Chinese Visa Application Service Centre

Booked the 13:00-13:00 slot and got to the centre shortly past 13:00. The staff here are quite friendly at least from my experience. I had to wait over an hour until my ticket number was called and the documents were checked pretty quick at the counter. However, I had to print additional bank statements to submit 3 months worth of these as I was applying with an EU passport. It's a shame the site has limited information on what you should bring as an EU citizen for the visa. Printing additional paper work is quite easy, there are a few computers, but it does cost 50p per. You can pickup your passport with the stamped visa in 5 days. Visa pickup: went to pick up my visa and i was told it was declined but of course you still pay the full fee for processing (£150 or so). Turns out my bank statements did not show enough funds for the trip which was set at a minimum of £60-80 per day of your stay in China (which isnt mentioned anywhere..). I'm not sure why the staff couldn't point this out prior to submitting my application (perhaps because they know they will make money of off innocent people)? As a customer who pays for the centre's service I would expect better help and guidance from the staff instead of ripping your customers off.

Beyond bad service. Indeed a nice building and definitely fast!! As they are very kin to send the person away in seconds. Starting from the reception. Definitely, I notice the front desk 'lady' does treat people in a different away. The 'lady' was very nice to every men but not the same when dealing with the ladies. Using her mobile and ignoring you and making very short. Zero customer service. When handling the documents the experience gets even worse. Very rude. I still cannot figure out if the person could speak English or not. What ever they say is very fast and one just have the chance to say yes or not. The person even stress< say YES or NO! Then must leave fast!. I still don't understand why they are asking for the EU citizen to present they RESIDENCE CARD!! At the moment UK is still an EU member and EU citizen still not obliged to have it. Pity I am forced to give 1 star. Also sad as I love China. While in the country people do treat you better.

Honestly the most inefficient visa process in the world. Prepare to waste hours of your life and spend unnecessary amounts of coinage printing stuff off. Staff were nice but a terrible, archaic process they are forced to follow. There is nothing modern about this place. Have everything printed before you come and allocate at least 3 hours to waste here.

Been all around the world to so many countries and this Chinese Visa experience has been the worst.THIS IS NOT EVEN THE OFFICIAL EMBASSY OF CHINA CENTRE. Is just a private organisation service centre adding their own fees to the Visa (Visa is only about £30 with embassy and £33-£66 service - this place adds their own fees £100 or so) No 1 - the fee is a rip off. No 2 the staff, especially the receptionist needs dumping in a ice bath and then been sacked - the rudest and most vile angry woman I have had the unpleasant dealings with (I am English as was very rude with me but I guess I was lucky as seems the rudeness jumps to a new level for overseas Chinese people she deals with looking for a Visa to go back to China). No 3 waiting times are insane, despite having to already booked a time had to wait 2.5 hrs in line. No 4 website is not clear what information to bring for just a tourist visa - past comments were stating people needing 3 months bank statements, £70/day at least for everyday in China showing in bank statement, flights booked and hotel booked - ????

Closed without notice.

Awful, they decided to take a random holiday on a Tuesday and the visa Centre was closed all day. It means I missed my flight as they had my passpirt/visa!

Your appointment is simply to join a queue, so get there early if you don't want to wait around. Make sure you print everything off as printing there will cost 50p per sheet, and you need multiple copy's if there is say 2 of you. Make sure you name is on the hotel reservation, as they wont except it if not. Also they required proof of my flight out of the UK, even though i'm not flying straight to china. Be prepared to wait around, it is not quick.

I had a really positive experience when applying for my visa. I arrived around 20 minutes ahead of my time-slot, but they were more than happy to see me. My paperwork was checked by the staff on reception before being given a number (completed application form & photograph, current & old passport photo page photocopy, flight tickets, invitation letter, copies of my previous Z-visa & residence permit, and photo ID from my inviter). I waited 20 minutes before being called to the desk. The paperwork I was asked for at the desk was the same as outlined above, except for my flight tickets as I had an invitation letter. I was asked to make another copy of my previous Z-visa and residence permits as the copies I had weren't as clear as the centre would like. I applied for a 2 year multi-entry visa, and in total the whole process took just 15 minutes - including going to get the new photocopies!! The visa is quite expensive; I paid £175 - Visa fee, service centre fee (~£66), postage fee (£24 - putting the passport into a pre-paid envelope I got from the post office!) and VAT (£15). Passport was delivered in just 4 working days. Overall positive experience.

