Planning to visit countries which require a visa to enter? Are you ready with your show money? Provide proof that you can afford to travel!
On a previous article, Piso Fare PH shared about common reasons for embassies to deny visa applications. On this article, we will delve deeper into what is popularly known in the Philippines as “show money”.
Visa policies and requirements differ from country to country, and they exist to protect the respective national interests. As a would-be traveler or tourist to their country, you must prove to the embassy evaluator that you will go home to the Philippines at the end of your trip or before your approved visa expires.
You must prove that you will not go TNT or “tago ng tago” and will not violate any aspect of your visa, if it’s approved. The consul or visa officer will gauge if you have the financial capacity to fund your travel and planned activities once you are in their country. This is when ‘show money’ comes in.
So, what is show money? Why is it important when applying for a visa?
“Show money” refers to the funds that are owned and accessible to the traveler at any given time. This is in liquid form, usually in cold cash or deposited in bank accounts or e-wallets. From the word ‘show’, it means valid proof is available of the claimed amount that you stated in your visa application form. This financial document is usually either a bank certificate or a bank statement of account (SOA), or both.
*Usually there is a fee if you request the bank to issue you a bank certificate or provide a statement of account.
It is important to have enough, sometimes more than enough funds, to cover all the travel-related expenditures. Exploring other countries can be expensive, especially when you target first world countries like US, Canada, Japan, Australia, and European countries. Hence, financial capacity is one of the requirements of visa application.
How Much Money Should You Have for Visa Application
How much show money should you have in the bank to have a higher chance of getting a visa? Must you have 6-digits in your bank account or higher amounts?
These questions are common when talking about tourist visas or short-term visas, which range from a few days to 30 days to 90 days to 6 months.
Those requiring long-term visas are usually for employment or studying abroad and are not covered by this article.
Bank Certificate versus Bank Statement of Account
Bank certificates are usually a one-page document provided by the bank, this normally contains the account number, account name, date of opening of account, the current balance, the signature of the bank manager, and the contact numbers of the bank. Yes, there are times when the embassy will call banks to verify if the submitted bank certificate is legit.
A bank statement of account or (SOA) on the other hand, usually contains several pages, depending on how many months are required by the embassy and how often you transact using your bank account. The SOA has more details on it, in can show the running balance, all the transactions with dates for a certain period – the credits and debits, the deposits and withdrawals, on the account. This will show the embassy the comings and goings of your account, a good indicator of your cash flow.
There are embassies that only ask for a bank certificate. Other embassies ask for a bank statement alone for a period of 3 months to a year. And some embassies ask for both. So depending on what they require, that’s what you should submit.
If an embassy asks for a bank statement as part of the visa requirements, then most likely they are very strict in evaluating visa applications. Examples are Spain, Greece, Korea, France, Germany, and Italy.
Ka-ching! Money in the Bank
How much money should you have in your bank account to guarantee the visa approval? Sadly, there is no such thing as 100% sure as thing approval.
Do not believe a travel agency who says that they guarantee 100% approval for your visa application. That’s hogwash, that agency is just out to get your visa processing fee.
Sharing a story – a friend, a medical doctor, with good practice in Batangas, has big savings in various bank accounts, lots of properties under her name, etc but was denied a US Visa. She suspects that the reason is this – her sister, it turns out, went to the US on a tourist visa then went TNT and eventually got married to an American there. This doctor-friend did not honestly know this during her visa interview and thus, when the consul asked about the circumstances of her sister’s coming to the US, she in good faith said that her sister went to the US with proper papers. When she told her sister what happened at the embassy, her sister finally admitted to wrongdoings. They both suspected that our friend’s visa was not approved because the consul suspected she might also go on TNT once she is in America.
Back to the show money, there is no exact answer as to “how much” because it depends on how long your trip is and what your itinerary in that country would be.
Embassies normally do not also disclose or publish how much funds you should have, though for Europe’s Schengen visa, they have a guideline.
For Schengen embassies, the advice is for tourists to have a daily pocket money of EUR 60 to EUR 80. Except for some Schengen countries which require higher amounts like France wherein the guideline is to have at least EUR 120 per day of your trip. And since these are mere guidelines, it is always better to have way more than the amount suggested.
Computing for Travel Expenses for Trips to Other Countries
If you plan to stay 10 days in Europe and mostly will be in and around France, you will need 10 x EUR 120 = EUR 1,200, an equivalent of around P75,000. If your bank account only has say P120,000, then you will be suspected of having plans of overstaying.
