View Single Post
  #4  
Old August 20th, 2016, 02:56 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
Happy.Hobo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 35
Default Rant about Spanish visa rules

On 08-20-2016 06:03, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
On 2016-08-14 01:05:47 +0000, Happy.Hobo said:

If I want to spend 90 days in Spain, I just go there. Easy.

If I want to spend 91 days in Spain, I assemble half a kilogram of
documentation:

http://tinyurl.com/Visa-for-Spain

and then wait two to four months to see if it's approved. And even
though the approval (or not) comes from people in the Spanish
consulate in USA (who speak English fairly well), they require
"certified" translations of everything. Even though I speak Spanish
well, I'm not anxious to translate umpteen pages of insurance policy.
Not to mention getting someone to "certify" it.

There must be a better way.


I have no specific knowledge about Spanish visa requirements for
visitors from the USA, but I would guess that it's reciprocal, that
Spain just imposes the same requirements, whether silly or not, that the
USA imposes on visitors from Spain.


The "specific knowledge" is on their website, which I linked to.
Nothing on it suggests it is rules for Americans. And while I have no
doubt USA has excessive paperwork,¹ I doubt it's as ridiculous as
Spain's. The most ridiculous part is that one can show up with nothing
but a passport and stay 90 days, but for 91, three months of preparation
and a ton of paperwork.

¹A bureaucrat is someone who cuts red tape—lengthwise.