Cheerful experience, if you have all the documents required for visa the process is straightforward.

I’m not one for writing that many reviews, unless I have pretty strong feelings about critical reviews that are maybe not due to the person/company providing the service, but perhaps the customer/reviewee. My partner and I are off to China and thus we needed to organise tourist visas. I did some preliminary research and we were considering using an agency, but as you have to attend in person in order to submit finger prints I could not really see what the value add of using an agency would be. Then I looked at the visa centres website and thoroughly digested the instructions, I mean I read them two or three times and actually printed them all out and marked up all the salient instructions and made a list of all the documents needed, see below: 1) Print out of your appointment booking that you have to do at the end of the online visa submission process 2) Print out of the visa application after completing it online (this was straightforward, the only issue was submitting compliant photographs, more on that later!) 3) Print out and complete the debit card authorisation form for the card(s) to be used to pay for the visa 4) Flight and hotel confirmation printouts, several copies for good measure 5) Current passport photographs (took 4 each just in case more than one was required) 6) Scans of passports, couple of copies for good measure 7) Scan of old passport (mine had an old Chinese visa in it and thus I had to declare this when I completed the online application) 8) The actual old passport (just in case they wanted to see the real thing, in the end they did not check this to be honest) 9) We were getting our passports sent back to us in the post thus we provided prepaid Royal Mail tracked envelopes, address filled out, adhesive tracking numbers removed and stored somewhere safe After reading that it can get busy we booked for 09:00 slots after completing the online visa application. We were using the London visa centre. We arrived at the centre at about 08:40 and joined the queue. The doors opened at about 08:50 and we ushered to join the 09:00 appointment queue to get our passports checked. Queues are formed for each appointment time slot. A lady was checking the visa application forms and was looking for ones where the photograph had failed to meet their requirements. I did try my hardest to upload ones that I thought would comply, but their automatic checking software failed them after 3 upload attempts, so I did it what it said and just made sure we had passport photographs with us when we attended in person. As ours photographs had failed we were put into a smaller queue to see someone to get our passports scanned, submit passport photographs and have a webcam picture taken. This took about 20 minutes to complete including queuing. The gent gave us one ticket as we were a couple and we sat and waited for our slot. About 15 minutes later we were given our counter number. The lady checked our paperwork, taking copies of the visa application, the flight/hotel confirmation print outs, debit card forms, took our finger prints etc. All we had to do was fill out one form she gave us with the name and address of our places of work. It took about 20 minutes to ‘process’ the pair of us. She then gave us another ticket, sent us downstairs where there were counters so we could pay for the visas. We waited to pay for about 10 minutes. We were done. We left the building just after 10:00. So from the point of joining the queue to leaving the building was about 1 hour and 20 odd minutes. It was clear from observing the other folks that you just need to be fully prepared with your paperwork. As others have said, just read very, very carefully their instructions on the website. You can’t go wrong if you do! I found everyone we dealt with friendly and polite. They said it would take 5 to 10 days to process and send our passports and post them back. The passports were in the post back to us in 4 working days! Job done.

