New Italian visa center opened in Madinat Khalifa

The Italian Embassy yesterday opened a new external centre to process visas and introduced an additional service charge to the fee.

Visa applications to Italy should be submitted to the Cox and Kings Global Services (CKGS) office in Madinat Khalifa.

Although the fee would remain the same at QR245 for tourist and business visas and QR143 for children between 6 and 12 years, QR90 will be charged for services.

The external operator will help process visas but the decision to issue one rests with the embassy. Schengen regulations and law for an Italian visa holder remain unchanged.

“Visa has been always a priority here in Qatar, we help tourist, business and bilateral relations growing through the visas. We always gave much attention to the service and the demand for visas has grown in the past years, so we had to adopt a solution,” said Guido De Sanctis, Italian Ambassador to Qatar.

 “We had been reaching 7,000 a year a couple of years ago, then it decreased someway because of an agreement between Italy and Qatar under which certain categories of passports are exempted from visas,” he added.

In 2015, 5,000 visas were issued to Italy from Doha, the majority of them were tourist visas. Among them 80 percent of applicants were residents and 20 percent Qataris.

The new centre will also process applications for travel to Sweden, Malta and Estonia, represented in Qatar by the Italian embassy with reference to Schengen visa applications.

Applicants will be able to book appointments via www.it.ckgs.qa, web chat as well as email ([email protected]).

CKGS will also accept walk-in customers without appointment although the waiting time for them could be extended. CKGS will provide appointments for visa submission within three working days from the date of a request received.

The ordinary processing time for a completed visa application with all required documents ranges from three to 15 days.

 It varies according to the nationality of the applicant. Applicants are advised to apply ideally 45 days before their departure date. [The Peninsula]