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The weird and idiotic world of national visa requirements

A couple of weeks ago I made a brief visit to Germany. As detailed on my personal blog, I at one point looked sadly across the river Oder, unhappy that I could not walk across the bridge into Poland, but unable to do so due to the requirement that people travelling on Australian passports (such as myself) require a visa to enter Poland. There is no good reason for preventing Australians from entering Poland without a visa – we don’t actually pose any kind of threat to their country – at least certainly not any more than Britons, Americans, or Frenchmen (all of who do not require visas), but none the less we are required to get them. Thus we enter the weird world of visa requirements, which has a lot to do with ridiculous bureaucracy, governments that are on the take, and wounded national pride, but very little to do with actual common sense and little to do with governments acting in ways that would most benefit their citizens. (I am here only discussing visa requirements for tourism and other short visits. The issues that come into play for longer and working visits are something I could write a book on, so I will ignore them for now).

In terms of immigration the world can normally be divided into two groups of countries: rich and poor. “Rich” consists of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU and other countries in Europe that either could have joined the EU but haven’t (ie Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland) or are too small to do so (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc), Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. “Poor” is everyone else. (There are a few countries in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe (for instance Malaysia, Chile, and Hungary) that have almost but not quite made it into “rich”, and heaven knows how you categorise South Africa).

If you come from a poor country, you generally need a visa to visit any other country, although sometimes exceptions are made for countries adjacent to where you live. If people are going backwards and forwards over a border all day long, bureaucratic obstacles become truly idiotic, and are sometimes removed. (Sometimes they are not. However, in the case I was dealing with – Poles visiting Germany – they have been removed). Generally, though, rich countries want to check out visitors from poor countries before they come. That’s tough. Travelling on a poor country passport is a nuisance.

On the other hand, if you have a passport from a “rich” country there is generally no good reason to stop you from travelling anywhere. Nobody actually wants to check you out. But, sometimes the government of the country you visit will require a visa of you anyway. There are two reasons for this. National pride, and simple extortion. Both of these make governments happy, but do not actually help individual travellers.

If you have a rich country passport, it is generally easy to travel to any other rich country with just a passport. The exceptions come when the government of one country is trying to make a point to the government of some other country. For instance, Taiwanese people sometimes have difficulty because nobody actually recognises their country. People from Hong Kong get inconsistent treatment, coming from a very rich city within a generally poor country.

Australia technically requires visas of all foreign nationals except New Zealanders. This policy came into being because Australia was trying to distance itself from its past racist immigration policies (the so called “White Australia Policy”). Basing visa requirements on rich versus poor (which is done almost everywhere) would have 30 years ago meant requiring visas for essentially all Asians and no Europeans, and this looked bad, so visa requirements were imposed on everyone. This is a policy that is more enforceable in Australia than in some places, because Australia is an island. Nobody makes a spur of the minute decision to walk across the border into Australia, because it has no borders. Pretty much everyone visiting the country plans it in advance, and thus has time to get a visa in advance.

However, it was a foolish thing for Australia’s government to do, because it had strongly negative effects on Australian citizens when they were travelling abroad. Certain countries have policies of strict reciprocity in visa requirements, including the United States, France, and Japan. Australians needed visas to visit these places, not for any sensible reason, but just because we required visas of them. As an Australian who liked to travel, I found this a nuisance. (Just as an observation, of the countries that did require visas of Australians, the United States hassled us the least, normally issuing five year multiple entry visas at no charge by post. France hassled us the most, normally issuing single entry visas valid only for a few months, for a substantial fee, and requiring a visit to a consulate. Japan was in the middle).

Australia has not technically loosened its visa policy, but if you are a citizen of a rich country, getting one no longer requires an application to a consulate: your travel agent simply types your passport number into his computer terminal, the passport number is checked against a watchlist, and the visa is normally issued automatically if you are not on the watchlist. (The Australian government does not charge a fee for this if you do it through a travel agent. They do charge if you do it over the internet, which I would prefer they didn’t, but I suppose this is the way things go). Most importantly, the visa can be issued instantly. If you present your passport when you buy a ticket to Australia, there is nothing else to do. As virtually every person visiting Australia has to buy a ticket to do so, this is as good as not requiring a visa.

