You can apply for a Short Stay ‘C’ visa up to 3 months before your date of travel to Ireland.

When you are filling in your information on the online application form:

• Select visa/preclearance type as ‘Short Stay (C)’
• Select journey Type as ‘Single’ or ‘Multiple’ and
• Select the correct Reason for Travel. For example, if you are travelling to Ireland for a holiday, you will select ‘Visit Tourist’.

You must make your visa application from the country where you are ordinarily resident, i.e. the country where you live. Requests to make a visa application from any other country (e.g. a country that you are visiting while on holiday) will not be accepted.

You can apply for a visa to travel to Ireland for up to 90 days for the following reasons:

You are required to show:

• Strong family, economic, social ties to your country of current residence/origin
• That you (and the relatives or friends sponsoring your visit) have enough money to travel and support yourself in Ireland without accessing public funds/resources
• That you have provided true and complete information to the visa officer (meaning that you have not left out information), and are of good character
• That you have a valid reason to travel here
• That you will leave Ireland before any permission granted expires
• That you are not applying for a visa to Ireland as a way of getting around lawful entry to the rest of the EU or the UK.

The Visa Officer will assess the information you have given and must be satisfied:

• That you have a valid reason to travel
• That the information you have provided is true, complete and that you are of good character
• That you (and the relatives or friends sponsoring your visit) have enough money to support yourself and will not access public funds or resources
• That you have strong ties to your country of current residence/ origin
• That you will not breach the Common Travel Area, and seek to enter the UK via Ireland without a valid UK visa if required by the UK authorities
• That your proposed stay in Ireland will be temporary, that you will leave Ireland at the end of your visit, and that you will observe the conditions of the visa sought
• That you do not have a negative Immigration history or criminal history.

The visa officer will also assess any other issue they consider relevant. It is your responsibility to satisfy the visa officer that the visa should be granted. The visa officer may make a decision on your application, without letting you know before the decision is made, that he or she is not satisfied that a visa should be granted to you.

Yes, you will have to submit documents in support of your application.

The document requirements are outlined for short stay applications. These are requirements for all applicants. You will need to provide additional documents, depending on your circumstances or Reason for Travel.

If you find that you cannot submit a document requested, you should provide an explanation as to why you cannot provide it, and any other documents for consideration by the visa officer.

Important: Do not include false or misleading information or documents in your application. If you do, your application may be refused. In some circumstances, you may not be allowed to appeal the visa decision and may be blocked from getting an Irish visa for 5 years.

Documents must be original.

We do not accept photocopies (except where stated).

Letters from companies, universities, schools, colleges, and so on, must be on official headed paper and show the organisation’s:

• Full name
• Full postal address
• Telephone number (fixed/land line – not mobile/cell phone)
• Website address
• Email address (Yahoo and Hotmail email addresses are not accepted)
• A contact person’s name and title/position
• Written signature of an authorised representative (an electronic signature is not accepted).

Documents must be translated & certified

You must provide a full and certified translation into the English or Irish language of any documents not in English or Irish. Send us both the original documents and the certified translations, read here certified translations of documents.

Important: Do not include false or misleading information or documents in your application. If you do, your application may be refused. In some circumstances, you may not be allowed to appeal the visa decision and may be blocked from getting an Irish visa for 5 years.

It is your responsibility to satisfy a visa officer that you have strong ties to your country of residence. For example:

Work

If you have a job, you must provide your:

• 3 most recent original payslips
• A letter from your employer to show:
  • How long you have been employed
  • Your leave dates
  • The date you are expected to return
  • Your annual salary.

Education or study

If you are studying at home, you must provide a letter from your school or college that shows:

• The course you are studying
• The amount of time you have been a student
• How many years you have remaining in your school or college
• The dates of your visit to Ireland including your return date to study.

Family

You must provide evidence of family ties to your home country if you want your family ties to be considered.

You must declare your family status (i.e., married/ divorced etc.)

You also must provide:

• Original birth certificates for your family
• Your marriage certificate if you are married
• Evidence that your family is in your home country.

Other Obligations

You can provide evidence of any obligations you wish to have considered.

For example, if you own property, or rent a property, you can provide evidence of this. Examples of evidence would include:

• An original title deed
• An up to date original rental agreement which shows the start date of your tenancy.

All additional documents should be clearly labelled in the application.

You may need to provide further additional documents depending on the purpose of your travel here.