I used to work for a Visa Application Centre in London for Schengen Visas and I witnessed how badly customers were treated when it comes to documents they needed to provide. I thought I would be prepared when showing up at the Chinese Visa Application Centre but even with every efforts in the world, I could not have got a worse experience. I had prepared documents for my Chinese visa more than a month ahead making sure I got everything that was requested on their website and on the Chinese Consulate in London website. However, when I was received by an employee (who was typing with his phone under the desk for the first minute of our interview), I was told that I was missing: - 3 months bank statements - the ownership certificate of my friends in China showing that they own their house - a letter from my work saying I was PERMANENTLY hired I do not leave in London and travelled for 2 hours to get to the centre + the train fare + the day off work. I told the employee that these documents were not mentioned on their website (on either website) therefore I could not know otherwise I would have obviously brought them in. I could tell the employee felt sorry but I was angry. If it was only the bank statements, I could have arranged to get to a nearby bank and get my statements but to get a letter from work and the ownership certificate, there was less chances I could do this the same day. I went back to the centre the day after (taking another half day off) with all the documents I was asked for. I was received randomly by the same employee who confirmed that all my documents were now OK. I asked him to get my passport posted back to me as I do not live in London and cannot take day off just for the sake of it. He came up with one of the most ridiculous excuses I have ever heard: “we do not post French passport, you have to come to collect it”. I was internally furious: that was the icing in the cake. I really regret to have had this sad experience in the centre. This does not help China’s image. It is even sadder that people in need of a visa do not have the choice if they really want their visa. Hopefully the management or the Chinese Consulate in London can take some actions about this to improve their customer service. PS: the lady at the reception spent her time drawing and colouring her diary but showed no smile or no greetings to the people coming to the centre. Extremely sad. I hope the management could get her do to more useful things instead.

Good experience. If you have all your documents ready for the appointment then it'll go smoothly, took about half an hour most of which was just waiting to be called up to the advisor to go through the application then again to pay downstairs. They have a photo both inside incase you don't have photos prepared, cost £6 can pay contactless. Photos need to be recent ones. Then collected my visas which were ready 3 days later (can track progress online), went without appointment and collected within 1 minute, very quick (I went just after they opened, around 9:15am). You can print documents inside the centre as well, photocopy if needed (50p per page).

An absolute joke. Try to book your appointment for first thing in the morning or towards the end of the day, otherwise be prepared to waste hours of your life here waiting in a monster queue just to check in. The website looks like it was last updated 10 years ago and the air in this place is about 95% carbon dioxide.

I was worried when reading so many negative comments, and the experience is very good. The security staff is very cheerful and mark the experience high. I have made the appointment and wait for 2 minutes to be called, and the visa application process takes less than 5 minutes at most. The lady is very friendly and professional, answered all my questions. Think you have to read what you need to bring and make appointment before you give them a bad rating, do the homework!

Very well organised . Good facility to go online for free and print for 50p per page Photo Booth is available as well Extremely helpful staff

Book an appointment as early as possible. Arrive early and with all your documents printed out and copies. Be friendly. Bring: - visa application printed out. - copy of your passports photo page - all travel documents (flights and hotels bookings) - passport photo (nothing on your face and ears showing) my official passport photo was not good enough. - letter from your employer (sometimes needed, sometimes not) - bank statement (not always needed) - declaration letter - appointment letter With right attitude and documents you will be done in 1h. I had a very friendly lady. No complaints.

Overall pretty good experience - queues weren't too bad and we're managed quickly. Photocopiers only take change and cost 50p per sheet. Staff are not the friendliest but will help you if you ask.

Worst Experience I've EVER HAD. As short as I can put it. I turned up for my appointment with my invitation letter in black and white. In desperation to get it done I ran around London looking for a printing office so I could print the correct form. After doing so I rushed back and had unfortunately missed their scheduled time for applications, ALL FAIR ENOUGH. I then spoke to the two people who were present, who very kindly helped me re-book and appointment several days later; they also checked what I had and the new invitation letter I had printed and said that it would be fine and that I would just need to bring it with me on my new appointment on the 26th. So three days later, I organise another trip to London, from Cornwall - upwards of £100 - and even book the next leg of my flight to China. The moment I turn up I'm told I MUST have the original (which they do not state ANYWHERE; EVEN WHEN ASKED) and that the original must be posted from China. SO now I've come all the way to London for no reason; and because you can no longer do it via post - which I have done over 6 times over the last 4 years without a single hitch. Now I've lost money coming here, to stay here, on my outward flight journey; and I will have to do it all over again. IF I could I would give minus stars I have never been so unbelievably baffled by such bad organisation and standardised information. Oh and the que will be LONG even though you have an appointment. Good luck people

Really efficient and easy. Booked appointment online, was in and out within fifteen minutes. Fill in your application form online and bring it along with all of the other documents you need - they're all listed on the website. Frustrations I saw in others were all because they hadn't printed the required supporting documentation

Absolute chaos. This is by far the worst experience I have ever had in any customer service. The queuing times are ridiculously long on 'quiter' times, there is no staff to help you and I was ignored twice for my request for assistance, extremely obnoxious staff at the desks who banged on the glass barrier when they wanted my attention. The computer runs on Windows XP and only prints Word documents, making me waste all the £1 coins I inserted wasted. Awful place.

We prepared our documents for the appointment: Passport Passport copy Hotel reservation emails Flight confirmation emails And most importantly the visa application form We waited less than half an hour, but we were early for the appointment anyway. Service was quick and no hassle, we received a ticket to come back at a later date to pick up the visas. Should mention this was for tourist visas.

Can get busy there but staff have been helpful and accommodating

Absolutely horrible. The entire experience here is unacceptable. I had to get a visa and, unbeknownst to me, their website (the only way you can apply for a visa and book an appointment) is extremely glitchy. I had to go to the centre without an appointment only to be told by three rude employees that they know the website doesn’t work and that I should just keep trying. Unacceptable.

I came with questions to apply. I received no help at all and bad manners from the receptionist. I am very disappointed.

I wish I could give no star to this review. This service center is absolutely terrible. The staff has no compassion nor common sense. They simply do not understand people don't live 2 minutes from Bank station nor do they have opportunities to take a lot of time off to deal with a simple visa application. The Chinese Embassy promise a simple and quick visa application process yet this service is far from quick or simple. The center charging an unreasonable service fee (about the same amount as the visa fee) and their website never tell you exactly all the documents you need for the application. I have applied twice at this center and had to go back again and again because I forgot to bring a document that was not mentioned in the list. This time I had to go back three times because they failed to stamped the original document that I brought with me the first time which was told that I didn't need to bring with me second time. Guess what, it turns out I had to bring it with me again. My poor husband dragged my less than a year old baby to central London all for nothing.

The whole process was slow and inefficient from filling out the online application to visiting the centre. The process of uploading the digital visa photo took 10 attempts over two evenings. The software didn't cope. Once loaded, the application did not print for 24 hours until I emailed with a complaint. We arrived at 11:40. The queue to get a ticket for processing took 20 minutes The wait for the processing interview took 90 minutes The interview was OK- 15 minutes. The intercom/speaker was useless. I had to hold my ear to the glass to hear what the interviewer was saying. The wait to pay downstairs took another 10mins. 2hours 15 minutes spent in the building. The mens toilet had run out of loo paper and the Dyson hairdryer was broken with no alternative. The assistant upstairs said it had been broken for ages and had been reported many times . If I were to do it again I'd try for an early appointment. The guys arriving after me were joining the queue which looked even longer!! VERY UNIMPRESSED

There was a powerful when I had my appointment, they were not prepared for this. There was no offer to cover additional fees for rebooking appointment and travelling back to London again for an express service.

Fast and efficient service. Unlike other visa centers, it is modern and clean. Positive experience.

excellent! takes me few minute to finish all process,,, great staff

The latest visa change on 11th Jan 2016 is an indeed robbery. It seemed that you get a better 2 year multi entry visa instead of a 6 month single entry one, but the actual cost hikes from £96 (£30 visa fee + £66 service charge) to £151 (£85 visa fee + £66 service charge), which is a 283% rise in visa fee if you only want to travel to China once in two year's time.

The queuing system is not the most efficient resulting in very long waits and longs, but the staff are efficient and helpful.

If you're there first thing in the morning before it opens you could be polite & join the queue. However, there are people who have lots of applications on behalf of other people (I saw some with piles of 20+ applications in their hands). They somehow feel entitled to go right to the front of the queue & stand by the door on the steps to be first in.

