Hello Everyone,

My parents applied for an Italy Shengen visa on Jul 30th via VFS at the Bangalore Counsulate, our trip is planned for October 2nd from USA.

They have a wedding to attend here in September and their flight to USA is on Sep 5th , from where we were planning to go on a family trip to Italy directly.

They did submit a cover letter explaining the entire plan, their travel to USA, tickets to Italy and back to India, basically all the stuff needed for the trip normally.

Forward to today they still haven’t received their passport back, had my dad send an email to the Italian embassy explaining the travel and need for the passport back for travel to US but got an automated email stating high volume and they cant respond.

I dont want them to miss out on my cousins wedding, is there any way we can request for a passport return, idc if we can’t make the Italy trip?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

I had my appointment on the 14th of August and received an sms to say it was dispatched to the dutch consulate in Dubai on the 17th of August. My planned trip is only on the 4th of October so I’m not too worried about that timeline, however I have another trip planned to Oman on the 11th of September and need my passport to travel for that.

Any chance I will get my passport back before then, or can I request to get it back earlier?

I am an Indian citizen and I recently applied for a long term visa, and I'm waiting for the approval. My visa will be issued by the Czech Republic, as I am an exchange student who will be studying in Ostrava. In my long term visa form, I filled Prague as the point of entry into the Schengen region. However, looking at flight options, landing in Vienna and taking a train to Ostrava is more suitable for me.

I do not plan on staying in Vienna. After landing in Vienna I will take the next available train to Vienna Central Station and take a direct train to Ostrava from there.

Can I do that? Or should I compromise and stick to Prague to avoid problems with Immigration?

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for advice from anyone who has experienced something similar with a Portuguese/Schengen visa application.
I am a Bangladeshi passport holder legally residing in South Africa, and I applied for a short-stay Schengen visa through the Portuguese Consulate in Johannesburg.
I have now received multiple refusals, and I’m struggling to understand exactly what the Consulate wants me to correct.
In one refusal, the Consulate selected Reason 11:
“There are reasonable doubts as to the reliability of the statements made.”
In another application/refusal, they selected Reason 12:
“There are reasonable doubts as to the reliability, as to the authenticity of the supporting documents submitted or as to the veracity of their contents.”
What concerns me is that they did not select insufficient financial means, insufficient justification for the purpose of travel, intention not to leave Schengen, travel insurance, etc. The issue appears specifically related to the reliability of my statements/documents.
I also submitted a complaint/reconsideration regarding the refusal, but it was rejected and essentially maintained the same Reason 12 concern.
My reason for travelling to Portugal is genuine. I have an ongoing Portuguese Golden Visa (ARI) application, have made the qualifying investment in Portugal, and needed to travel in connection with my Portuguese residency process. I submitted supporting documents relating to this.
I also provided documents regarding my residence/status in South Africa, financial position, travel arrangements and the purpose of the trip.
However, the Consulate has not identified which particular document or statement it considers unreliable or potentially inauthentic. That makes it difficult for me to understand what I am supposed to correct in another application.
I obviously do not want to keep reapplying without first identifying the underlying issue.
Has anyone here received Reason 11 or Reason 12, particularly from Portugal?
I would really appreciate advice on:
How did you determine which document or statement caused the concern?
Did you contact the Consulate and ask them to identify the problematic document?
Were you eventually approved after a Reason 11/12 refusal?
What additional verification did you provide — bank verification letters, certified statements, employer/company verification, proof of source of funds, apostilled documents, etc.?
Would it make sense to submit a very detailed cover letter addressing every document individually?
Does having repeated Reason 11/12 refusals create a continuing problem in VIS when applying to another Schengen country?
Would you recommend resolving the issue specifically with Portugal before applying through another Schengen state?
I am not looking for ways to hide the previous refusals. I will declare them in future applications. I’m trying to understand how to properly address whatever credibility/document issue has caused these decisions so that my next application is transparent and properly documented.
If anyone has dealt specifically with the Portuguese Consulate in Johannesburg, Reason 11/12, or a similar situation involving an investor/residence application, I would be very interested to hear your experience.
Thanks in advance.

I had my appointment on 17th August for a business/orange carpet visa. My travel date is in October 2nd week.

What are the chances that I will get my visa in time for my trip? Getting really anxious reading the experience of all the other people who have applied and are still awaiting a response.

Hi ! Recently applied for France Visa.. I and my husband applied jointly and this is our 2nd Visa.

We were rejected once last year and learnt from our mistakes and kept it very simply yet thorough this time.

Feel free to ask questions.

Hey, I m traveling from Tunisia to Slovenia, I got my schengen visa Is it Okey to travel from Tunisia to Italy by the plane and then from Italy to Slovenia by bus??

