When you’re working on a ship that sails the world, on most countries you will not require a VISA due to maritime agreements made by cruise companies and the respective country. But due to some specific government laws, crew members joining a cruise ship in the following countries need to acquire special VISAs to prove that they’re joining a vessel to work, as this is specially enforced at the United States, Australia, Canada and Italy. As the process and eligibility are very complicated, we started this page in order to explain a little bit more of each of them.

NOTE: Crew members also need VISAs to enter in some other countries around the world, but the bureaucracy is usually handled by the ship HR officials, so the crew doesn’t have to apply for anything by themselves. One example of this is the Schengen VISA, needed for European countries like Portugal, Spain, Germany and more. Also, when we talk about this type of VISA, some nationalities aren’t required to have them due to international agreements.

All cruise companies are required by international law to reimburse the crew member for the VISA application fees, if successful.