We're driving to Germany via Bulgaria, my Turkish wife has a Turkish passport and may need a transit visa. We can get this by travelling to Istanbul from İzmir which will be a pain. A local family member in the tourism industry says that we can buy it at the border on entry, but I can find no mention of this on the net. Has anyone experience of this, please?

Last time we went there it was not possible. Bulgaria is making visas for turkish very hard to get. Why dont u contact Bulgarian consulate and check?

Also if your driving between Turkey and Germany what about your visas past the Bulgarian border, also you dont say when you are going, is it before they join the EU? Assuming which route you are going wont you need ones for Romania and Hungary at least to enter EU if you are going in December and assumed you have looked at the requirements for those countries.

Last I heard, Turks dont need visas to get in to Bulgaria.

Thanks for all your replies.

We'll be going after they join the EU but I'm not holding my breathe that anything much will change very quickly on the ground.

Whether Turks need visas or not depends on what type of passport they hold, there about five with different colours covering "normal" up to "diplomatic". There's no mention of this on the Bulgarian Embassy web site, but we'll contact them of course. With my wife's passport Romania and others don't require a visa.

But I am interested in experiences rather than the official line because we've found from painful experience that the offical agreements don't always materialise on the ground. My wife holds a type of passport where the requirement for a Schengen visa in Italy is waived. But we were refused entry "no Schengen visa". Try arguing the toss with a border guard who speaks only Italian.

You are most probably referring to the infamous Turkish "Green" passport. This "official" passport once upon a time meant something, but today is seen by many other countries as a piece of garbage. The reason being that Turkey is very liberal in who they issue them to and pretty much give them to every petty government worker plus their spouses and offspring. Technically speaking the second your wife married you she loses the Turkish right to have one, but this is not always enforced. Most other countries only issue official passports to actual government employees and their staff that are actually travelling internationally on OFFICIAL government business, and even require these people to travel on "normal" passports when not on government business (and no, I am not talking about diplomatic passports). Therefore almost everywhere requires Green pp holders to still get visas, although sometimes the wait is less. The actual regulation for Italy is:

If holding diplomatic, official, service or special passport:
visa not required for a stay of max. 90 days.
However if passenger holds ticket with another Schengen state
(see TIRGL/SCHS ) as a ticketed point, for which passenger
needs a visa: Schengen visa -issued prior to arrival- required.

Incidentally they will also not allow entry for land crossings w/o a Schengen visa.

Tallpony, thanks for your reply. Yes, she has a green passport. Interesting the information that you give about Italian requirements, may I ask where you found it so that I can read more? Also I'd like to learn about other countries' rules for the green passport if you have any links.

Cheers.

Have fun with this tool: http://www.delta.com/planning_reservati ... /index.jsp

she was only asking

Here is a list of countries (in Turkish) which normal Turkish passport holders do not need visas for:
Andorra, Arjantin, Arnavutluk, Bahama, Barbados, Batı Samoa, Belize, Brezilya, Bolivya, Bosna-Hersek, Dominika, Ekvator,El Salvador, Endonezya, Fas, Fiji, Filipinler, Gambia, Grenada, Güney Afrika Cumhuriyeti, Güney Kore, Hırvatistan, Hong Kong Özel İdare Bölgesi , İran, Jamaika, Japonya, Kazakistan, Kenya, Kırgızistan, Kolombiya, K.K.T.C., Kosta Rika, Makedonya, Maldivler, Malezya, Mauritius, Monako, Romanya, Santa Lucia, San Marino, Seyşeller, Singapur, Solomon Adaları, Şili, Swaziland, Tayland, Trinidad-Tobago, Tunus, Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vatikan.

There is also a list of countries which green passport holders theoretically do not need a visa for, but as tallpony suggested, use caution:
http://www.ulkeler.net/vize2.htm

My husband has a green passport and we've been to Germany,Italy,France and Spain without a visa and haven't had any trouble at the borders.

Is the Romanian one going to change?

I'd also watch that above list because as of a year ago Turks do need Visas for Indonesia and not needing a visa for the VAtican means nothing if you can;t get to Italy first.

[quote user="leylaasena" post="74646"]My husband has a green passport and we've been to Germany,Italy,France and Spain without a visa and haven't had any trouble at the borders.[/quote]

When my wife didnt have a Schengen visa we used to travel those countries by road too. We used to go to Italy by ship. But when we put a Schengen visa in it so that we could go by road via Greece, when it expired the Italian border guards said "your visa has expired", to which we tried to explain that Italy didnt require us to have one. They eventually let us through when we showed a ticket for a ship to Turkey from Italy.

Thanks Tallpony and Burbaco for the excellent links. But looking at the requirements for a Turk with a green passport entering Bulgaria, one says no visa needed for green passport (Delta) and the other say no visa required for diplomatic only. Ho hum. I suppose we'll have to call the various consulates to confirm (nightmare).