Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China

I was at the Chinese consulate yesterday to get a tourist visa for myself and my daughter. I had read about all the things that could go wrong filling out the Chinese visa application. We were extra careful in filling everything out. We could not fill information in caps as that cut off most of our names and other information. I had copies of everything requested and I showed up at 8:30 am with about 10 people already in line. The visa office opened promptly at 9 am and you walked in through security and were given a number. I waited about 2 min before my number was called, went to the correct window, she reviewed my visa applications and the accompanying requested information and I was told they would be ready for pick up this Friday. So a very good experience. Have all your paperwork done and get there early and it should be painless.

Expect for the worst and you won’t be disappointed! I arrived at about 8:20 am and was the 10^th in the line. Once the consulate opens at 9am, the process is fast and efficient. Service is friendly and helpful.
Do your best to come prepared:
–Have your passport
–ID
–Itinerary
–Visa Application Form with passport photo (if you need a photo they take them there for $ 15 cash only). You can also get and fill out the form there

Looong lines and looong wait.
The long wait is alleviated because some people just quit and leave, cutting the long wait time by a little bit. What is painful is that they cannot mail your passports back and have to come back to pick it up.
On the brighter note, picking up your passport with a newly minted Chinese visa does take considerably less time. The staff were good and corteous.

First time coming here because my friend needed a visa since he’s going to China in a couple of weeks.
Definitely take everything you have. It’s better to have enough than have something that’s missing because if you do, they would just turn you away.
I suggest coming here between 8 – 8:30 because there will be a queue already!
— Bring your passport
— Print out your plane itinerary
— Form of payment (check, cash, card because the website is unclear)
Once you get in your visa, you need to come again to pick it up… Yes it’s a hassle, but you just have to deal with it.

It’s painful, but it’s done and that’s all you can really say.
I think regardless of what time you come, its going to suck. The line to get a visa application doesnt exist. There’s a ticket system, but the ticket doesnt really matter cause the ticket gets you into a line by the security guard, and if you can, it’ll be much easier to play innocent confused victim and get into the 2^nd line and just start waiting there.
Pickup is also a line, as you wait so they can grab your passport, and then you wait in another line to pay.
The service isn’t expensive, I think it ended up being $ 140, and there isn’t really a rhyme or reason to who does and doesn’t get a 10 year visa. It’s really up to the consulate.
One thing I will say is to come prepared. Always bring more than you need to. They’ll gladly turn you away if you dont have everything. And that means:
–Your passport (and a copy of it too)
–Invitation letter (could be from a business or maybe a family member?)
–Copies of old Chinese visa (they may want to look at this)
–Your own pictures (please dont plan on taking pictures there. Theres a line, and sometimes its not even open!)
–Hotel and flight confirmation (better safe than sorry)
–Naturalization papers (if they apply to you)
–Old China or Taiwan passport and a copy (they want to make sure they’re canceled and this was the major headache when my parents got their visa a few years ago).
The best route? Just pay a tour agency in Chinatown or on Geary to go for you. I’m not sure what the service is, but its worth it for sure.

Expect to wait about 3 hours. Also, half the staff goes to lunch, so if you’re not out of there before noon you’re going to experience a slowdown.
About an hour or two in, if you’re not enjoying the experience, just leave and plan a trip to anywhere else. It’s going to be worse once you get to Beijing. Go to HK, or maybe TW?
I’ve been to Beijing before, I don’t know why I expected this to be anything resembling an organized process.

Not efficiently organized. Each time I come here, the line is discouragingly long as early as 8am. Inside the consulate is somewhat chaotic. Process and procedures not clearly marked. Once in a while, security people restore order. People don’t seem to know what is «line». Some people just go straight to the window. Fortunately, you have to have a ticket or tag until your number is called or they send you to the back of the line.
However, since they gave me 10 years visa, I should be grateful so I gave them 3 stars.

1) Arrived at 9am on Monday at their office to find a huge line outside the door.
2) Inside is very noisy and overtly crowded, they could use some improvements on the ventilation, as it was warm due to the amount of people in one single room.
3) Customer service is horrible. The lady that attended my visa request was very rude. There was no greeting, no thank you, on top of giving me a hard time for not filling out ONE minor line item correctly on the form. I waited one hour in line.
Suggestions: fill out your form correctly, bring all the necessary supporting documents and get there early!

