I was surprised when I came to know that you can travel to more than 25 countries without any visa or prior notification if you are a European citizen or reside in a European country.
Why was I surprised?
I was born and raised in Bangladesh. If I want to travel to a neighboring country, I need to apply for a visa with a physical form regardless of the duration of stay. When I moved to Finland for higher studies and I first traveled to Spain, I finally understood the magic! I was amazed by the fact that you do not need to go through any immigration counter or any inquiry to travel to these countries (only one of the times it happened that they asked if I have a valid residence permit).
I am dividing this article into two sections:
Part 1: For staying less than 90 days (EU Citizens do not need a visa, enjoy your holidays, yay!)
Part 2: For staying duration more than 90 days (EU citizens need a visa, get visa details in this section)
Part 1: For stays less than 90 days.
If you are coming to Finland for a short trip such as business trips or holiday/vacation trips from any of the EU countries (List given below), Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland, which are less than 90 days, you will not need any visa in a six month period. You just need to have a valid passport or valid residence permit. Your document must not be older than 10 years.
EU Countries:
Austria । Belgium । Bulgaria । Croatia । Cyprus । Czech Republic । Denmark । Estonia । Finland । France । Germany । Greece । Hungary । Ireland। Italy । Latvia । Lithuania । Luxembourg । Malta । Netherlands । Poland । Portugal । Romania । Slovakia । Slovenia । Spain । Sweden
Nordic citizens (citizens of Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) can travel to Finland without a travel document. You can just keep any document like a driving license to prove your citizenship of a Nordic country.
Travel documents accepted by Finnish authorities:
- Ordinary passport
- Diplomatic passport
- Official passport
- Special passport
- An official identification card issued by Norway to its own citizens
- Laissez-passer/Emergency travel document
- Travel Document for Refugees
- Immigrant’s passport
- Seaman’s book (on duty)
You can travel by flights, cars, ships, boats, whatever you would like.
Part 2: For stays more than 90 days.
What if you need to stay longer than 90 days? For example, for jobs, research or some other activities. I have colleagues from several EU countries. All of them had to get the visa to come to work in Finland as the period of work is longer than 90 days.
You will need to issue a visa application at the embassy of Finland. Within EU you can go to any of the following missions for your visa:
What are the documents needed:
- The visa application form completed and signed
- One color photograph
- A passport
- Travel insurance
- Supporting documents
- Parental consent is required for minors
- Possible interview
Please remember:
All visa applications must be submitted in person. Your biometric identifiers will be collected at the same time. Fingerprints are not taken if the fingerprints were given in connection with a previous visa application less than 59 months ago.
Make sure your passport is valid for at least three (3) months after the end of your intended travel and that it has been issued no later than ten (10) years ago.
The embassy/ missions have some charges for each of their services. You can find all the charges by clicking here.