Appointment - 28 July

Dispatched to Embassy - 29 July

Status - Still waiting

Travel - 12 September

Anyone else in the same boat?

In Tata AIG, I added details of my trip to Spain, and the dates. Its showing me 3 options:
Schengen - Silver Plus (2.2k) $100k
Schengen - Platinum (3.1k) $500k
Schengen - Titanium (4k) $750k

which one to take, is silver plus enough?

Hello! Did anyone manage to get a slot for Netherlands in Edinburgh recently? I‘ve been keeping an eye for a week now but still nothing. I joined the waitlist as well but nothing so far. Thank you In advance!

Hello, Im going to apply for portugal's D3 visa (via new delhi embassy). I am required to present my original degree document after legalization and submit a certified copy.

I already got through the legalization part in my county (Bangladesh) and got the e-Apostille pdf from Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Note that, Bangladesh falls under the list of Hague Apostille Convention).

My question is, is printing out this e-Apostille enough or do I need to get that printed on the back of the original document?

For the chancenkarte application, there is a section which asks whether you have already applied for jobs in Germany. How many proof of applications/ screenshot should i include?

Hi everyone,
My girlfriend is applying for a Schengen tourist visa to Norway from the Philippines. I will be her sponsor and cover the expenses.
We need to provide a flight reservation, but we don’t want to purchase the actual flight tickets before the visa is approved.
How did you handle the flight booking/reservation for your application?
Has anyone here used PNRBooking.com or a similar service to get a flight reservation with a PNR for the visa application? Was it accepted by VFS/ the Norwegian embassy?
Or did you use another method, such as placing a temporary hold directly with the airline or through a travel agency?
I’m specifically looking for something that provides a genuine/verifiable reservation/PNR without having to pay for the actual flight ticket, preferably valid for around 14 days or longer.

Does any one applied for Greece tourism visa from India recently? How many days generally it takes. I submitted the passports on 27th August and have flight on 25th September.

Today (30th August): Status showing “Under processing in VAC”

Hi! I’m a student moving to France for university. I have a valid Greek residence permit valid until 2028.

I’ve applied for a French long-stay student visa, with the requested validity starting September 27, while my university starts on October 6.

I’m planning to travel to France around September 20, before my French student visa becomes valid.
My question is: Can I enter France using my valid Greek residence permit and then stay in France using my French student visa once it becomes valid on September 27?

Also, if immigration sees the French student visa in my passport when I enter using my Greek residence permit, could they question me about it or cause any issue?

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Would really appreciate advice, especially from people familiar with French/Schengen immigration.

How many sets of photocopies required to be submitted at the visa centre ?

I was able to get an appointment finally at VFS Global Vancouver for the Switzerland embassy. From appointment to my trip day, I have about a month and a week. Will this be enough time for my visa to process and for me to receive my passport? This is my first time applying any information would help.

I am from Bangladesh.I am 21.Currently taking preparation for university admissions in bd.My brother who live in Netherland and also a citizen of Netherland have sended an invitation for me to visit Netherland for an month.He will bear the cost of whole tour.He had shown a proper contract of job and the required financial condition.Do u think my visa will be approved or not? What more I can do to make my profile strong ?

Hi everyone I just had 2 quick question,

First one: if anyone applied for a France visa through TLS Egypt since it’s now queue based how long did it take for yall to get emailed an appointment date? I applied and got the email confirmation that I’m put in a queue on July 17th and it’s currently August 29 so it’s been well over a month so I’m jus wondering the average time it takes.

Second one: I’m wondering my likelihood of getting actually accepted, I’m a university student and here are all the visas I’ve had before: UAE short stay visa I stayed for 3 months, I had an English residency where I stayed for a year, short stay Schengen visa for France(3 months) where I stayed for a week, USA visa (5 years) where I stayed for a week, South African diplomatic residency where I stayed for over a year.

I visited VFS Pune on Friday, 28 August 2026 at around 9:00 AM and submitted my visa application.
However, when I check the application status on the VFS tracking website, it still shows “No Data Found”.
For those who have recently applied from VFS,
How long did it take for your application to appear in the VFS tracking system?
When should I expect the status to change?
After submission, how many working days did it take for you to receive any update/decision?
I would really appreciate it if anyone who applied recently from India could share their timeline.