The lines suck plain and simple. The people working there though are very courteous, professional, and organized. If you have the proper paperwork, the actual processing time is very short.
Helpful notes for visas: When I went, the photo booth inside the consulate was out of order. There is a Walgreen’s nearby where you can get a photo taken. I recommend getting a ticket first, then heading to Walgreens (should easily make it back in time). Early morning is by far the best time to go. Lastly, they don’t take cash when paying for visas, and the copy machine only takes coins.

Waited 2 hours to get to the window where we were told we needed my daughters birth certificate since my wife is «of Chinese origin». My wife’s ethnicity is Chinese, but that all. Her great grandparents are from China. Anyway, 6 hours of driving for nothing. The men’s toilet was overflowing with poo too. Only one toilet for that big of a waiting room, not enough.
Got to the embassy at 8:05 and was #18 in line

I arrived at 10:30 and the line was at the corner. By 1:00 I was at the doorway. They closed the doors in front of me at 1:00 and said too many people. Come back another day.
So my experience was different than others saying come late. The line was still at the corner at 1:00 when they closed.
So they close at 2:30 but will close the doors at 1:00 if busy.
If you really want to finish in one day. Come before they open! I will try again Monday :)

I read the reviews and went prepared for the worst when applying for my tourist visa (L). I can happily say that I was pleasantly surprised.
I got there at 8:15, and was 11^th in line. By 8:30 the line was around the corner. The doors opened at 9, and with taking a passport photo, I was out by 9:30.
Hint: get your passport photos taken (8 for $ 15) at the Information desk by the door while you wait for your number. I could have saved about 10 minutes had I done that (or had I gotten them in advance).
Contrary to many of the reviews, it was nice and clean, better than most airports and about ¾ of San Francisco (cleaner than most restaurants in China/​Japan town). Generally it is much cleaner, nicer, more friendly, and more efficient than any DMV office I have been into.
Temperature wise, I was early and it was a nice cool day outside (SF in the summer), but the windows were open and it was quite pleasant.
The staff was friendly and helpful,

The website has too much text but the actual process for getting a tourist visa is easy if you know what you’re doing. Pro-​tips below.
== For your ordinary tourist visa (L visa), BRING ==
* Passport
* One passport photo
* Completed form
* Airplane itinerary (printouts from Orbitz were fine)
* Visa/​Mastercard to pay ($ 160 for multiple entry visa, express service — NO CASH I was told).
You DO NOT NEED hotel booking even though website says you do. I brought a cancellable one-​night hostel reservation and the attendant told me I didn’t need it.
I’ve applied on two separate occasions recently. For the first one, I arrived at 8:30, waited in line outside, got the 9^th ticket for visa applications, and was done by 9:30. For the second, I arrived at 9:30, got the 77^th ticket, and was done by 10:30.
If you forget your passport photo, they will take one for you. Price is 8 for $ 15.

Needed to apply for a VISA
Came here Friday 10:40am and got a number. Almost 3 hours later and still waiting… expect this to take about 4 hours.
Bring a book.
Lots of people with weird hairstyles, weird fashion, smells like mothballs, no sense of personal space, no AC here super stuffy.

Horrible, horrible experience!
I guess, what kind of service was I expecting to get at a Chinese Consulate…
I got in line at 8:20am and waited till 9:20am to get to a representative, only to find out that they needed to see my Taiwanese passport in addition to my US passport because I was born in Taiwan. This was not AT ALL clear on their website, which I’ve probably read 5 times by now, and I think they should really get better at communicating all the required documents. My 1 hour wait was a complete waste of time.
Although I got to say, I was about the 20^th person in line when I got to the door at 8:20, and they were pretty efficient once doors opened at 9. Still, this is not the place for 5-​star experiences. I will know that when I return the second time, which hopefully will be a smoother experience.

