin supported this idea. According to Golikova, citizens of 52 countries will be able to apply for an e-visa, but she also proposed to include three more countries on this list: Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.
In 2020, Russia adopted a law which provided for the issuance of electronic visas for citizens of 52 countries starting in 2021. However, the law did not go into effect due to the pandemic. In the fall of 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government, together with the Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service, to think about renewing the e-visa program for residents of countries not included on the list of unfriendly states.