Russian Private Homestay Visa

[CyberSamurai013 69]

I Received a 3 year Russian Private Homestay Visa. My question is how long can I stay per visit and how long do I need to be out of Russia between visits?

[Amy_and_Victor 159]

3 years??? That's something really new to me. I've never heard about such a long term homestay visa in Russia. When I was making private homestay visa for my wife (girlfriend/fincee back there) two times, the longest visa of this type you could get was 3 months.

Are you sure it's 3 years, not 3 months?

Even Russian residence permit document (something similar to conditional Green Card in the US) was valid only for 1 year and it was much harder to get than just a private homestay visa and required a lot of paperwork. Please, double check that you really have 3 years valid homestay visa and not 3 months, I believe it's just a mistake so far unless immigration/tourist laws in Russia changed dramatically in the last few years but I doubt it.

Or may be you're talking about other type of visa? Do you mean "гостевая" visa?

- Victor from Russia

Edited May 28, 2015 by Amy_and_Victor

[eekee 182]

Tourist visas for Americans are three years. You can stay for 90 days of out of an 180-day period. I've never heard of a three-year private visa either.

[Dakine10 5,452]

These have been around since 2012. My wife decided to get a 3 year one this year to visit Crimea. They actual visa ended up being 2 years and 2 months because they won't issue it for longer than the validity of the passport. She needed a notarized invitation letter from a Russian citizen currently residing in Russia.

Three year visas allow single entry of up to six months. Visa's of duration less than 3 years is 90 days in any 180 day period.

[CyberSamurai013 69]

"In accordance with an agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America, effective September 9, 2012 US citizens can receive multiple-entry business, homestay/private, humanitarian and tourist visas valid for up to 3 years and allowing a stay of up to 6 months per visit. Requests for this longer validity visa require a written letter of invitation composed by the host, and processing cannot be rushed."

http://russia.travisa.com/VisaInstructions.aspx?CitizenshipID=US&CountryID=RU&TravelerTypeID=HS&ResidenceID=US&PartnerID=TA

[Dashinka 24,655]

These have been around since 2012. My wife decided to get a 3 year one this year to visit Crimea. They actual visa ended up being 2 years and 2 months because they won't issue it for longer than the validity of the passport. She needed a notarized invitation letter from a Russian citizen currently residing in Russia.

Three year visas allow single entry of up to six months. Visa's of duration less than 3 years is 90 days in any 180 day period.

I also applied for a 3 year tourist visa recently and was also told I would need a notarized invitation letter from my step son to get it. Well, I never got the letter, but the visa was approved regardless. I will find out next week Thursday if it is valid. I thought about the passport issue as well as my last passport was set to expire in 2017. I decided to renew my passport first.