Target Country: Argentina
Passport: Indian Passport
Visa Type: Tourist Visa
Processing Consulate/Embassy: Consulate of Argentina, New York, USA
Visa Received: 90 Day Multiple Entry Tourist Visa
Documents submitted:
Tickets to and from Argentina (in our case, we are flying into Argentina and out of Brazil, so I included all our domestic flight booking as well).
Hotel bookings for every night spent in Argentina (I also included Brazil, for completeness, as Brazil is part of my trip).
No fee required for Indian Citizens
Filled application form
Valid passport
Notarized letter of employment (also translated into Spanish)
Bank statements for the last 6 months.
1 Photo (4cm x 4cm — US Visa style)
Proof of Travel Insurance (Certificate stating my name and details of policy) – this wasn’t asked for, but I included it anyway.
Also, I included 6 months worth of payslips and my marriage certificate – but these were not asked for
Experience:
Very smooth. I didn’t need an appointment. There was literally no queue here either. Took me 1 hour to submit the application – the officer took her own sweet time to call us in and then to review our documents. The visa was processed in 7 days and it was easy enough to pick my passport up.
The staff were nice, polite and competent, but don’t go in expecting a fully professional process.
Need Inspiration to go? See these photos from Argentinian Patagonia…
Visas and Travel on an Indian Passport 
Hello,I just stumbled upon this post and had exactly the info I was looking for :). Thanks for posting this.I'm applying for my Argentina Visa in NY for an upcoming trip late Dec.Are you visiting in Dec or back from the Argentina trip? Hope it was fun, I am looking fwd to it.Cheers!
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Glad this was helpful. Please do remember that it can take a full week to get the visa (sometimes more time), so please apply with enough time to spare.
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Hello,So pleased I came across your post, we are travelling to South America in March, and was wondering if you can help me with the below question:- Should the spanish translation of the employment letter be present on the company letter head or it can just be a translation letter and later notarized.Thank you for the well written post :):)
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Hmm – not so sure. I'd recommend you be cautious and keep it on the company letterhead. My employment letter (both English & Spanish) fit on just one sheet of US Letter size paper. Perhaps you can do something like that. If that is not an option for you, then please check with you local Argentine embassy.
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Quick question: Is the Argentine 90 day tourist visa multiple entry or single entry?
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I got a multiple entry 90 day visa
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Hi Vipul,
I want to visit Argentina and I’ll be applying to the Los Angeles consulate. My intention is to go camping in Patagonia (few days) and go climb Aconcagua in Mendoza (which itself takes 2 weeks). The trouble is that the visa requirements demand hotel bookings for every single night while I’ll be in tents in the wilderness in a tent. To the consulate this is no different from disappearing to do who knows what. Do you think I should make bookings and then cancel? Or does honesty work?
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Just remember Arun, it is no crime to change your plans after you get the visa. The Consulate are mainly interested in knowing that you have enough funds to support yourself throughout the stay – and hotel bookings are evidence of that.
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Hi! 🙂 Could you let me know where you got the Spanish translation done? My mother will be visiting Argentina soon and needs to get this done.
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Hello Jayant. I simply used Google Translate (translate.google.com) – that was good enough. I did have a spanish speaking friend double check the letter, but he didn’t find any big errors – Google Translate was good enough.
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Hi! What South American countries can i travel with Argentina visa?
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Not sure if it will allow you to visit any country except for Argentina. I do know that if you are at Iguazu Falls and want to visit the Brazilian side for a day (morning to evening) the Brazilian authorities don’t bother with checking visas. Not sure what other countries do.
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Thanks for the info.. I don’t know if the rules are different for the LA consulate, because they mention clearly that walk ins are not allowed and nor do they respond to phone calls. So I’m kinda at their mercy.. let’s see when they respond to the email I’ve sent asking for the form and the procedure.
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Good luck! Tell us how it goes.
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Hey, I’m planning to visit Argentina in February 2014. Can I apply for the visa now? Or should I wait. For Chile, the visa must be used within 3 months from the date of issue of the visa. Anything like this with Argentina?
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Hi Prateek — my Argentina visa was for 3 months — so yes, I would say, apply within 3 months of travel – just like you have said for Chile.
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For future applicants, this appears to be highly consulate-dependent in the U.S. Don’t be misled by the rosy description of the New York consulate. I’d rank my experience with the Los Angeles consulate so far as dead-last in my visa experiences (which includes some 15 separate visas as an Indian citizen).
For starters, they don’t take phone calls at all. It goes to a message which says the process is done solely by email and those are answered in the order they’re received. Each email takes about 10 days for a response. Yes, really, 10 days for something that happens instantly. In the mean time, the applicant has no idea what’s going, completely constraining planning and raising uncertainty especially when there are trips to other countries planned for which we need the passport back.
If I actually get this visa, this will be my first and last trip to this country.
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Arun – I agree, even at the NYC consulate there was barely any information or help (no phone, and late reply to emails – just like you faced at LA). However I turned up with the documentation they had listed on their website, and from there on it was all pretty straightforward.
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My experience with LA was relatively hassle free. It took a little over a week to get the initial response. After that there was some confusion about the date (my fault). But once I called and explained that I need to fly into LA for the interview and need to buy the tickets, they immediately cooperated and confirmed the date. The interview itself was unusual (no idea why they needed to know when and where my husband and I had met) and we were given a different set of forms to fill up at the office (instead of the form they had emailed to me earlier). Once the interview was over we were told that they would dispatch the passports within 10 days and we received them yesterday.
