Visa processing and travel to Mauritania. Where, how and for how much you can apply for a visa to Mauritania Visa to Mauritania for Russians


For a trip to Mauritania, Russians will need entry permit paper. It is necessary for any purpose of visiting this amazing African state. A visa to Mauritania is needed both for a long stay, and in case of a short trip. Even transit through the country requires an entry document. Let's look at all the intricacies of applying for a Moorish visa.

Entry paper required

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania (IRM) is located on the Atlantic coast of Africa. Citizens of the Russian Federation who wish to visit this country will require an entry document.

Map of Mauritania

Issues related to the provision of a visa are handled by several Moorish government agencies. Also, the issuance of securities is the responsibility of the diplomatic missions of the African state. The IRM Embassy should also be contacted by Russians planning a tour to Mauritania. The diplomatic mission operates in Moscow.

Important information for tourists!

Official Nouakchott quite often revises the conditions for issuing visas. Up-to-date information must be clarified in advance at the diplomatic service of the Islamic Republic in Russia.

So, in October 2017, the Russian Foreign Ministry posted important information on visas to Mauritania for Russians. The IRM Embassy in Moscow temporarily does not issue them. You can get entry papers when crossing the border at checkpoints. Documents and fees are the same as when applying for a diplomatic mission.

This is due to the fact that the Mooris are introducing the collection of biometric data to open visas. Until the appropriate equipment is delivered to the diplomatic mission, the registration of entry papers has been suspended.

Varieties of entry documents

Do not forget that you need a visa to Mauritania for any purpose of travel. Papers intended for visiting the state are divided into 3 types:

  1. Ordinary.
  2. Utility. They are handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the IRM and one of the divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Islamic country.
  3. Diplomatic. They are allowed to receive only the turn of the Moorish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its foreign missions. In this case, you need a note from the Russian Foreign Ministry or an authorized international organization.

In turn, ordinary entry documents are divided into 4 subcategories:

Entrance documents for transit and short stay can be issued at the embassy. Papers for a long stay are provided by both the diplomatic mission and the unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic.

  Moorish visa

Visa Documents

An ordinary visa to Mauritania is issued for Russians subject to the submission of a number of papers. Collect them is not difficult. The list of required documents is small.

The term for consideration of applications is 2-3 days excluding weekends and holidays. It is not necessary to personally attend the embassy when submitting documentation. You can transfer all the papers through an intermediary. There is no preliminary record in the diplomatic office.

Visa documentation for transit and short visit

The list of visa papers for transit and short-term trips includes:

Long stay visa documentation

A long-term visa to Mauritania is opened for Russians if the following documents are available:

  1. Application forms, photographs and passport (requirements for transit and short-term visas).
  2. Copy of birth certificate (for children).
  3. Documents confirming the intention to remain in the African power. For instance:
    • a copy of the employment contract and a letter from the company in which the applicant works with a request for a visa (for employment in the republic);
    • application from a Mauritanian citizen, a copy of the applicant’s identity card, photocopies of marriage and / or birth certificates (upon entry to a family member).

The cost of ordinary visas

A visa to Mauritania can only be issued if an appropriate fee has been paid for it. He is irrevocable. This means that in case of refusal of the application, the money will not be returned.

Entrance paper for a short stay costs 20 thousand ug (about $ 55). A document for a long stay will cost 30 thousand ugiy (approximately $ 82).

  Visa with stamps of consular fee

Recommendation to tourists! After paying the fee at the embassy you will be given a check. It is advisable to take it on a trip and, if necessary, present at the border. This will avoid possible extortion by unscrupulous border guards at the entrance.

  Receipt of payment of the fee, which is worth taking on a trip

The main thing about entering the Islamic Republic

At Moorish checkpoints, foreign guests fill out a declaration and go through baggage screening. During customs control, a passport is stamped with the date of arrival / departure.

We provide two types of services:

1. If you have an invitation, we will relieve you of the need to stand in line, solve recording problems and prepare for an interview, as well as adjusting the documents you submit to this consulate.

2. If you do not have an invitation, we can assist in obtaining a visa or a tour to Mauritania. If you represent the interests of a Travel Company, you can request from us the full price list for the countries you are interested in by email:

Mauritania is a country located in West Africa. Best places to visit: the ancient structure of Kumbi-Saleh - a famous historical site of the state. Local museums and mosques are also open to new arrivals.

Mauritania visa: documents

Residents of the CIS are required to apply for a visa.
General list of documents

  • invitation from the guarantor
  • two visa application forms
  • two photo and 3x4
  • overseas. passport

Mauritania: visa for Ukrainians

For citizens of Ukraine need a visa.

The Embassy of Mauritania is absent in Ukraine, but it is in the Russian Federation. You will need to obtain permission to enter the country.

Package of required documents:

  • visa application form
  • two photos
  • foreign passport + photocopy
  • medits. document (yellow fever vaccine)

review of your documents

→ to fourteen days

Residents of Ukraine do not need to be present in person at the embassy - all documents can be sent by mail.