Guards were super-​nice and helpful. There were plenty of seats. That’s about it.
I went there to do two things, get a business document certified for work, and my personal VISA — I was thinking that I can kill 2 birds with 1 stone — and ended up with nothing accomplished after 3.5 hrs of waiting. More like the birds killed me.
The business document certification failed because apparently it needed a title page with CA gold embossed seal (that you have to get in Sacramento). On the consulate website it said somewhere that the document just needs to be certified by the Secretary of State (which it was, with an ink stamp on the document itself) before bringing to the Consulate. Nowhere does it mention an embossed gold seal title page. :(
The personal VISA failed because I did not bring my Taiwanese passport that expired 10 years ago and have not been in use for even longer after I’ve become an US citizen. Again, nowhere on the consulate website did it say that you need to bring your previous nationality’s EXPIRED passport from 10 years ago, if you’re a US citizen. (I brought my US passport, as instructed.)
Nor did the consulate’s VISA office have a human respondent for calls. I tried to call in before-​hand to mitigate exactly these sort of things, but only got recordings — which, to be fair, are semi-​helpful, but could not answer my specific questions.
Ended up having to do both tasks through agencies to save me the trouble of going into SF and waiting in line again. Horrible experience! :(

I knew getting my visa wasn’t going to be a fun experience, so I went in with extremely low expectations.
Surprisingly, the process didn’t suck quite as much as I thought it would. Why? Because I came in prepared. Forms filled out, cash money for pictures (which you need and can take there for like 20 bucks or something — a total ripoff, but you gotta do what you gotta do), passport in hand, yadda yadda.
You basically walk through the metal detector, have your purse checked, then you get a number… and wait. Oh right, and take pictures if you need them. Once your number is called, you go up, smile pretty, and do your best to convince the dude behind the counter that you aren’t a terrorist, and that you really just want to visit beautiful China.
Next, they approve you and tell you when you can come back and pick up your passport with your shiny new Chinese visa in it.
If you want this whole thing to go as smoothly as possible…
— Show up early
— Bring cash
— Print your forms and fill them out at home
— Pay attention to the people calling numbers
There is metered parking nearby and an ATM in one of the Japanese hotels a block away.
In many ways a visit to the Chinese Consulate is prepping you for what’s to come… Happy travels!

I had a very good experience. I had to rush my visa but they were able to turn it around in less than a day. Everyone was very nice and efficient.
Be sure to bring all the paperwork listed on their website to avoid wasted time.
I went at 8:30 — 8:45 twice (opens at 9) and was done within 45 min both times, so I would recommend going first thing in the morning if possible.

I wouldn’t say it was a pleasant experience, but overall it was efficient and they got my visa issued in under a business day.
10 key things to know:
1) Arrive before 2:30. They close the door then.
2) You don’t pay for your visa when you apply. You pay when you pick it up.
3) They do not accept Amex, personal checks, or cash. A postal money order is the way to go.
4) You’ll find out the amount to pay when you drop off your visa application.
5) Off-​street parking is in the Japantown complex. Park close to the hotel as it is nearest to consulate building.
6) Be nice to the employees (guards, clerks, etc.) as they are amazingly cordial given the environment.
7) Bring hand sanitizer. You’ll understand why this is important the second you arrive.
8) Don’t bother arriving early. It makes no difference. The best bet is to arrive right before they close.
9) When you come back to pick up your visa, go straight to Windown #1. They will then give you a number for Window 2 or 3. There is almost no line when you come in to pick up your visa.
10) Did you catch that I mentioned hand sanitizer? I wasn’t kidding.

I rarely say this about a business but it was my fault.
I didn’t know that they needed all of these things at once:
1. passport (I’m a US citizen so the line for non-​US is different so I can’t write about that since I’m not sure about the procedure)
2. one recent photo
3. confirmation of my flight
4. application form
I was missing the flight confirmation since I’m going to China on a tour through Hong Kong. The guards were supercool and steered me to get my number.
Note that your number may or may not appear on the board, it frequently breaks down so in that case, the guards will call out the numbers.
The wait time wasn’t bad at all… less than 30 minutes. Since I didn’t bring my flight confirmation, I had to come back a second time, but once again that was my bad.
The second time I came, it was even faster, about 15 minutes. They took all my paperwork and gave me a pick up sleep for 4 days later.
4 days later, quick no wait line to the left (pick-​up window) where I was alb to pick up my visa in one window, and pay the $ 140 fee in another.
If you forget your picture you can pay the $ 18 fee right then and there since they have a make-​shift photo station set up.
Quick and painless.
Now I can go through Hong Kong to China.
I’m excited since I’m planning on going to China, Angkor Wat, South Korea, and Singapore for one month!
I’ve never been… so wish me luck!