Different embassies and visa offices will take different lengths of time to process different types of visa applications. These waiting times can change and you may check with the embassy or visa office, which is processing your application, for information on their current waiting times.

You can check the current waiting times at the Dublin Visa Office.

We will return marriage, birth and death certificates to you after we process your application.

If there are other documents you want returned, type or write a list of the documents you want and:

• Include the list with your visa application
• Include the original documents from the list (we will return these after processing)
• Include a photocopy of each document (we will keep these).

Note: You must include the original documents. Do not only send photocopies.

The validity of your visa normally starts from the date your visa was granted and expires 90 days after this date. You should note that this is not always the case. In some circumstances it will be shorter. The visa officer determines the validity and you cannot appeal against the visa officer’s decision on the validity period of your visa.

You can only travel to Ireland between the dates on the visa including the first and last dates printed on the visa. The visa must be presented to an Immigration Officer at a port of entry between those dates.

After the end date the visa is no longer valid and you will be required to apply for new visa.

Yes. Please refer to Extra conditions for Under 18’s.

If your application is successful and you are permitted to enter Ireland then you are required to fully obey the conditions of your visa. In summary this means that

• You must leave Ireland before your permission to be in Ireland expires
• You do not work (any type of paid or unpaid work) (unless you have been granted a business, performance/ tournament or Employment (Atypical) Visa
• You do not become a burden on the State or access publicly funded services such as a hospital
• You have appropriate travel/medical insurance for the duration of your trip
• You do not seek to enter the UK, EU or EEA country without a valid visa for that country if required by that country.

Your refusal notification will tell you if you can appeal the decision or not.

No. An Irish visit visa does not permit a person who is required to have a UK visa under UK immigration rules to enter the UK using an Irish visa.

However, under the terms of the British Irish Visa Scheme (BIVS) certain people who have an Irish Visa endorsed with “BIVS” may be permitted to travel to Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK, from Ireland, using that Irish visa.

“BIVS” endorsed visas are only available to Chinese people who are living in China and to Indian people living in India.

In all other circumstances, if you wish to enter the UK (including Northern Ireland), you must be in possession of a valid UK visa.

The Short-Stay Visa Waiver Programme allows nationals of certain countries, who have entered the UK on foot of a UK short stay visa, to travel to Ireland without the requirement to obtain an Irish visa. They instead may use the time remaining on their current leave to remain in the UK.

In order to avail of the Programme you must have landed and gained lawful entry to the UK on foot of your current UK visa, prior to undertaking the journey to Ireland.

Each distinct period of leave to remain in the UK (up to a maximum of 180 days each time) requires a prior legal entry into the UK before travel to Ireland under the programme, no matter what the duration of the UK visa.

This programme is not reciprocal. It does not permit a person who is a visa required national under UK immigration rules to enter the UK on foot of an Irish visa. If you wish to enter the UK (including Northern Ireland), you must be in possession of a valid UK visa.

You may be able to visit Ireland, for less than 90 days, without an Irish visa if you can answer “yes” to each of these questions:

• Do you have an eligible UK short stay visa?

and

• Does your visit to Ireland end before your permission to stay in UK ends (this is granted by an UK immigration official when you pass through UK immigration)?

and

• Was your passport issued by one of the countries listed in the list below?

You do not need a visa if you are a British citizen. Check if you need a visa for Ireland.

Eligible Countries

Note: Chinese and Indian nationals may also visit the United Kingdom and Ireland in some circumstances using a single short stay visa issued by either country. Read a longer description of the British-Irish Visa Scheme

Note 1: China

In the case of China, nationals of the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are already on the list of those nationals who do not require a visa to travel to Ireland.

Note 2: Kuwait, Oman and Qatar

In the case of nationals from the Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, the United Kingdom (UK) Electronic Visa Waiver (EVW) cannot be used to travel to Ireland from a third country.

Note 3: Colombia, Peru

Colombian and Peruvian nationals require a visa to travel to Ireland. Under the Short Stay Visa Waiver Scheme, Colombian and Peruvian nationals who enter the UK with a valid UK short stay visa may travel to Ireland without the requirement to obtain an Irish visa. When the UK lifted the visit visa requirement for Colombian and Peruvian nationals on 9 November 2022, only those who enter the UK with an existing valid short-stay UK visa, including a multi-entry UK visa, are able to avail of the Short Stay Visa Waiver Scheme to travel to Ireland.

Colombian and Peruvian nationals who travel to the UK after 9 November 2022 without a UK visit visa will require an Irish visa if they wish to travel to Ireland.