At least, this is the argument that Australia has used to try to convince other countries to drop their visa requirement for Australians, and in general the rich countries of the world have done so. I no longer need a visa to visit any of the countries I listed above. I can be thankful for that.

Of course, none of this answers the question as to just why I require a visa to enter Poland. The third case, which is what happens when a citizen of a rich country visits a poor country, is the one that applies here. There is usually no practical reason to require visas, but some countries do just the same, for two reasons. The first is the same issue of pride as for rich countries. Citizens of poor countries require visas to visit the rich world, and as their pride is hurt, they require visas in reverse. The second is a financial issue. Poor countries like to set up embassies and consulates in rich countries, and these are expensive and cost hard currency. Charging for visas brings in hard currency, and the embassies and consulates become (sort of) self funding. This may not be sensible if it discourages tourists from coming to the country and spending more money there, but it is commonly done. (The most absurd instance of this occurred when I visited Tanzania. I enquired with the Tanzanian consulate in London, and they assured me that I did require a visa and they charged me a substantial fee for one. Upon getting to the border, I discovered it was not actually necessary. The consulate in London actually lied to potential tourists about the visa requirement purely as a revenue raising exercise).

Poor countries can be divided into three categories, generally. The first is those that don’t require visas of the normal list of rich countries, and travelling to these is easy. (Indonesia and Thailand are two examples). The second is those that make some exceptions, normally for citizens of the United States of America (as good relations with the US are considered important by most poor countries), and for any rich countries that happen to be nearby and in particular have adjacent borders with the country in question. Visas are required of everyone else, generally as a revenue raising exercise. (Poland is an example of this, which is what I started this post by complaining about). The third category is countries that require visas of essentially everybody. (Russia, China, and India are examples). Generally countries do this because they are full of obsessive bureaucrats.

None of this is to say that there are not, sometimes, good reasons to require visas of people. It’s perfectly reasonable to require visas of people who come from countries from where there is a terrorist threat or from countries from which people have a history of overstaying and working illegally. However, such reasons only account for a small portion of the visa requirements of the world.

The fact is that in many cases visa requirements have become just another example of how governments to impose excessive bureaucracy, impose excessive fees, and generally obstruct the lives of people who simply want to go about their lives. If governments cared more about individuals and less about nebulous concepts like national pride, if governments were less inherently bureaucratic, and if governments were more transparent about their motives, the lives of travellers would be a lot simpler.

For the government of any country, regardless of the level of wealth of that country, the visa policy that makes the most sense is actually very simple.

If there is a good practical reason to require visas of foreigners that will protect local citizens from some kind of potential harm, then it is reasonable to require visas. However, imposing them in any other circumstances harms individuals – both foreigners wishing to visit your country for peaceful and lawful means, and your own citizens, who will encounter increased obstacles abroad in retaliation for excessive requirements at home.

The rights of individuals are not small things. Freedom of movement is not a small thing, and it should only be hindered when absolutely necessary. But many governments in the world treat this right with contempt.

21 comments to The weird and idiotic world of national visa requirements

  • Julian Morrison

    Government border controls are wrong when they block you from crossing onto someone else’s land with the owner’s permission. From either side – locking you out, or trapping you inside.

    Government border controls are wrong when they allow you in onto someone else’s land against their will – including arrogating to themselves your right to guard your own property borders.

    The only ethical “border” is the one between mine and thine.

    The only ethical thing a government can do at a border, is to do nothing at all. As everwhere else.

  • Australian passport holders can visit the US without a visa for a period of not more than 90 days. They can get a visa if they need to stay longer than that.

  • Australian passport holders can visit the US without a visa for a period of not more than 90 days.

    Indeed. Hence my observation that

    I no longer need a visa to visit any of the countries I listed above.

    The requirement was dropped around 1998, as a consequence of Australia having introduced their electronic visa system. Japan, France, and Spain dropped visa requirements for Australians around the same time.

  • Katherine

    With regard to Poland: they mostly just want to fleece you.

  • Michael Farris

    As an American who’s lived in Poland for a long time, I have to admit I’m less than charmed by your thesis that rich people deserve to be treated better than poor people.

    Also, Poland is perhaps not a rich country if you look at raw monetary numbers in isolation, but if you look at overall living standards, it’s not really poor either.
    I knew an Australian who lived in Britain for over 10 years (at various times in England, Wales and Scotland) who told me he thought overall living standards in Poland were higher than in Britain. I was surprised, but more than British resident of Poland has agreed (after thinking about it).
    This is mostly because Poland for many years lacked a real underclass (though the current trend of privatization in education means one is being formed even as I write).

