Visa for Thai national visiting Northern Ireland on business?

54and56

Hi all,

A client company of mine based in Bangkok wants to send an employee to visit a company in Northern Ireland who they are considering doing business with.

My client has contacted me to say that the usual process they go through to get entry to the UK (when they visit London) is not applicable and that a separate Northern Ireland visa is required which will require the visitor to send their passport to Singapore for up to one month to be processed. Is this correct?

I'm tempted to suggest to them that they get the employee a normal UK visa and they enter the UK via Heathrow after which they fly to Dublin and enter using the Irish Short Stay Visa Waiver Programme (http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Irish%20Short%20Stay%20Visa%20Waiver%20Programme) which permits nationals from a number of specified countries (including Thailand) to enter the ROI and from there the employee can travel by train or car up to Northern Ireland.

Does anyone know if there is a fast track way to get a business visitor visa for Northern Ireland for someone from Thailand or is my suggestion the most practical solution given they want to visit in 3 weeks time?

Cheers.

antoinolachtnai

Your plan sounds good to me but I really don't know the details.

A possibility would be to talk to investNI, or better still to get the company in the north to talk to them. Any inward trade prospect is very valuable to NI

54and56

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Your plan sounds good to me but I really don't know the details.

A possibility would be to talk to investNI, or better still to get the company in the north to talk to them. Any inward trade prospect is very valuable to NI

Thanks, that's a good idea.

Richard

Are they maybe confusing NI with the republic? I've never heard of an NI visa. Surely it falls under UK.

coylemj

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

My client has contacted me to say that the usual process they go through to get entry to the UK (when they visit London) is not applicable and that a separate Northern Ireland visa is required which will require the visitor to send their passport to Singapore for up to one month to be processed. Is this correct?

That doesn't sound right at all. Northern Ireland is part of the UK so if they have a visa which gets them into the UK when they land in London, they should be able to travel to any part of the UK which includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Maybe travel for business includes restrictions but I can't imagine that you could get a visa to visit the UK which did not include travel to NI.

54and56

coylemj wrote: »

That doesn't sound right at all. Northern Ireland is part of the UK so if they have a visa which gets them into the UK when they land in London, they should be able to travel to any part of the UK which includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Maybe travel for business includes restrictions but I can't imagine that you could get a visa to visit the UK which did not include travel to NI.

I agree with you but apparently not. Don't know why.

killbillvol2

None of this sounds right. You apply for a UK visa online so I don't know why the passport would be sent to Singapore? In Thailand you also have to attend a visa application centre in Bangkok.

This sounds like your client is dealing with an agency who are either ill informed or, more likely, bumping up their fees.

54and56

killbillvol2 wrote: »

None of this sounds right. You apply for a UK visa online so I don't know why the passport would be sent to Singapore? In Thailand you also have to attend a visa application centre in Bangkok.

Trust me these people are extremely well travelled and travel all over the world on business. They are well used to getting UK visa's from the UK embassy in BKK as it's quite close to their office but on this occasion when they said they wanted a visa to visit NI they were told it's a different process requiring their passport to be sent to Singapore. The Singapore bit is only as a result of the recent outsourcing and centralising of visa application processing in the region. Instead of each embassy processing passprts they now gather them up daily, ship them in diplomatic bags overnight to Singapore who process and return them. It's called progress apparently :rolleyes:

killbillvol2 wrote: »

None of this sounds right. You apply for a UK visa online so I don't know why the passport would be sent to Singapore? In Thailand you also have to attend a visa application centre in Bangkok.

This sounds like your client is dealing with an agency who are either ill informed or, more likely, bumping up their fees.

No, my client and their staff have been travelling on business for over 20 years. They have their own staff who take care of flights, visas, accommodation etc.

killbillvol2

Progress indeed! :rolleyes: