Why do some countries grant visa-free/visa-waiver entry, but only at one or several major airports and not land borders?

2/16/2020 7:08:04 PM

There are a range of approaches to visas.

At one extreme, a visa is just permission to travel to a port of entry, where an official will decide whether to admit the traveler. Any operating port of entry has to have people who are authorized to make those decisions, and who can also decide whether to admit visa-free travelers or grant a visa on entry.

At the other extreme, a visa represents a final decision to admit the person, but visa free or visa on entry requires a decision on arrival. Some officials are only authorized to check whether the traveler has a visa, and will admit them if they do, not if they don’t. Other officials are also authorized to admit a visa free traveler or grant a visa on entry.

In the second case, especially if there are a lot of small ports of entry, there may not be enough of the fully authorized officials to go around. If so, they are likely to be placed at a few busy locations such as major airports. The remaining locations will only be able to admit foreign travelers who already have visas.

2/16/2020 9:57:20 AM

@hippietrail

Possibly because a visa stamp in a passport is positive authority issued by their government, nothing more needed by the border guard than to check the date and match the photo to the face.

With visa-free border crossings they still need to positively identify the person and to check against database records that the person is not a known undesirable. Many regional border points a) don’t have the full resources to do this (ie electronic passport reading, access to central databases), b) don’t have the trust or authority to make such arbitrary decisions for ‘randoms/unknowns’ to enter.

With the e-visa for places such as India, while this has a very small cost it is virtually a visa-free entry permission (getting the actual stamp from the India embassy before you go costs a lot more), however the entry ports there are limited to certain main airports. Again, this is probably because actual verification of you being you against your visa/passport is done at the entry point (whereas with a passport stamped visa obtained from an embassy the person has been pre-verified).

‘Why would they need those for visa-free visitors but not for visitors arriving at those crossings with a visa??’

‘Why would they need those for visa-free visitors but not for visitors arriving at those crossings with a visa??’

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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