You may have heard about the new visa on arrival for Myanmar. Citizens of a number of countries, including the USA, may qualify. You will find information and an application on the Myanmar government web site and embassy web sites. One can even see a big booth right at the entry to immigration with big signs that read VISA ON ARRIVAL.
My advice? Don’t even think about it! Officially, it is possible to get a visa on arrival in Myanmar (depending on your nationality). Americans are on the OK list. HOWEVER, at this point it is so incredibly unreliable and could result in a travel disaster (being turned away upon arrival and forced to fly back to your departure city) that I cannot recommend it. “Some say” it is only for business visas which require letters of invitation and the like, but the online listing from the Myanmar government offers it for tourists as well. Some travel services such as www.myanmarvisaonline.com offer to do it for you in 12 business days (!) for about $75… with no guarantee the visa will be approved (naturally, how could they guarantee that?). For another $10 they can rush it by an unknown amount of time. It all sounds a bit dodgy to me, though we know some travelers have done it.
But visa on arrival in Burma is proving to be unreliable. An example: attendees to a recent event sponsored by the US government arrived in Yangon airport with official letters of invitation. The immigration officer in charge at the airport nearly turned them away. Despite having an official contact within the US embassy, the applicants were expected to provide a phone number for immigration to call. They had arrived outside of business hours, but fortunately they had the contact’s personal cell phone number. The officer still refused to grant entry until he could speak to a Myanmar contact. Fortunately, the American contact could provide another personal number of a co-worker so they were able to get in touch with someone (actually a lower ranking person within the institution, but Myanmar citizenship trumped title in this case.)
The success rate for visa on arrival in Yangon is so unreliable that most airlines won’t let you board from your departure city if you do not have a valid Myanmar visa already in your passport. If you are lucky, you can convince them that you will receive the visa on arrival, but then you are still faced with a very sketchy chance of getting in once you are in Yangon.
At this point, despite the stated existence of a Myanmar Visa on Arrival program, it is highly recommended you get a visa from the embassy or consulate in your home country, or in a connection country. (A great option for this is to get a visa at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok where you can get a visa in 1-2 business days or pay an express fee to get a same-day visa.)
If you insist on trying the visa on arrival, be sure you have a letter of invitation and all the recommended documentation you see on the official web site. Be sure you have a contact number from the authority inviting you, and be sure that contact person is Burmese and that you have an after-hours phone number to reach that person if you are arriving outside office hours. But again, I do not recommend this option.
Read more Myanmar Travel Tips here on The Mad Traveler.
Thank you Kevin for sharing this piece of information. I am headed to Burma in a couple of months and this warning comes in very handy as even I was following the e-visa and VOA closely.
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I agree with you, Kevin. Anyway, when I got to the airport, in Yangon, last november I saw a couple of guys that didn’ t know they needed Visa (Yes!) so they applied straight in the VOA and they got Tourist Visa on arrival. Anyway. I agree that is much better to entry with a valid Visa. It’ s kind of a lottery if you show up there without a Visa.
Didn’t know they needed one – wow. Lottery is the best way to describe it. I wonder why they are doing it this way? Hopefully it becomes a sure thing soon. And why not?
I wrote a book about visas for US citizens, and in that I included the information to not trust the VOA. I was hoping that with it becoming more open, tourism increasing, etc., they would fix it, but alas it still seems like it’s a bad idea to rely on it. Thanks for the info!
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It rather pisses me off. It’s like a dirty trick. Either you give it or you don’t. And I also understand what a crapshoot it is for foreigners — students and tourists and the like — to apply for a visa to my own country (USA) and drop $200+ on the process and interview often not receiving clear reasons if they are rejected. And as we have seen, border agents can still screw with you there when you show up if they want to make their own independent judgment. Immigration issues make me testy.
VOA is strictly for business visa. Never show up in the airport without a visa, agreed so much. If you do not have time to apply for your Myanmar visa in the embassy, you can try the pre-arranged visa on arrival – it is at least with less risk, knowing some agents are going to pick you up at the Myanmar airport and help you with the clearance.
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http://www.evisaasia.com/myanmar-visa
Yes, this is what we hear, but the official website tells us that ALL types of visa can do VOA. And experience tells us that even business is not a guarantee. Get it ahead of time, for sure.