Finland is located in the north-east of Europe, has common borders with Norway, Sweden and Russia. Human nature barely affected the nature of this northern country, even fashionable hotels are harmoniously integrated into the natural landscape. Thousands of tourists come to this country every year. Here are excellent conditions for fishing, rafting, dog sledding or skiing. Therefore, the question of whether a visa to Finland is needed worries many vacation fans in this country.
Since Finland is included in the Schengen area , a Schengen visa is required to enter the country. To this end, the applicant must contact the Finnish representative office in Russia. You can also apply for a visa at the Consulate General of the country in St. Petersburg, in Moscow, at the Finland Visa Application Center , at the Consulate in Petrozavodsk and Murmansk.
Thus, to the question: "Do I need a visa to Finland, and which one?" - You can answer that a visa is required for citizens of the Russian Federation to enter Finland. The Finnish consulate can issue both Schengen and national visas. A Finnish national visa is issued if, according to some parameters, for example, the length of stay in the country, the conditions for its validity do not coincide with the Schengen agreement. In any other cases, a Schengen visa is issued. The national visa is issued by the Finnish Consulate quite rarely.
A single entry visa to Finland is issued by the Consulate for a single trip to the country. It gives you the right to cross the border into Finland only once and for the period specified in the visa, and, of course, return back. Today, a single entry visa for a three-day ferry trip to Finland and Sweden is popular.
Do I need a visa to Finland, and can I get it myself? You can get a Finnish visa yourself by contacting a Finnish representative office in Russia. Consular visa fee is 35 euros. An urgent Finnish visa costs about 70 euros. Consular fee in case of refusal to issue a visa to the applicant is not returned.
A multiple entry visa to Finland, which is also called a multi-visa, is issued for a certain number of days, which a tourist can stay in the country for a certain period of time. At the Moscow Consulate, tourists are usually issued a single visa for as many days as will last
intended trip.
You can, of course, get a
multivisa in Moscow , but it will be easier to do if you have previously traveled to Finland several times with single-entry visas.
In the Northwest region the situation is different. Here, at the first application, a six-month visa is issued for a 30-day stay in the Schengen countries. With a second application, the applicant can already receive an annual visa for up to 180 days, although, as practice shows, consulates have recently preferred to issue annual visas for an average of 90 days.
In order to decide whether you need a visa to Finland, which one, how it is more convenient for you to obtain it, it is advisable to collect as much information as possible on the various types of visas and the conditions for obtaining them.