I was surprised to find this office to be very efficient. I have submitted two visa applications and been out of the building both times in about 30 minutes. I was told to come late morning for passport pickup which was a good tip as you can be done in about 10 minutes. I took a star off as the website which forms part of the application process is very clunky.

Wasn’t sure what to put for this place. The staff are clearly at the mercy of a badly organised system, a terrible website and a massive under capacity. We turned up early, queued, got told not to queue, waited to queue, queued for a ticket, waited to be seen, got seen, then the guy that was seeing us, went on his lunch in the middle of dealing with us, waited 30 mins while he was on lunch, then queued to pay. All in 3hrs I won’t be getting back. It felt like what would be the blitz spirit if I was that old. Stand outs are the security guard shouting (in a friendly manner) at people what to do, the receptionist when we finally got to speak to her. The website is absolute garbage for telling you what you need to bring. Print out everything, get photocopies of your passport and anything you can think of even if you don’t think you’ll need it.

Both application and collection took less than five minutes. Only items listed on website required (including photocopy of passport but not as someone posted, letter of employment or bank statement if you're after a tourist visa - I did have a letter of invitation for when I was staying in someone's house not a hotel though.) Photo machine and photocopiers on site. The queue manager/ security should get a bonus, he's brilliant and cheerful.

Simply the beat service ever. Super quick , precise and no waste of time... No idea how ppl can complain about them...

I have been in Manchester visa centre, they wasted my time and even did not accept my application, because i am a UK resident (on a working visa). based on the website they should have accepted my application. As they were unhelpful, i submitted same application on London visa. the queue was long, but the staff were professional, and after 4 working days, i have received my visa. Thanks

Extremely efficient staff and easy to use service - read carefully what you need to bring and the rest is easy

Only one person on reception so appointments become worthless. Made me late because of poor staffing. Nice staff but bad system of reception

Horrible customer treatment. The receptionists are just rude and quite unhelpful. This needs to be improved drastically, it is a visa centre!

Check, double check and then triple check the instructions on the website of what documents are required for the type of visa you are applying for and you shouldn't encounter any problems. I booked appointment online and brought all the paperwork that was asked for on a Tuesday. Waited about half an hour for my appointment, handed over all the paperwork to the clerk. She checked and looked through what I provided which took less than 5 mins and gave me a receipt for pick up on Friday. Picking up passport was really quick. I was in and out of the building in about 2 mins. Apart from the half hour wait, I found the whole experience very fast, efficient and professional.

Stressful initially - standing in line with staff shouting instructions - but the desk staff were friendly and helpful, and the queue moved pretty fast. All in all took about an hour.

Don't worth a star! Extremely rude and snobbish front desk (lady in short ponytail). Not helpful. Caught by surprise that applicant having to make appointment prior submission. That's fine however when asked to screen the application forms for possible errors, she refuse to comment. Insisted screening will be done on the day of appointment. Might as well install QMS rather having non value added personel occupying company resources.

I have never written reviews, but the African security guy, so cheerful. We need more people like him in the world, give the guy a raise or bonus.

I submitted my application for the second time.The first time they were nice and the second time everyone was just rude. When we are bringing money to the country at least they could give a smile and speak nicely.

Not sure what all the negative reviews are about - I had no issues at all on application or collection. Staff were polite, friendly, they chatted to me about the places I'd travelled to before. There were not rude or abrupt. My first visit to submit my application was done in about 20 mins, and my return visit to collect took no more than 5 mins. I followed all the instructions on the website and my application went through with no issues at all.

Website was unhelpful and unclear on the fact we needed to book an appointment. When we got there the staff were not only unhelpful but very rude as well

Friendly security man. Good customer service. A quick and efficient service provided. I was in and out in 15 mins.

The staff are generally quite helpful, however the woman on reception is exceptionally rude. Don't be offended she's like that with everyone it's actually makes the time pass a little quicker whilst you wait if you sit near here and listen to her, it's a true art form.

Extremely unpleasant experience in dealing with the staff there, they are in general very rude and less efficiency. The middle aged woman in the front desk was very rude. She needs some training on how to treat the people nicely.