About the country:

Popular dishes in Mauritania are sweaters, couscous, and various soups with spices. Drinks - kenaf tea from hibiscus flowers and milk. Fruits are mainly imported, dates dominate from their own.

Many go to the northern part of the republic to photograph a unique train, 1.5 km long. On which, by the way, there is an opportunity to ride, although this is more suitable for lovers of extreme sports. Also, sports fishing is in demand in the northern part of the country.

Call these contacts to get advice on applying for a visa to Mauritania.

Mauritania is a fairly large West African country. Ukrainians need a visa to visit this state. For permission to enter, you will have to contact the embassy of Mauritania, which is not in Ukraine, but, fortunately, it is in Russia.

To apply for a visa to Mauritania, you will need to collect a relatively small list of documents. Among them, special attention should be paid to the yellow fever vaccination certificate. Without it, you won’t be given a visa, and traveling with a vaccine is somehow safer. You do not want to spend most of your trip on the fight against an unpleasant and dangerous disease.

When the documents are collected, they should be sent to the Embassy of Mauritania. This can be done by mail. But if for some reason you find yourself in Moscow, then it’s even better, since you can submit documents personally. But as mentioned above, personal presence is not necessary.

The standard visa application period for Mauritania is two days. After this period, it will take one of the pages of your passport. For citizens of Ukraine, the amount of the consular fee for a visa to Mauritania is $ 75. In case of refusal to issue a visa - money will not be returned to you, but again you do not need to worry, still refusals are a rarity. Obtaining a visa to Mauritania is not at all difficult, in addition, the procedure itself is quick and thoughtful. We wish you a pleasant and exciting journey.

Tourist visa

  • 2 visa application forms completed in French or Arabic;
  • International passport;
  • 2 color photos 3x4;
  • Internal passport;
  • Yellow fever vaccine medical certificate;
  • Hotel reservation;
  • Booking tickets;
  • Insurance;

Dakhla became the last city of Morocco and Western Sahara for us, having visited it, we separated from Nadia, she went back north and further to Europe, and we went to the border with Mauritania. From Dakhla to the border is about 350 kilometers, there are not many cars in this direction, mainly Moroccan trucks and European cars that are driven to the countries of Black Africa by their inhabitants. On average, 4-6 cars pass in an hour, many of which are heavily loaded, but the first car with free seats, as a rule, stops and carries you.

We crossed the road to the border in three cars in 6 hours. We were lucky again with the cops, and they recorded us only in two out of five posts. Arriving at the border, I recalled that the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border, near Beineu, looks the same as the border of Morocco and Mauritania, it turned out that way.

Even here it’s a little more civilian, asphalt, for example, is on both sides of the border,

but on that passage there is none. The border can be walked, there is no line. On the Moroccan side, the border guard, as usual, became interested in my profession and looked at the computer for a long time, but after three minutes put an exit stamp.

The neutral zone between Morocco and Mauritania is not the usual here, it has a third country - the Sahara Arab Democratic Republic, this strip of territory is controlled by the POLISARIO front and here you can watch their flags on some dugouts and UN cars, which just in case control the situation. I did not take photographs of UN cars, but I photographed the SADR flags.

So we can say that I visited another country.

There is no asphalt on the neutral, the length of the zone is about four kilometers. Already on it, numerous offers are ready to offer you all services, ranging from money exchange, to a taxi to Nouakchott. When you approach the Moorish side, there are even more of them, but it is very easy to get away from them, if you do not need anything, and if you want to exchange currency, then this can be done. The course will be very good if you bargain a little. As of February 2017, for 1 EUR they were given at the best rate of 380 MUR, for 1 MAD - 35 MUR.

In the first building on the Moorish side, some cops are sitting and just writing down your passport details. Visas are made in the second building. For a visa, nothing but 55 euros is required in cash. They verbally ask where you are going and what hotel you are staying at, but you don’t need to write it down, you do not need a questionnaire, photos are taken on the spot. In fact, it takes ten minutes to get a visa, but sometimes a man making a visa goes to bed or to pray, then the queue accumulates and he has to wait. Until recently, a Moorish visa cost a lot of money, they wanted 120 EUR for it, but a month ago it fell in price to 55 EUR. Probably the already meager stream of foreign tourists visiting Mauritania was completely reduced and they decided to make a discount. You need to make a visa exclusively at the border, here it is done faster and costs less than at the embassy. For example, the cost of a visa at the embassy in Rabat is now 690 MAD, it is 65 euros, and at the border 55 euros.

The border crossing by African standards looks good, everyone is sitting in the buildings, the walls are painted, there are computers, a fingerprint scanner, air conditioning and of course there is a lot of dust and debris, but this is Africa, which is how it should be. I expected that it would be worse after Pan Sapunov’s stories, but everything turned out to be normal, just simplified and dirty, so it’s understandable, this is not Europe.

Border guards live in the third building, they enter visa data into the computer, find out where we plan to go and put an entry stamp. If it were not for the “rest” of the man making the visa, then we would have gone the entire Mauritanian part of the border in half an hour, and so it would have dragged on for an hour and a half.

