What is a visa?
A visa is an endorsement placed in a passport that grants the holder permission to enter the country for a specified time period. Usually it’s a fancy sticker attached to a blank page of your passport.
Do I need a visa? 🛂
Some countries do not require a visa for some people to travel there – for example, people with a Canadian passport do not need a visa to travel to the USA; people within the EU do not need a visa to travel to another country in the EU.
Whether a visa is required or not depends on the country of the passport holder (ie, the model), and the country they plan to visit (ie, the shoot city). Agreements between countries about visa requirements are made at a high level of government.
Some visas are simple to get – for example, Australians visiting New Zealand pay $10 at the New Zealand airport when they arrive, and a visa is granted right away. Others are more complex – for example, an Australian visiting China needs to visit a Chinese embassy in Australia and apply for a visa (and visit again to collect it). There are also many situations between these two extremes.
The Travel Visa Checker at https://www.passportindex.org/travel-visa-checker/ helps indicate what’s necessary, and defines the different visa types (however, the government sites of the passport holder and destination country are the final authority – Passport Index is a free site that could make a mistake).
Visas are your responsibility, but we can offer some support and general advice. Let your Model Liaison know if you are stuck.
What if I am travelling and working?
Working in a different country often requires a work permit (in addition to a visa).
However, the nature of the work we do is covered by an exception for travelling performers doing itinerant work (musicians, sculptors, actors and similar jobs are all covered by this).
Buuuuuut, sex work can make some immigration officials 👮 feel uncomfortable 😬, and cause them to want to know more detials 🧐 which takes time and can be difficult (and possibly make them aggressive, if they personally do not approve).
Furthermore, immigration authorities are always on the look out for people being sex-trafficked, and they may assume you’re being victimised – regardless of what you claim. While we will be able to support you in this conversation, it can take a long time and be stressful.
For these reasons, we advise responding to the question, “What is the reason for your visit?” with simply “A holiday”.
We strongly advise models who participate in sex work such as prostitution to check the laws in the destination country – they are often quite different to laws for producing adult content (even though they seem quite similar).
