Access Granted: How to Get the Travel Visa You Need

Your travel plans are confirmed – but you won’t be going anywhere unless you have the right visa.

- Tom Otley

Obtaining visas is a fact of life for business travelers. Whether we go abroad for a simple one-day meeting or more prolonged periods,the need for both business and work visas seems to be increasing – and, with them, the uncertainty over the requirements necessary for getting them.

While a passport is proof of identity, a visa has a different purpose.

“A visa is needed to learn more about a person,” says Andrew Wrensch, head of marketing for Visa Swift, a London-based passport and visa procurement service. “Whether they have enough funds to support themselves while in the country, for instance, and to make sure they leave. That’s why many business visas around the world require a certification of employment, or a letter from an employer saying why you are required to visit, or from the company you are visiting to state the reason for your visit.”

Thus the reason many governments cite for requiring visas is security. It was little surprise then, that after the terror attacks last fall in Paris and San Bernardino, Congress passed significant changes to the United States’ popular visa waiver program.

Visa waiver allows citizens of 38 mostly European and Asian nations to enter the US without a visa for stays of up to 90 days. Among the countries that are eligible to participate in the program are France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Under the new law, visa waiver status would be denied to citizens of partner countries if they have traveled to places like Iraq and Syria in the last five years, without first obtaining a visa. Travelers would also have to have e-passports with fingerprints and other biometric data which makes them less susceptible to fraud, similar to passports carried by US citizens.