Ten questions, answered before you open the form, prevent essentially every avoidable problem with an electronic visa: the wrong permit, the wrong website, the wrong dates, the wrong photo. Each takes about a minute, and each is far cheaper to answer now than after a payment has cleared or an airline has turned you away at the gate.
They fall into three groups: what the destination requires, what the application costs and asks for, and what the approved permit allows. Work through them in order and the form becomes data entry.
What the destination requires
1. Does my nationality need a visa for this destination at all, and is the e-visa the right type?
Requirements come from a combination: your passport, the destination, and every stop on the route. Two travelers on the same flight can face different rules, and a connection can carry a transit requirement of its own. Some nationalities are exempt, some are eligible for the electronic route, and some are directed to a consulate. Category matters as much as eligibility: a tourist permit rarely covers paid work, and study, journalism and long stays are usually separate applications. Our requirements checker resolves this per passport and route, transit stops included.
2. Is my passport valid long enough, with blank pages?
Many destinations want validity for a set period beyond your travel dates, commonly six months, counted from arrival or from departure depending on the country. Some also expect one or two blank pages, and a worn data page can fail the scan. The subtler trap is renewal timing: an electronic permit is bound to the passport number on the application, so renewing after approval leaves you with an authorisation that no longer matches the document you carry. Apply with the passport you will travel on.
3. Which website is the official one?
Search results for any e-visa are crowded with lookalike portals: government-styled layouts, official-sounding domains, paid ads above the real thing. Some are agencies charging a fee they never disclose clearly; others take the money and file nothing. Before you type a passport number, confirm where you are. Government portals sit on the country's own domain, an honest service names itself and its own fee, and neither asks you to pay by bank transfer or messaging app. Our guide on verifying an e-visa website lists the checks.
What the application costs and asks for
4. What does it really cost, and whose service fee is in the total?
An e-visa price has at most two parts: the consular fee, which the destination sets, and a service fee if you apply through a company rather than the portal. The problem is not the service fee itself; it is the sites that fold an undisclosed markup into the government fee so the split becomes invisible. Ask for the two numbers separately before you pay. SimpleVisa passes consular fees through at cost and states its own service fee alongside them.
5. How long does processing take, and does that fit my dates?
Published processing times are estimates measured from a complete application, and they stretch around national holidays, peak season and requests for extra documents. Work backwards from your departure date and leave room for one refusal and one refiling. If your dates are tight, find out before you pay whether the destination runs a genuine priority track or whether the expedited option in front of you files the same form into the same queue. Our guide on when to apply covers the timings worth planning against.
6. What documents will the form ask for?
Most portals expect the same core set:
- the passport data page, scanned or photographed in full
- a photo that meets the destination's specification
- an onward or return ticket
- an address for at least the first night
- contact and, often, employment details
Destinations add their own: proof of funds, an invitation letter, insurance, a consent letter for a child traveling with one parent, a vaccination record. Sessions time out, so gather the files first. Our guide to the seven essential documents sets out what each has to look like.
7. Does my photo meet the spec?
Photo validation is automated, unforgiving, and one of the most common reasons an application bounces. Portals check pixel dimensions, file size, background, head position and size in the frame, shadows, glare on glasses and expression. Ordinary phone habits defeat all of it: portrait mode alters facial geometry, messaging apps recompress the image below the minimum file size, overhead lighting drops shadows under the eyes. Shoot against a plain light wall facing a window and upload the original file. Our guide on visa photo rejections has the fixes.
What the approved permit allows
8. Single or multiple entry, and what validity pattern?
Two limits matter here and travelers routinely conflate them: how long the permit stays valid, and how long each stay may last. They are set independently, and the shorter one governs the trip. Single entry means what it says, so a day trip across a land border, or a return leg routed back through the same country, can consume the permit. Read the pattern before you book a trip around it. Our guide on when an e-visa expires explains what renewal involves.
9. Which entry points does it cover?
Electronic permits are often restricted to designated ports of entry: the main international airports, and only some land and sea crossings. Arriving anywhere else means being turned back at the border holding a valid document. The list is published with the visa conditions and it does change, so read it against your itinerary, including any overland leg or ferry. If your route involves a connection in a third country, check whether that country requires an authorisation of its own.
10. What happens if it is refused?
Ask this before you apply, because the answer determines how much time you leave yourself. Most refusals are mechanical, and refiling with corrected data works; fees are generally not refunded, so a second attempt costs again. Refusals grounded in eligibility, such as immigration history or a category you do not qualify for, point to the full consular application, which takes longer and is why the buffer in question five matters. Our guide on why applications get rejected covers each ground and the response to it.
The habit worth keeping
Every one of these answers exists before the form does, in the destination's published conditions, your passport and your itinerary; collect them first and the application turns into typing.