Turkmenistan is undoubtedly the toughest Central Asian visa of them all. It is notorious for denials and complications. We explain how we got ours, and the mistakes we made that turned it into a very slow process. We will give you tips and advice to help you make the visa application process as quick and painless as possible, and show exactly how to get a Turkmenistan transit visa in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Can I get a Turkmenistan transit visa in Bishkek?
Yes, you most certainly can, although it may take some time. Everyone we met there who applied was successful. We were all told it would take 10-15 working days for approval. Then it would be 3 working days to receive the transit visa (or possibly quicker for urgent applications).
We recommend to apply, go travelling around Kyrgyzstan and then return to Bishkek to collect. It is also possible to collect your visa elsewhere, like Dushanbe or Tashkent, but that can involve complications.
We met a traveller who tried to collect her visa in Dushanbe, only to be given a visa code number instead. When she arrived at the Turkmenistan border the officials did not want to recognise it and she spent 4 nervous hours trying to argue her way into the country. She did get in eventually!
Read on and find out how to get your Turkmenistan transit visa in Bishkek.
Where to apply for your Turkmenistan transit visa in Bishkek
Turkmenistan embassy Bishkek
9 Baitik Baatyr St, Bishkek 720016,
You can find them on maps.me
Hours 9-1 2-6
Those are the times posted on the entrance although they never came to serve anyone before 10am
Closed Wednesday
They accept documents between 10 – 12.30 pm. Go early to get to the bank and back in the morning…
How to get there
Take marshrutka 210 from Osh bazaar, along Moscow Street and then it goes down Soviet Street. The marshrutka costs 10 Som and takes about 30 minutes. Ask the driver to stop near to the embassy on Batik Baatyr Street.
You will also need to go from the embassy to the bank to pay your application and visa fees. The nearest KCIB bank to the embassy is –
What you need to take for your application
- 2 x passport photos
- Visa application forms. There are 3 pages which you can download from here. 2 pages are on the Visa application form pdf and 1 page is on the application in English pdf. The forms are straightforward. If you have any concerns, leave the section blank and they will assist you at the embassy.
- Cover letter, explaining purpose of your travel, entry and exit ports. Make sure you keep it simple. See the example below.
- Photocopies (IN COLOUR) of your passport main page, Uzbekistan and Iran visas.
- Passport for them to check. They return it to you and you keep it during the first application process.
- Money: $10 application administration fee + 10 Som bank fee. You will pay this at the bank.
Link to download application forms
https ://kyrgyzstan.tmembassy.gov.tm/en/consular-services/application
Cover letter
Below is an example of how your Turkmenistan transit visa application support letter should look. The embassy accepted a printed version of this letter from us but when a friend took in exactly the same format, they made her write it out again by hand. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this.
The Process
Now here’s the catch. It’s never easy to apply for a Turkmenistan visa anywhere in the world. They seem to not really want tourists roaming around in their country. Often in the past visas have been denied for no apparent reason. The good news is that recently, in 2018 anyway, transit visa approvals seem to be more common. They just make you wait awhile and sweat it out while they decide whether you are worthy of a transit visa or not.
The process for us took in total 35 days!!! We were a bit slack on chasing it up which is where we went wrong. It should be a lot quicker than that therefore we advise you to read where we went wrong and follow our advice and you could have a shiny new Turkmenistan transit visa in your passport in around 3 weeks!
Our Personal Experience…
Day 1
We got all of our documents together and took the Marshrutka to the embassy arriving at 9.40 am on Tue 24 July 2018. They let us into the courtyard and we were served at 10am by a friendly administrator who could speak a little English. We handed in all our documents and asked a few questions about the forms ie address being our home address. He checked our passports and gave them back to us. Once he was happy that the documents were in order, he gave us a bank slip and sent us off to the KCIB bank to pay the administration fee for our application. This first part took 15 minutes.
We took the same 210 marshrutka back to the junction, where we walked to the bank and paid our $10 administration fee plus 20 Som bank fee. It is the same set $10 administration fee whether you are applying for one or more visas. They give you a receipt which you take back to the embassy to prove you have paid.
We took a marshrutka back to the embassy and arrived back there at 11.15 am and handed in our payment receipt. They told us that the approval process would take 10 to 15 working days. That is 2 to 3 weeks! We left them our email address and took their phone number. They said they’d call us or email us when it was approved and we believed them!
Where we went wrong
We went off travelling around Kyrgyzstan. We spent a long time in the Issy-Kol region enjoying the lake and the trekking around Karakol. Check out the awesome Ala Kol lake trek here! Kyrgyzstan is an incredible country to visit and you can easily fill your time exploring this diverse and fascinating country. We returned to Bishkek 3 weeks later. We’d been waiting for the embassy to contact us and of course they hadn’t.
The 15th working day was a Monday. We tried to call them from a Skype number and they didn’t pick up, so we emailed them to check the visa status and they did not respond. We tried to call again on Tuesday and then gave up as they would not answer. Later we found out they only pick up calls from local numbers. Wednesday they were closed so we had to wait until Thursday to go to the embassy to find out what was going on.
