How do you prepare an invitation for a foreigner's visa to Ukraine?

When you need an invitation

An invitation is needed first of all for a short-stay visa C. Paragraph 7 of the Rules for issuing visas, approved by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 118, lists the documents from which a foreigner submits one for a visa C. An invitation from a legal entity or a private person is the most common of them. How the whole visa procedure works is explained in the guide to getting a Ukrainian visa.

For a long-stay visa D, an invitation is not always required. An employee submits a work permit, and a student submits an invitation to study from an educational institution. For volunteers, religious organisations, and branches or representative offices of foreign companies, the organisation's invitation is exactly the document that serves as the ground for a visa D.

Invitation from a company

A legal entity registered in Ukraine issues the invitation on its official letterhead. The Rules require it to contain the following:

Without the register number, the registration number or the undertaking on costs, the consulate may treat the invitation as improperly issued. A company invitation does not need a notary.

• the company's number in the Єдиний державний реєстр (Unified State Register, EDR), the registration number of the invitation, the date and a signature;
• the invited person's surname and first name, date and place of birth, citizenship, passport details and place of residence;
• the purpose of the trip, the period of the visit to Ukraine, the number of entries and the place of stay in Ukraine;
• the company's undertaking to cover possible costs related to the invited person's stay and departure.

Invitation from a private person

A Ukrainian citizen can invite a foreigner, and so can a foreigner lawfully living in Ukraine on a temporary or permanent basis. Such an invitation is drawn up in notarised form. It gives the surname, first name and passport details of the person inviting, and for a foreigner also the details of their посвідка (residence permit) and their home address.

Next come the same details about the invited person as in a company invitation. These are the purpose of the trip, the period, the number of entries, the place of stay in Ukraine and the undertaking to cover costs. Copies of the inviting person's passport and residence permit are attached.

Write the invited person's name exactly as it appears in Latin script in their passport and in any Ukrainian documents they already hold. The consulate spots a mismatch at once. Why this matters is explained in the article on name spelling discrepancies.

Invitation and proof of funds

For any visa, a foreigner has to show enough money for the stay and the return journey. The procedure for this is set by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 884. A guarantee letter from the host is expressly listed among the accepted forms of proof.

That is why an invitation with an undertaking to cover costs often satisfies two requirements at once, the purpose of the trip and the funds. The client does not have to gather extra bank statements, and the package becomes simpler.

Visa-free countries

Citizens of countries with a visa-free regime need no visa for a short trip, so no formal visa invitation is issued for them. Even so, the border guard may ask about the purpose of the trip and about money. In that situation a notarised guarantee letter from a private person or a company makes the conversation noticeably easier. How to count the days you may spend in Ukraine without a visa is explained in the article on the 90/180 rule.

What an invitation does not do

An invitation is not permission to enter. The consulate decides on the visa, and the border guard decides on entry. Even with a flawless invitation a foreigner can be refused, for example if their passport does not meet the requirements or they appear in the database of persons banned from entry.

Nor does an invitation give a right of residence. For that, after entering on a visa D, the foreigner applies for a temporary residence permit (TRP), and this route is described in the TRP guide.

How we prepare an invitation

To get started we need four things. These are a photo of the inviting person's passport and tax number, a photo of the invited person's passport, the address in Ukraine where they will stay, and approximate dates of entry and departure. We read the rest of the data from the documents and clarify the purpose of the trip and the number of entries while drafting the text.

Next we send the client the draft text to review. Once it is approved, a notary certifies the invitation if it comes from a private person. We hand the finished document to the client, who forwards it to the invited person to submit at the consulate together with the application form described in the article on the online visa application form.

Lawyer's experience

Invitations are most often sent back over small details. The undertaking on costs is missing, the number of entries is not stated, or the invited person's name is spelled differently from the passport. All of these items are named directly in the Rules, so before signing we check the text against the requirements point by point.

My second piece of advice concerns expectations. Clients sometimes see an invitation as a guarantee, and a refusal by the consulate comes as a surprise. I always explain that the invitation is only one part of the package, and the consulate also looks at the passport, the insurance and the funds.

If you need an invitation the consulate will accept the first time, we take on preparing the invitation, including finding a notary.

Frequently asked questions