Behind the Moorish barrier there is nothing interesting, a couple of sheds

and the desert begins. There is no stationary exchanger either, only taxi drivers, so if you need to change money, then do this in advance, before leaving the border post. We did not use taxi drivers, of course, and the first ordinary car took us to Nouadhibou for free, and then its driver invited me to visit and the next two days, while we watched the city, we lived with it.

At first glance, Mauritania is as follows: dusty, deserted, but people are good.

In West Africa is the country of Mauritania. This is not the most prosperous state. It is distinguished by strict laws and a very specific lifestyle. A visa to Mauritania in 2020 is issued by those Russians who have a business there or are interested in extreme tourism.

Mauritania is easy to find on the world map. Anyone who can easily navigate the world map knows that the Islamic Republic of Mauritania is a West African state. This is a completely Islamic country. Representatives of other faiths are not here.

In Mauritania, Negroes and Berber nomads peacefully coexisted since the 11th century. In the 19th century, the country became a French province and light-skinned people began to settle on its territory.

Map of Africa. Mauritania - West African State (marked in light green)

This state attracts mainly tourists. The main reason for this interest in Mauritania was the fact that one can observe amazing traditions and customs that have been preserved since the early Middle Ages. Paradoxical fact: Moorish orthodoxes with pleasure adopted the European holiday of labor. Here it is also celebrated on May 1.

Entry Rules for Mauritania

Russians need a visa to Mauritania in 2020. For its receipt, the traveler agrees to contact the embassy of Mauritania.

Diplomats honestly warn travelers about the possibility of contracting malaria or hepatitis A. But this can hardly stop the connoisseur of real adventures.

Receiving an entry tourist visa

A Russian planning a trip to Mauritania with a view to visiting relatives, friends or historical sights agrees to obtain an entry visa.

List of required documents

To do this, he needs to prepare a package of documents, including:

  1. Two application forms.

The application form can be filled out at the consular post. You can fill in French, English or Arabic.

If a Russian is accompanied by a minor who has not reached the age of sixteen, then his data must be entered in the adult visa.

Cost and terms of registration

The term for processing a visa document varies from two to three business days. The validity period is 90 days from the date of registration. Depending on the purpose of the trip, the traveler is issued a single or 2-fold visa document.

The size of the consular fee is 4 thousand rubles. You need to pay the fee at the time of filing. The receipt of payment will need to be presented at the border crossing.

Getting a transit visa

If the state of Mauritania is not the final destination, then the traveler undertakes to obtain a transit visa. The list of documents remains unchanged, only instead of an invitation, the traveler must provide a reservation of tickets to the "third" country.

Registration of an entry visa does not require the personal presence of the applicant. Applying to the consul in advance is also not necessary. Documents for obtaining a visa are accepted on weekdays. The applicants are admitted from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Features of life in the country

Life in Mauritania, which is officially considered one of, cannot be called simple. About 50% of the local population is below the poverty line.

This state does not have the smallest percentage of the population - 3291 thousand people. Most of the population lives, or rather, survives, at the expense of peasant labor. This is hard work: a good harvest depends on the rains that nature spoils this country very rarely.

The real misfortune for the local population is the locust. Every summer, disgusting insects destroy a good half of the crop.

  In other economic spheres of Mauritania, not everything is so sad. The country's authorities are in desperate need of competent specialists who can help develop areas such as:

  • gold mining;
  • fishing;
  • ore mining.

There are not so many Russian specialists in Mauritania. But the state authorities are gradually establishing contact with the Russian Federation and this year it is planned to sign several important contracts.

The last "state of slaves"

Until recently, Mauritania was the only state in the world in which the slave trade flourished. At the official level, slavery was canceled only 9 years ago. But in 2008, the situation changed radically. The new government, which became the head of state after the coup, which happened not without the help of France, stopped the persecution of slave owners.

Today, 600,000 Moorians of the Negroid race are slaves. This is about 20 percent of the country's population.

Slave owners are the Berbers. Like many years ago, black slaves have no rights. Slaves also have no surnames. Children born in captivity become the property of the owners.

There is another terrible fact. A large part of the population of Mauritania lives in terrible poverty. Given that most black Mauritians are not able to feed the numerous offspring, children and adolescents are sold into slavery.

The cost of a teenage slave who is able to work is $ 500. USA. By local standards, this is a lot of money. For this amount, the family has the opportunity to exist comfortably for 8 months.

The cost of a young man who understands cars, or a girl who knows how to weave, varies from 2.0 to 2.5 thousand US dollars. Small children are not sold into slavery, since the "black market" of Mauritania is only interested in working hands.

Not so long ago, at a meeting of the UN, the question was again raised regarding the fight against slavery.

But practice shows that as long as there are interested states and corporations, slavery will flourish.

In the middle of winter 2011, several youth demonstrations took place in the capital of Mauritania, Nouakchott. Students made demands for the abolition of slavery. But the demonstrations were stiffly suppressed by Moroccan mercenaries.