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Is there a need to schedule an interview date/time or can applicants just walk-in? I ask because its impossible to find a link to schedule an interview
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In NYC it was ‘walk-in’. No appointment was necessary (true as of October 2012, when I applied).
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For LA you need to schedule an interview by emailing visas_clang@mrecic.gov.ar. They respond in about a week with the forms, list of documents and the date+time.
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Hi, how did you get the letter of employment notarized? Does your company have a notary onsite? Or did you just take the letter to a public notary and they notarized it (even though the original signer is not present?) Thanks!
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Hi – there was a ‘Chase Manhattan’ bank branch in my office building. The HR Lady (who signed the letter) and I went down to the bank together, and had the bank’s notary public notarize the letter. We both had to carry some identification with us.
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I did not get the employment letter notarized. Just the standard letter signed by HR was sufficient
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I got the HR letter notarized, but only in english, my HR refused to include the Spanish translation. Their explanation was that they cannot sign anything they do not understand. So I only have a notarized employment in english. I will be going to the Argentine consulate in NYC on monday and will try giving it a shot. You think it should work?
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Definitely worth a shot! And let us know how it goes.
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Hey!
First off, hats off on awesome blog! You have almost inspired me to plan a crazy trip MIA-GIG,GIG-IGU, IGR-EZE later this year with DW. I get that applying 3 months out is the best route. Not in a position to go in person, So how different are the mail in process? Brasilia and Argentina charge $20 + handling + tix + hotel reservations + US status + bank stmts – any thing else I should keep in mind?
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Hi Sujith – thanks for your compliments. The trip you are planning sounds amazing. If you have time time, I would encourage adding FTE (El Calafate) to the itinerary – beautiful place. In fact Iguazu was too touristy for me.
Better to apply less than 3 months out – because in my experience the visas have a 3 month validity – you don’t want them to expire before you go. I applied 2 months out – and that was fine.
Not sure about the mail-in process – we went in person to both Brazilian and Argentinian consulates in NYC. It was pretty straightforward there. My blog post for Argentina and Brazil list the documents we took with us. Both pretty straightforward. The Argentina visa was free for Indian citizens though.
All the best. Let us know how the mail-in process goes.
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Hi there, great blog! I know you had a translated and notarized employment letter but do you or the others that have left comments here know if an English only non notarized employment letter worked at the NYC consulate?
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Hi Kaushal – I don’t know the answer to that. Their requirements specified a notarized letter in English and Spanish, so I took that. This was at the NYC consulate.
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Do all the travelers have to appear in person for the interview. I am traveling with my wife and kid.
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I am not sure about that. Please do check with the embassy, if possible. But I will be surprised if it is an issue. If the embassy is not too far for you (and you can afford to make a second trip if needed), I would suggest you try going to the embassy without your wife and kid and see what happens.
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Hello. Thanks for the info here. I live in Boston, and seems like the process for getting an Argentina tourist visa for me is :
I need to just walk in to the consulate in New York one fine day with all the documents, they will ask me some questions and take my documents and passport, and I will be returned the passport via postal mail in about 10 days with the visa stamped on it.
Does that sound right? As people have noted here, it is impossible to talk to anyone on the phone to verify this. Since we live in Boston, we are debating whether it’s worth simply driving over to New York in the hope that they will see us.
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Hello. Yes that sounds right. No appointments possible at Argentina embassy. Simply walk in.
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Also – not sure about passport being returned by mail. We picked up ours in person. You can ask when you go to apply.
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Did you guys finally went for a walk-in interview or took an appointment? How smooth was the process?
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Hi – We went without an appointment. Had no trouble.
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This information was very helpful considering most other people mention that you have to wait for an appointment over email before heading to the consulate. If I understand this correctly, I can walk in on any given day with all my documents and get my visa processed. Did you hear of anyone being able to get the visa by sending in the documents through mail?
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Yep I did not need an appointment when I applied back in 2012. I am not aware of the process for mailing in applications or of anyone who has mailed it in. Hope this helps.
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Thanks for compiling all the information and being so active on the thread. This post has some really good information. I had two questions regarding applying in New York.
1. You mentioned that you didnot need an appointment, I just wanted to check if you remember this page – http://cnyor.cancilleria.gov.ar/en/content/visas-6. At the top it states that if you need to apply for a visa, please send an email to: (some consulate email address). Did you have to do that.
2. About the employment letter, coincidentally I do have a chase bank below my building. Good to know that you can get it notarized there. My question is mostly on the format. Did you have the english and spanish on the same document as suggested on: http://cnyor.mrecic.gov.ar/userfiles/Tourist_visa_Employment_Letter.pdf
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Hi Kaushal – thanks for writing in. Glad you find the info useful.
This visa application was 2 years ago, so my memory is fuzzy now … but I don’t remember sending them any email for an appointment. We did email them to ask about the process, and they said to simply turn up without an appointment. You can try emailing them, but I remember they usually took upto 7 days to reply to emails.
Employment letter – Yes, I had the English and Spanish on the same page — half the page in one language and half in the other. The format in this link is a little different. Good idea to follow their suggested format — though I don’t think they really mind how you do it, as long as you have an English and Spanish version.
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