© Mikhail Japaridze/TASS

MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/. Visa application centres, who have accredited, will get a permanent certificate. This is stated in the materials to the draft law “On amendments to the Federal law “On procedure of exit from the Russian Federation and entry into the Russian Federation”.

“Simultaneously with the decision on accreditation is issued a certificate of accreditation. Form of the certificate of accreditation established by the accreditation body. The accreditation certificate is indefinite”, – stated in the materials of the bill.

See also

Visa application centres may be required to be accredited. What this means for you

According to the document, within 10 working days from the date of the decision of the accreditation certificate shall be sent (issued) to the applicant . In the case of a decision of refusal of accreditation the accreditation body within 5 working days from the date of such decision in writing shall notify the applicant with an indication of motivated reasons for the refusal.

When unable to pass a bill

The proposal for mandatory accreditation in the foreign Ministry of all the companies specialized in providing the citizens of intermediary services in obtaining visas, were submitted to the state Duma a few days earlier by senators Konstantin Kosachev and Oleg Morozov.

The bill requires that all visa application centres have to be accredited in the foreign Ministry, to receive accreditation, visa application centre must meet certain criteria such as have not less than twenty branches in different cities of the Russian Federation, to be certified for compliance with the law 152-FZ (the law on personal data), have experience more than 3 years, the share of foreign participation in the Charter capital of the operator must not be more than 20%.

As reported earlier in the ATOR with reference to the lawyer’s office, documents submitted to the Duma by the end of the summer session, and until 27 August, work on the documents to be entered into. In terms of order of work with documents in the state Duma, we can assume that before the bill on first reading will be held meetings and workshops with interested market participants. Also in the process of working on the bill will be discussed and contents of legal acts, creation and changing of which will lead to the adoption of this bill.

Possible consequences

Earlier, the Russian Union of travel industry reported that the implementation of the bill on mandatory accreditation companies could lead to the closure of all six visa centers in Russia since none of the existing operators does not correspond to those listed in the document criteria.