    As regards visas, since tourism isn’t and is not likely to ever be a major component of the Polish economy, it can afford a principled position. Poland follows a tit-for-tat policy as much as possible. If you don’t like it, complain to your government or make more careful travel plans.

  • Mr.Farris,

    “This is mostly because Poland for many years lacked a real underclass (though the current trend of privatization in education means one is being formed even as I write).”

    Perhaps you would care to explain the creation of the British underclass since the trend in our education system since forever has been anything and everything except privatisation?

  • Michael Farris

    “Perhaps you would care to explain the creation of the British underclass since the trend in our education system since forever has been anything and everything except privatisation?”

    Well all underclasses are different. I suspect that the British underclass is a product of that famous class system and quaint ideas of precedence and aristocracy.

    In Poland at present, for a number of reasons (mainly an unhappy congruence of some the worst aspects of education in the communist system and wild west capitalism) unless you have parents rich enough to pay for extra tutoring or a really prestigious private high school, your education is going to stop at 15 or so, no matter how smart you are. If you’re from the countryside, you need parents rich enough to support you while you move to the city for highschool and possibly earlier.
    Poland is also a country that puts a premium on formal educational qualifications so getting a well paying job without a university education isn’t easy.

  • “Well all underclasses are different. I suspect that the British underclass is a product of that famous class system and quaint ideas of precedence and aristocracy.”

    You have not the first clue what you are talking about. And to think that you’re a ‘teacher’! Is that the kind of ill-informed, ignorant rubbish you tell your hapless students?

  • I said that “It’s perfectly reasonable to require visas of people who come from countries from where there is a terrorist threat or from countries from which people have a history of overstaying and working illegally. However, such reasons only account for a small portion of the visa requirements of the world” and I think I more or less implied that in other cases, visa requirements are not justified. That actually includes a lot of the rich world’s visa requirements for poorer countries, and I wish that rich countries would show a lot more flexibility, too.

    I was certainly not saying that rich people should be treated better than poor people. (The indignities suffered by people from non-rich countries when travelling are certainly far greater than anything I have ever had to put up with, and this is bad). However, this is the way immigration authorities think. They draw stark lines. As far they are concerned, the world is divided up into two groups: “Rich” and “Other”, and for the moment Poland falls into the second category. (I take your point on the word “poor”, because as you say, Poland isn’t poor except in the eyes of inflexible officials, and it is only a decade or so away from being “rich” by most reasonable definitions).

    On the other hand, do I think that “tit for tat” is a “principled position”? No, I really don’t. A principled position would be one that actually provided the most benefit to both Poles and everyone else, and a “tit for tat” policy doesn’t do that. In any event, if it is a “principled” position it is one with holes in it, given that Poland and many other countries don’t play “tit for tat” with the Americans. The fact is that a process (visa requirements) that supposedly exists for reasons of security is instead often used for political point scoring and revenue raising instead.

    As for my travel plans, it wasn’t a matter of “care”, especially, as I knew that I was not going to be able to cross long before I got to the border. It was simply not worth my while to go to the inconvenience and expense of getting a visa for such a short visit. This was only a minor inconvenience, but it was none the less a real one. And an entirely unnecessary one.

  • David Carr

    “You have not the first clue what you are talking about. And to think that you’re a ‘teacher’! Is that the kind of ill-informed, ignorant rubbish you tell your hapless students?”

    No, I generally find other kinds of ill-informed ignorant rubbish to tell them.

    I admit my ignorance of Britain. Perhaps you could inform me how you explain the existence of an underclass in Britain (or is there one?)

  • Michael Farris

    “On the other hand, do I think that “tit for tat” is a “principled position”?”

    The principle is that the Polish government (as much as possible given real-world constraints). Treats foreign nationals with the same level of consideration that Polish nationals are treated.
    It’s a principle and it’s followed as much as possible.
    Yes, it might cause a very minimal loss of tourist income, but it’s a loss that most Poles support.

    And it does work both ways, when Poland (very reluctantly and under non-trivial pressure from Brussels) instituted visa requirements for ex-Soviet countries, no one complained when those countries retaliated with visa requirements for Poles.

