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I am an Australian citizen and I know that for some ex Eastern Bloc countries like Russia and Belarus I need an invitation and other difficulties to obtain a visa. Ukraine looks easier than those but not quite as easy as Eastern Europe or Turkey but finding the exact current information isn't as easy as I expected.

Can I get a visa on arrival? If not can I apply in Romania and if so must it be in Bucharest? How much does it cost? Are there single and multiple entry variants or how much time does the visa allow? Do I need an invitation? Must I submit an itinerary?

I will be travelling overland on the Black Sea coast from Romania. My intention is to take the ferry from Ukraine to Georgia but as I'll be hitch-hiking I'm not sure how long it will take so whether I can get away with a transit visa rather than a tourist visa is uncertain.

UPDATE / BOUNTY (sorry this edit should've happened when I added the bounty but my wifi signal disappeared)

I've added a bounty to this question purely for the part "... can I apply (for a visa) in Romania and if so must it be in Bucharest?" or can I only apply for the visa in my home country like I must in the case of a Russian visa?

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This bounty is up soon and I still don't have an answer to whether I have to apply for a Ukraine visa in my home country (Australia). If you can find the answer in the next 16 hours you'll get my 100 rep... – hippietrail Aug 16 '11 at 19:05
Did you ever work this out? I'm in exactly the same situation right now. – Carl Feb 9 at 13:39
Hmmm, I'm sure I saw a response to this in my inbox, but now it's taking me to a different question. Any update on this available? – Carl Feb 11 at 15:50

4 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

As usual, the definitive resource for this kind of information is the embassy of the country you want to visit in the country where you are a citizen of, in your case the embassy of Ukraine in Australia. Its visa requirement page, as is common, doesn't have all the information you want.

You do need a visa to enter Ukraine, either a tourist visa or a transit visa. A transit visa can be valid for up to 5 days and cannot be extended. A tourist visa can be valid for up to 90 days but requires a letter of invitation from an accredited travel agency or a hotel booking confirmation. I found clearer requirements of the site of the Ukrainian embassy in Belgium: a tourist visa has fairly stringent requirements, whereas you should be able to get a transit visa by showing your visa for Georgia and your ferry ticket (this could be a problem if you intended to buy the ferry ticket on the spot due to not knowing on which day you would take it). On the site of the Ukrainian embassy in Romania, I can't find definitive information as to what you can do without being a permanent resident there and what delays to expect (this may be due to my speaking neither Ukrainian nor Romanian); note that the Romanian version and the Ukrainian version have different content sometimes.

By the way, how exactly did you plan to reach Ukraine from Romania? While the countries share a border in the Danube delta, there aren't many roads in that area, and there aren't many places with settlements on both sides of the river so there might not be ferries either. If you take the road from GalaĊ£i to Reni, you have to cross a small stretch of Moldova, for which requires a visa. A traveller reports that you cannot get a transit visa at the border (at least from the Ukrainian side). And note that it may be useful to have a dual entry visa for Moldova, in case you end up going north rather than south of Dniester estuary.

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Thanks for the answer. The Ukrainian embassy site in Australia gave me the impression I had to apply in Australia without stating it outright. It could just be an assumption made on the site rather than a rule. For Georgia I get visa-free entry as a tourist for up to 360 days(!) and yes I did intend to buy my ferry ticket in Ukraine when I get there. I intend to hitchhike across the border but haven't looked into the finer details (I hitchhiked to Romania from Istanbul already). Thanks for the Moldova info - that does complicate things! \-: – hippietrail Jul 24 '11 at 16:20
After hunting around I could only find the same thread from 2007 about not being able to cross near the Danube Delta without passing through Moldova so since Moldova also interests me and I'd have to pay anyway I might look into whether I can get a Moldova visa while I'm on the road... – hippietrail Jul 24 '11 at 17:39
up vote 7 down vote

I think the question is fine, and very valid. As a New Zealander, when I went in 2008 it was required to get an invite from someone in the Ukraine - easy to get, just google for Ukraine invites.

Once you have that, you need the visa, where you have to present your invite too, as well as an itinerary (that you're not held to).

If you do get in, and can afford to splurge a bit, a tour to Chernobyl is one of the most amazing experiences I've been on - just a surreal place. Two hours from Kiev.

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Yes it looks like the invitations for Ukraine are more trivial to obtain that for some countries. It seems that an itinerary might no longer be required if I read correctly the embassy site and other Google results. – hippietrail Jul 26 '11 at 6:16
up vote 5 down vote

I googled your question and found some websites (listed below), that contain general information regarding visa for the ukraine. You might find your answers there. On a dutch website, I also found an advice to ask ukraine travel questions on an expat forum specifically for the Ukraine

Edit

Since people are not willing to following links. You can get an visa on arrival on the international airport. For inquires on other entry points, you could pose your question an expat forum in the Ukraine: http://www.brama.com/travel/travelboard.html

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Can you get some information here, not just send us to the internet, please? We are trying to get more content here, not just to create a proxi-site for the google-search. – VMAtm Jul 24 '11 at 12:12
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Actually I did Google this question and got varying and vague results so I thought it would make a good question to have here with a nice solid expert answer. The bit that was the murkiest was "If not can I apply in Romania and if so must it be in Bucharest?" My initial impression was that I had to apply at home (Australia) but was inconclusive. – hippietrail Jul 24 '11 at 16:09
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Some people are better at using google than others - which sounds ludicrous for typing words into a box, but it's true - just having a feel for what type of keywords work better and so on. And it's a question that will come up for others, so having an exact answer here only helps future people. The fact is - here's a person who did a search, couldn't find a useful, straight forward answer, so they came here. And they won't be the last. – Mark Mayo Jul 25 '11 at 5:18
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Amusingly, clicking your link - the second result in Google is now this page :D – Mark Mayo Jul 25 '11 at 5:21
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@Andra: There is a very fine line between sourcing answers from somewhere else on the web and ensuring it's reliable. On the surface it might seem that an answer can be found easily by Googling but especially with things like visas, rules are constantly shifting. A post elsewhere valid two years ago might no longer be - and simply linking to that without knowing whether it's correct or still valid can be erroneous. That's why we try to get answers from either 'authentic source' like embassy sites, or from travellers who know the situation - at least for the period they visited. – Ankur Banerjee♦ Jul 25 '11 at 6:59
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up vote 4 down vote

About 4 years ago I received a Ukrainian visa from the embassy in the Netherlands (I'm Australian). They even did it super fast as I didn't have much time.

There is a train from Romania to Odessa that passes through Moldova.

For $20 you can get a transit visa for Moldova (at the embassy in Bucharest) within an hour or so.

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