Visa to Singapore

Most passports enter Singapore without a visa for 30, 60 or 90 days, and nothing on this page applies to them. The rule changes for a defined list, and if your passport is on it you need the visa arranged before you fly, not on arrival.

The list that needs a visa to Singapore arranged in advance includes Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Dual nationals should check the passport they will actually travel on, because the rule follows the document at the counter rather than the person.

The authority is ICA, and the list is theirs rather than ours. Check your own nationality on the ICA visa requirements page before you book anything, and remember that everyone arriving, visa or not, files the SG Arrival Card within three days of arrival.

A visa to Singapore is not filed by the traveller directly. ICA takes applications through an authorised local sponsor or a Singapore overseas mission, and does not accept them over the immigration counter. That is the part of the process a visa agency exists for, and it is why the documents go to us rather than to a government portal you log into yourself.

In practice it runs in four steps. You send the scans from the checklist above. We check them the same day and come back on anything that would get the file rejected on sight, usually the photograph. The complete set is filed, and from that point the timing belongs to ICA. The outcome comes back to us and we send you the e-visa as a PDF, which you print or keep on the phone.

Two things worth knowing before you pay. The government processing fee is set by ICA, is paid per application, and is not returned if the application is refused: it pays for the decision, not for the outcome. Our handling fee is separate and is shown separately on the invoice. And an approved e-visa is permission to travel to the checkpoint, not a guarantee of entry; the officer at the counter makes that call, which is true of every country.

The passport has to be valid for at least six months beyond the date you arrive. A passport that expires five months out is refused without the case being read, and no explanation in the form changes that. Renew first, then apply, and send the scan of the new document rather than the old one.

Children need their own application and their own passport, whatever is written in a parent’s document. A minor travelling without both parents is usually asked for consent paperwork as well, and that takes longer to produce than people expect because it often needs notarising. Check both points before you send anything: neither is fixable after a refusal, and the government fee does not come back.

If Singapore is a stop on the way somewhere else rather than the destination, you may not need a visa to Singapore at all. ICA runs a Visa Free Transit Facility that lets eligible travellers stay up to 96 hours, and for nationals of the CIS states, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine the conditions are short: you must be travelling to or from a third country through Singapore, you must hold a valid onward air ticket departing within 96 hours, and you must leave Singapore by air.

What the facility does not ask for is worth saying plainly, because it is the part most often got wrong. There is no funds requirement, no minimum amount per day, and no hotel booking. You may arrive by any mode of transport; the air requirement applies to the departure. The 96 hours cannot be extended, so a plan that needs a fifth day needs a visa instead.

The conditions differ by nationality, and ICA changes them without notice, so read them yourself rather than relying on a summary. They are on the ICA Visa Free Transit Facility page. Whether you are admitted under the facility is still decided by the officer at the checkpoint, exactly as it is with a visa.

There are two charges on a visa to Singapore and they behave differently, so the page shows them apart rather than rolled into one number. The government processing fee is set by ICA, charged per application, and is not returned if the application is refused: it buys a decision, not an approval. We pass it on at cost, without a margin on top of a government charge.

Our handling fee is the second line and it is what you are actually choosing between agencies on. It covers the document check before filing, the filing itself through an authorised channel, the follow-up while the application sits with ICA, and the appeal work if it is refused. It starts at $70 and the urgent tier costs more because the file goes to the front of our own queue, not because it goes to the front of ICA’s.

If a visa is refused, the government fee stays with ICA. That is the rule everywhere and no agency can change it. What we do instead is tell you before you pay when a file looks weak, because a refusal costs you the fee and the trip date both. Where a mission handles the application rather than a local sponsor, the contact is the Singapore overseas mission for your country.