Has anyone had to get a Student Visa for Venezuela?

Question

I am a US citizen that is going to be teaching English in Venezuela for a year. The website is little help, and I can't get the Venezuelan consulate to call me back regarding either an appointment, or how to apply by mail.

I figure:

-Application

-Contract w/school

-Flight itinerary

-Passport type photos

Has anyone done this? What am I missing? How much money do I need to include.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I recently did this. The requirements are listed on their website, but it appears to be down at the moment. In any case, when I applied I brought:

-visa application form

-letter from the school in Venezuela saying I had been accepted and the contract with the school (make sure these are signed by the school!!! I had to make two trips to the consulate because of this)

-flight itinerary

-2 passport type fotos

-bank account statement to prove I had funds to support myself

-official college transcript (or your diploma, if you have it)

-passport

The visa application fee for a student visa is $60. This must be either a cashier's check or a money order made out to Consulado General de Venezuela. They do not accept personal checks.

When I applied for mine I went to the consulate in Washington, DC and you don't need to make an appointment there. However, I applied two weeks ago and haven't recieved my visa yet...I've been calling the consulate every day for the past three days and they keep making me leave voicemails and haven't returned my calls.

What school will you be teaching at? I start teaching at the Centro Venezolano Americano on August 1st (provided this visa request eventually goes through).

ADDED: to answer your question on the pdf they sent, I think you're going to have to make a bit of tough decision. As it turned out, they never even asked for the contract but they took one look at the letter from the school to the consulate and told me it had to have a signature. When I asked if CVA could just fax me a copy with the signature, they told me no, that it had to be an original signature. It took me about a week to finally get in touch with the academic director at CVA, and when I did I decided that I didn't want to wait for an original copy of the signed letter to come in the mail and just told CVA to fax it to me (they also faxed me a signed copy of the contract, just in case). I took the faxed copy back to consulate, and the first thing they said was "do you have this letter with the original signature?" I told them the original was coming in the mail, but that I'd been waiting for it to come for a while, that I was in a bit of a hurry to get the visa, and made it sound like making another trip to the consulate would be a big deal and they accepted the copy of the letter I had. So...I don't think there is a uniform policy on this. It might have just been the consulate official I dealt with. If this was standard practice, I would imagine CVA would have anticipated it and given us signed copies to begin with. But if you don't have much time to wait, and if making multiple trips to the consulate is going to be an issue, you might want to think about how you'll deal with this. If you decide you need to get these signed, my advice is to call CVA...they seem to be less reliable about responding to emails. Good luck and I hope to meet you in Caracas soon!