Russian visas for temporary residence

After a foreign national who needs a visa to enter Russia has obtained temporary residence permit in Russia, the foreign national shall obtain a special type of Russian visa for temporary residents.

It is hard to say what this type of visa is for. A temporary resident is entitled to live and work in Russia for 3 years (the duration of a TRP), but is not allowed to re-enter Russia without such an additional visa. But the law is the law.

The positive aspect in this situation is that this visa is a multiple-entry visa. Between 2002 and 2010 (for as much as eight years!), temporary residents were only allowed a single-entry visa under similar circumstances. It meant that it was necessary for them to obtain a new visa every time a temporary resident wanted to leave and re-enter Russia. This was extremely onerous. First of all, visa application processing time was 20 days, which meant that it was possible to make only one international trip a month. Second, every new visa was placed on a new passport page. As a result, temporary residents who made frequent international trips, ended up having no free pages in their passports left by the time they applied for permanent residence in Russia. Therefore, they had to renew their passports due to lack of free pages...

Nationals of the following countries do not need a Russian visa after obtaining a temporary residence permit: 

• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Croatia
• Italy
• Germany
• Macedonia
• Montenegro
• Poland
• Serbia
• Turkey

How to obtain a TRP visa

The law prescribes the following two ways: 

• If a foreign national applied for TRP at the Consular division of a Russian Embassy, he or she should get a single-entry visa valid for four months. After entering Russia on the basis of this single-entry visa, a TRP holder would get a multiple-entry visa, which would be valid for the duration of the TRP

• If a foreign national applied for a TRP at a Federal Migration Service office (which is the case 99.9% of the time), he or she could obtain a multiple-entry visa right away. The visa is issued at the place of registration