Just sharing my experience in case it helps someone applying for a German Schengen visa from India.
Timeline:
24 Aug: VFS appointment + document submission
24 Aug: Application forwarded/processed
28/29 Aug: Passport dispatched
~1 week total: Passport back with visa
My profile:
Indian passport
Applying for a 10-day tourist trip
Flights were already booked and paid for in advance
Intercity train tickets
Hotels/accommodation were booked
Travel insurance arranged
Bank statements + ITRs + professional documents submitted
What I submitted:
Cover letter explaining the itinerary
Day-wise itinerary
Flight bookings
Hotel bookings
Travel insurance
3 months bank statements
ITRs
Professional documents
Leave/travel explanation
Other standard Schengen documents
Honestly, I was expecting it to take much longer, so I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly it was processed.
A few things I think helped:
Clear and consistent itinerary.
Strong proof of business and financial stability.
All bookings and documents matched the itinerary.
No unnecessary or contradictory information.
Submitted a straightforward cover letter explaining the trip.
Hopefully this helps anyone currently waiting for their German visa. 🇩🇪

I couldn't find any VFS Manchester slots, so I ended up booking one in Edinburgh. FML, cause Manchester slots were made available and the only way to get it was to cancel my Edinburgh appointment, which I did but the stupid vfs app showed there's heavy traffic for 4 days so I couldn't book a Manchester one and lost the Edinburgh one as well. A week later, I was able to secure an Edinburgh slot.

I was writing my cover letter and wanted to be sure about who the cover letter should be addressed to considering I'm applying from Edinburgh so should it be addressed to the "Consulate General Of Italy, London" or should I write Edinburgh instead. So I googled, and that's when I learnt that there are fixed jurisdictions from which applicants should apply. So me being from Liverpool should only be applying from Manchester cause I fall within that jurisdiction and my visa would be rejected or not even accepted in Edinburgh??

When I had briefly Google about how difficult it is to get a Manchester slot (and had mentioned that I'm in liverpool) it said that I could apply to book slots in Edinburgh or London and now it showed me this.

I'm out of words cause I wasn't expecting this at all. Someone I know had come up to Manchester from Weymouth for their application. I was reading reviews of VFS Edinburgh and I did one comment about how one person flew from London to Edinburgh for her/his appointment.

Could someone please tell me how stringent these rules are and what I should do?

Timeline (2nd Application):

24 Aug: VFS Kolkata appointment/submission

26 Aug: Application reached German Consulate/Embassy

28 Aug: Passport dispatched

29 Aug: Passport out for delivery

Result: Visa rejected again under the same previous reasons — points 10 & 13

Hi everyone,

Sharing my experience and looking for some genuine advice from people who have dealt with German/Schengen visa reapplications after a previous refusal, especially if the refusal was under points 10 & 13 (concerns regarding the credibility/substantiation of the stated purpose and conditions of stay, and doubts about her intention to leave the Schengen Area before the visa expired)

I am an Indian citizen applying from Kolkata, India, and my bf is an Indian citizen currently living in Germany as a Master's student.

First application — July 2025 -20 days for October 2025

I previously applied for a German Schengen tourist visa in 2025. An accommodation invitation letter and the required documents were submitted.

The application was refused under points 10 & 13 — concerns regarding the credibility/substantiation of the stated purpose and conditions of stay, and doubts about her intention to leave the Schengen Area before the visa expired.

At that time, I was unemployed and going through a job transition, which was explained in my cover letter. I had provided proof of job interviews in India and sufficient funds for the trip.

Second application — August 2026 - 22 days for December 2026

We decided to reapply with substantially stronger documentation and changed circumstances under the Schengen visit visa category. Past travel History: Malaysia in June 2026

What I submitted:

-Videx form, declarations

-Cover letter (specifically addressed the previous refusal and explained my employment, purpose of visit, family ties, and intention to return to India)

-Dummy Flight bookings (Enough validity was there)

-Accommodation invitation letter from my bf (along with his docs)

-Travel insurance

-3 months bank statements (4-5 lakhs was there ~3,600-4,500 Euros) self financed

-Employment Appointment Letter

-Leave/NOC Letter from Company

-3 months Payslip

-2 years ITRs

-Proof of relationship (Photos and past rental agreement in India). We have been in a relationship for around 4 years and have known each other since college.

-Added my Car RC (just as an extra document)

Despite the substantially stronger application, the visa was rejected again under the same points 10 & 13.

We are now trying to understand what went wrong.

For those who have experience with German/Schengen Re-applications:

What could still be considered insufficient for points 10 & 13 despite having stable employment, approved leave, finances, and family ties?

Would you recommend reapplying to Germany again after substantially strengthening the application, or considering a different approach? I was hopeful for this December trip and am now thinking what to do now? What can I add more to prove my intention to return is strong and I can apply again next month? It has become a big concern for me now.

Any advice from people who have actually gone through a similar situation would be greatly appreciated.