    “In any event, if it is a “principled” position it is one with holes in it, given that Poland and many other countries don’t play “tit for tat” with the Americans.”

    I did say “as much as possible” (a couple of times) and this is an issue that Poland does bring up with the US government at every possible opportunity, most recently in terms of US-Polish cooperation in Iraq. Poland is usually rebuffed, but it does keep trying.
    Supposedly a small concession was made in that at some unspecified time in the future, Poles will be able to go through US immigration at the Warsaw airport.

    “The fact is that a process (visa requirements) that supposedly exists for reasons of security is instead often used for political point scoring and revenue raising instead.”

    To the extent that it’s political point scoring, in this case the Australian government could easily nullify. That it continues to choose not to is the real source of the inconvenience you suffer.

    “As for my travel plans, it wasn’t a matter of “care””

    Please disregard that comment, it was uncalled for on my part and I apologize.

  • Michael Farris

    How did David Carr’s name get on my response to him??? Did _I_ do that?? How????

  • Either Mr Carr or Mr Farris have had a change (of uncertain description). How can an underclass follow these arguments if they don’t know who is talking.

    I agree that visas are annoying.

    However, should they be retained for areas of terrorist activity like the Middle East? Possibly, although determined terrorists would find a way to circumvent bureaucratic restrictions without too much of a problem.

  • How did that happen? Search me.

    No, I am not masquerading as Mr.Ferris. I have enough people who want to pick bones with me without having to invent imaginary ones.

  • Brennen

    I think that it’s about time children are taught that there is NO free lunch when it comes to economics. I’m tired of the socialist bullshit I read all the time in the newspapers.

  • Tom

    That was a lovely little rant there Brennen. Any relevance?

  • None that I can see. But that’s okay. If Samizdata provides anything, it is welcome for people to want to make entirely out of context rants against socialist bulshit.

  • Japan relaxed its visa requirement about 6 months after the US did. How do I know this? I was the dumb bastard who arrived in Japan only to be told that I couldn’t get in without a visa.

    5 hours in the interrogation room and many frantic phone calls to the only Japanese resident I knew later, they agreed to let me in for 7 days, as long as I didn’t leave Tokyo. That was fine with me, since I was only there for a convention anyway.

    I had been in the US for the previous 6 months on the waiver, and naively assumed that Japan would be just as friendly…About 2 months after I visited, they dropped the visa requirement.

    Another little-known fact about Japan: The chicks are really hot. I think I’ll go back when I graduate 😉

  • Katja

    I definitely agree many visa requirements are stupid.
    I’m planning to go to the US for half a year as a foreign exchange student. I live in Germany, so now I have to somehow find the time to drive across the country to either Berlin or Frankfurt to apply for the visa in person. Of course, the embassy is only open Monday through Friday – from 8:30am to 4pm.
    Looks like I won’t be able to go. After all, any suspicions regarding fifteen year old girls are surely reasonable – I could be a terribly dangerous terrorist …

  • shoba

    I think the article of Jennings is good… Many a times i wondered with what a visa did the British enter India and colonise India and then to transport things from India as their own to their country and now ask Indians a visa… shouldnt Britain be more helpful… is there a limit for the help that they should be doing to India after 100 years of colonisation. Bureaucracy of India doesnt help an Indian either. In my case my husband is a national of another country and who is permited to EU countries without a visa for visiting there. I live in my husband’s country and when my husband needs to travel, he doesnt want me to be left alone here, and ofcourse I dont wish it too. The process of aquiring visa at these situation is quite hard for our family as we feel very sad at the way we are treated.

  • Margherita

    I read this because I’m writing a paper on whether international visa requirements are racist, and although you have good points, it sounds like you are from a rich country and lamenting because you couldn’t do what you wanted. So you were right in reflecting on your own country’s policy, which is to require visas from everyone to not seem racist, but if they actually weren’t racist, they wouldn’t require visas of anyone. But they still want to keep out the darkies so they’ve upheld their visa requirements, making them a little bit easier for your category of rich countries. So with a system like that you have to expect that other countries may want to reciprocate the policy and Poland has every right to do that. So maybe your next step should be to write to the Australian government about dropping the pretending-to-not-be-racist-but-we-still-actually-are policy so you can cross the bridge to Poland the next time you’re in Germany 🙂