But P120,000 is bigger than P75,000, yes, but remember that aside from the pocket money, another requirement, for example for Schengen visa is submitting a hotel reservation and flight reservation.
Since hotel and airfare are just reservations. It’s possible that you haven’t paid for them yet, so you still need to meet this expense.
If your round-trip airfare is P100,000 and the hotel you reserve costs you P50,000 for the entire stay, that’s another P150,000 on top of the P75,000 daily pocket money. This is a total of P225,000. And the funds in your bank only amounts to P120,000? It doesn’t add up and to put it simply, you can’t afford the trip, your visa will be denied.
You should have at the very minimum P225,000 in your bank account, if we based it on our sample applicant.
TIP: Your show money or the money you have in your bank account should be proportional to what is required of your entire trip, considering daily pocket money + hotel + airfare + entrance fees to attractions you plan on visiting. Search online for all the information you need to get an idea of how much you should prepare and how much money should be in your bank account.
Borrowing for Show Money
What if you don’t have enough funds but you really want to go because say you found a piso fare to South Korea, which makes flying there cheap? Can you borrow money from friends or relatives, and put it in your bank account? And then you’ll apply for a Korean visa and when you get approved, you’ll withdraw and return the money?
There are indeed people who do this, but we strongly do not recommend it. Do not game the system. The embassy officers have extensive experience and training handling visa applications and can easily spot someone trying to dupe them using this method. Your integrity will be questionable, it’s a big red flag, and visa denial is almost imminent. Because if you’re willing to lie about your funds, how about the other documents, and what else could you have lied about?
*If your bank statement shows a one-time, big-time deposit and no other regular movements of your account, this is a glaring red flag unless you can explain it adequately and have proof to support your explanation.
General Tips for Show Money for Visa
The older your bank account opening date is, the better. Do not submit a certificate or a statement for a bank account that you opened just a month or several months ago. Ideally, your bank account has been existing for at least a year already before you apply for a visa.
Payroll accounts are acceptable to embassies. You can show that the money coming in to your account matches your declared salary and in the ITR. But it will benefit you more if you also submit a savings account aside from payroll account. You may submit a cover letter to explain what those bank accounts are, especially if you are submitting two or multiple bank accounts. Typically, a savings account does not have many transactions or activities and may raise suspicion from the visa officer.
Can you submit a joint bank account? Yes you may, if your name appears as one of the account holders, it has funds enough to cover the trip and a bit more, the account is not newly opened, and there are no suspicious activities.
Aside from cash flow or having adequate funding for your travel, consistency with other submitted financial documents will also be check. Is your monthly salary proportionate to the figures in your ITR? Is your business income aligned with your bank account balances?
Example: You claim a P50,000 monthly salary, this amount is also reflected in your most recent ITR but in your bank account, you get deposits of higher amounts from time to time. This does not match up. You can explain what happened by writing a cover letter and submitting the same to the embassy. Say, you got the money when you liquidated your stock investments or you got money from an inheritance, or it’s an advanced on rental properties, etc. You must show papers or documents to support any claim.
Sponsored Trips
If you really can’t afford the trip, one thing you can do is to find a sponsor. But that doesn’t mean that the chances for the approval of your visa application will increase. Because having a sponsor in the country you’re visiting is also not a guarantee that your visa will be approved.
If someone is sponsoring your trip, in part or in its entirety, most embassies will not ask you to submit financial documents. Instead, the sponsoring person must submit his or her financial documents. However, you will also be asked to submit other documents to establish the relationship between you and the sponsoring person.
But do take note that most Schengen countries are stricter, so even if you have a sponsor or guarantor for your trip, they will still ask you to submit your own financial documents. This way they will know the money in your bank account. More importanly, they will require your sponsor to submit his or her bank documents.
Sharing – someone related that when she applied for a Canadian visa, she did not pass an ITR but was granted multiple visa. What she did submit was investments documents like stock certificates and house and lots titles, a bank account statement of account with good cash flow, plus she has a very detailed itinerary.
For parents with little kids and have extra money, it is advisable to let their children travel with them. The embassies are “less” likely to deny a person who has extensively travelled while still young.
To further strengthen your visa application, it is good to have a travel history to other countries not requiring a visa like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. “May tatak na sa passport” as they say.
Check here for list of countries that does not require a visa for Philippine passport holder to enter.
Although some say that travel history has no bearing when applying for the visa. The important thing is that to make sure you can fulfill the requirement for the specific visa you are applying for.
We hope that this article has helped you in preparing for your visa application. May you have great news soon and be able to travel to your desired country soon. Follow us on Facebook Piso Fare PH for more travel tips, promos, and guides.