Finally we get approval
Day 24
Thu 16 August
We arrived at the embassy just after 10am and were given the great news that our visas had been approved. They did not say when they had been approved so it could have been a week before. We had been waiting all that time and they hadn’t tried to contact us. Afterwards we heard from other travellers that if you write urgent on your application letter, it could possibly speed the process up.
So now we had to pay the visa fee. They asked if it was urgent or not and we said no as we’d already waited this long and assumed it was not necessary now. They told us the visa would be US$35 each and sent us back to the KICB bank to pay again.
We returned to the embassy with our bank receipts and gave them our passports. From here, all they need to do is put the visa sticker in them. Nothing could be easier, right?
Waiting for our Turkmenistan transit visa sticker
We were told it will take 3 working days to put the visa into our passports. Today was Thursday so it should be done by Monday but because Tuesday is a public holiday in Kyrgyzstan the Consul was thinking of taking Monday off! Why wouldn’t he? I mean, Wednesday they are closed anyway so he may as well have a 5 day weekend – you can’t really blame him!
This meant potentially we had to wait a week, until next Thursday for them to put a sticker in our passports. Slightly miffed by this revelation we gave him our Kyrgyz local Beeline phone number and he promised to call us on Monday to confirm the passports would be ready. Now we realised the importance of the word Urgent!
Monday comes and goes
Day 28
Monday 20 August
Monday comes and goes and the embassy does not call us. We attempt to call them but we just get a recorded message in Russian so we assume they’ve all gone fishing. We resign ourselves to spending longer in Bishkek. In fact Bishkek is a wonderfully relaxed city and we don’t mind being here at all so it’s no big drama for us.
Tuesday is the public holiday, Eid, so the hostel hands around delicious fried foods to celebrate and we relax with the other travellers. Wednesday is the day off for the embassy. I’m sure they deserve it because they work very hard!
Day 31
Thursday 23 August
The day of truth. We head to the embassy with our hearts in our mouths all ready to collect our passports. We get there to find that it’s all locked up and a laconic security guard informs us they are closed for the rest of the week and we should come back on Monday. Now I’m normally pretty relaxed about simple hiccups but this was starting to irritate me. The embassy employee had promised us they would be open today so we’d totally wasted our time. They had our passports so we were hostage here. It’s a good job our Kyrgyzstan visas weren’t about to expire or that we had flights out because we were trapped in Bishkek for another 4 days!
Day 32
Friday 24 August
We treat ourselves to a fun day at Bishkek’s 3D cinemas to cheer ourselves up. It was an awesome day of entertainment watching 2 movies and going for lunch and dinner in the city. I check my emails at 5 pm when I get WiFi and find one from our friend at the embassy. It states that our Turkmenistan transit visa had been ready since Monday and they had been trying to call us but got no answer!
Were these guys trying to play with us? They hadn’t tried to call us on Monday and they weren’t even open today! They could have emailed me on Monday if they had wanted to contact me. We couldn’t collect until the following Monday anyway so I put it out of my mind. Why were they emailing now though if they were closed?
Day 35
Monday 27 August
Arriving at the embassy (feels like home now) at 9.45 am we see the embassy guy standing at the gate chatting to the security guard. He greets us and nips off around the back to retrieve our passports. He is a little sheepish and says that they changed their minds last week about their holidays. They decided to work on Monday instead and have the rest of the week off!
So we could have got our passports with our transit visas in last Monday. The recorded message in Russian we heard on the phone may have mentioned that. We had just assumed they had all gone away for a jolly. We should have come to the embassy to check but we’d just assumed the worst.
The most important thing was we had that holy grail of visas in our hands. A Turkmenistan transit visa. This would allow us to complete our planned journey across Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan into Iran. We were so happy about that, that nothing else really mattered!
How to get your Turkmenistan transit visa quicker than we did.
- Write URGENT on your application letter as it may help speed up the process
- They will say 10 – 15 working days for approval. After 10 days start to politely hound them for information if you are really in a hurry
- Do not call them from Skype or an international number. Call them from a local one
- Get someone who speaks Russian to listen to any recorded message and translate for you
- Don’t assume they will call or email you because they didn’t contact us – friends received an email though!
- Once you get approval, pay US$55 for the Urgent service to get the visa in your passport. You may get next day service compared to our 12 day wait
- Try to avoid weeks with public holidays or just factor that into your waiting time
We spent over a month in Bishkek in total getting Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkmenistan visas. We stayed at Friends guest house in Bishkek which is an absolutely awesome place and we couldn’t recommend it enough! It has to be our favourite place to stay in all of Central Asia which is fortunate because we spent almost a month there!! You can book with them on booking.com or call them on +996555335656 to reserve.
For a detailed description on getting your Iran visa in Bishkek click here
Watch our Turkmenistan visa application saga on Youtube
Contact US
If you have any comments or suggestions about this post or any questions regarding applying for a Turkmenistan transit visa in Bishkek, Please contact us. We’d love to hear from you.
Happy Travels!
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