Visas
With the lifting of many visa restrictions in 2005, many foreigners no longer require a Ukraine visa in advance and apply for a tourist visa at the airport upon arrival. This allows you a stay of up to 90 days in Ukraine without registering. For longer stays you will need to extend your existing visa with the OVIR office.
For a list of countries requiring a Ukraine visa and those not requiring them, please visit the Ukraine consul site at
http://www.ukrconsul.org/visa/visa_drops.htm
Currently the EU, USA, Canada and Switzerland don’t require visas for Ukraine.
Getting to Kiev
There are several options for getting in to Kiev from the airport.
Taxi
As you pass through customs out to the arrivals area, you’ll be met by many taxi drivers offering to drive you in to Kiev. Standard rate should be 150 hrivna (just under $20) but they will ask anything up to 300 hrivna. There are taxi Kiosks charging 250 hrivna, but they are for the uninformed as this is too expensive.
If you have booked an apartment in Kiev through an agency, they will offer an airport transfer service usually costing $30. Although more expensive than the airport hustlers, it’s not a bad idea to use the service as they take you directly to your apartment and handle the “checking in” matters at the same time.
Bus
There are many buses and mini buses (known as marchutkas) that can bring you in to the centre of Kiev very cheaply. Most of them terminate at the central railway station. However, a good knowledge of Russian is advisable if you don’t want to get lost.
Metro
The metro doesn’t go as far as Kiev airport, but if you take buses numbered 178, 415 or 474e, they will bring you to Borispilska metro station from where you can complete your journey in to the centre.
Kiev airport
Kiev international airport known as Borispol is located 38 kms from the centre of Kiev. Transfer time is usually 45 minutes although delays can and do occur upon arriving in the centre at rush-hour times.
After landing you’ll find long queues at immigration with Ukrainian nationals queuing at the right and all non-nationals queuing at the left. Make sure to have filled both sides of the immigration document that you should have been given on your flight. You’ll be given half of it back to be handed in on departure. You’ll need to fill in your contact address for your stay in Kiev. Even if you have booked through an apartment agency and don’t know your exact address, make sure to put something there.
Queuing can take up to 2 hours at the worst of times, especially if 2 or 3 flights have landed in succession.There is a VIP service available through the official airport site listed below that will meet you off the plane, collect your suitcases and speed track you through immigration. Well worth it if you are in a hurry or hate waiting for such a long time.
http://www.airport-borispol.kiev.ua/
Flights to Kiev
There are direct flights to Kiev and from Kiev for the following cities:
Abu Dhabi
Almaty
Amman
Antalya
Amsterdam
Ashgabat
Athens
Baku
Bangkok
Barcelona
Beijing
Beirut
Belgrade
Berlin
Brussels
Budapest
Cologne
Copenhagen
Damask
Dubai
Dusseldorf
Dortmund
Frankfort
Hamburg
Helsinki
Hurghada
Innsbruck
Istanbul
Kalingrad
Karachi
Katowice
Kutaisi
Larnaca
Lisbon
Ljubljana
London
Madrid
Memmingen
Milan
Minsk
Moscow
Munich
Naples
New York
Oslo
Paris
Prague
Riga
Rome
Shardja
Sofia
Stockholm
Surgut
Tallinn
Tashkent
Tbilisi
Tehran
Tel-Aviv
Tripoli
Venice
Vienna
Vilnius
Warsaw
Yerevan
Zurich
Flights within Ukraine
Kharkov
Dnepropetrovsk
Donetsk
Odessa
Zaporozhe
Lvov
Lugansk
Mariupol
Chernivitsi
Ivano-Frankovsk
Simferopol
Uzhgorod
