Anyone faced a situation at any VFS center in India where they did not receive the acknowledgement invoice on their mail? My passport is at the center and all i have are the tracking mails which has the application IDs. Although they say the invoice is needed, was anyone able to collect their passports with just the tracking email which says the passport has reached the vfs center?
11th august was the appointment. 19th august the passports were ready for collection.
Yes in the submission we included an exhaustive list of documents showing: (maintaining same sets in all the 3 application files)
Also guys, about flights please make sure you get the valid pnr done for atleast 20 days if booking dummy. They do verify.
Though we booked the real flight tickets.
For hotels and accommodations we booked through booking.com where payment was needed later at the property, hence fully cancellable.
I used to over stay in USA for 5 years and do the self deportation can i still get Schengen Visa? Has anyone have the same situation before? How it was?
Thank you in advance
Appointment 8/10
Send to consulate 8/10
in progress 8/14
EES System shows i'm finally "OK" on 8/18
Send back to TLS center 8/19 3pm ET
Got back my passport 8/20, shipped UPS Next Day Air
Third Schengen visa, my second one is also from France in 2025, although that was 6-month MULT. Asked for 2 year, got 1-year instead. My first one was like 15 years ago issued by Germany. Hopefully my next one will be a 2-year.
Green card holder, Chinese passport, submitted a lot of financials and income, and of course my first and second trip itinerary and reservations.
Hi everyone, I have the appointment on August 7. The application was received by the France Consulate on August 14 and now it’s in process. I read a few posts recently and the approval was really quick (within a few days). However, it has been a while for my application.
My flight is on September 3 and I’m getting worried. Can anyone share their experience recently. I would be very grateful. 😭😭
We have to travel in December and thought we will get it done in September but can't find any slots for any month.
EDIT: I meant TLSContact, my bad!!
I'm a student from the USA applying for a French VLS-TS visa to complete a 1-year DUEF. I'm starting to worry since it's been almost a month. Anyone having a similar experience? How long did your student visa take? I haven't gotten any communications from them and, as far as I know, my documents were complete.
I'm so excited to move to France, and I'm really hoping that I don't get delayed by the visa!
Anyone else in this boat? My tickets are booked for next week and i think its past the timeline where a student visa woulda been issued?
Is there anyway to contact the embassy in DC to gain any insight?
Hi everyone. I applied for visa in 12 August. Until last night there was no change in EES but I checked it today again and i saw this page. Does it mean i have granted the visa? It is my first Schengen application. Here is the timeline of my application process.
12 August 2026: I complete my application in VFS Global - İzmir Turkey
12 August: My application was in transit to The Embassy of France in İstanbul
14 August: My application had been received by Embassy and gone under process.
20 August: The EES system has changed from NOT OK to OK.
I applied for 13 days stay. It is for short term language school.
I have been issued a single-entry Schengen visa by the Netherlands. My original travel plan was to travel to Amsterdam on 1 August, but I received my visa only after that date, so I had to change my travel arrangements.
I now plan to enter the Schengen Area through Geneva, Switzerland, and then travel to Amsterdam, which remains my main destination. I will not leave the Schengen Area between Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Since my visa is a single-entry Dutch Schengen visa, can I enter Switzerland first and then travel to the Netherlands and exit, or am I required to enter the Schengen Area through the Netherlands?
Hello
I had a valid business visa from Swiss embassy on 2024 [ Expired on 2025], and now i am applying for tourist visa with family.
1: As per check list , i dont need to provide biometrics again , but i heard there are incidents embassy asks to submitt again because of lack of clarity
So instead of waiting for embassy to figure out about old biometrics clarity , can we still ask to collect again..?
hi all, got my passport back today (20/08/2026) and i applied on the 27/07/2026, premium appointment, consulate received my passport on 28/07/206. i emailed them on the 12/08/2026 as i had an appointment on the 19/08 which i needed my passport for but ultimately ended up missing.
this is my 3rd schengen visa in 2 years, my first one was single entry 16 days to italy, second was multi entry 3 months from spain and third is 15 days single entry spain.
i explicitly asked for longer, multi entry visa and i know it’s not a guarantee or a right but i was hoping for it because it would have been my third visa so i’ve been bummed out about it. what sucks tho is that they didn’t even get any leniency left or right for an extra day or two whereas italy i applied for 14 days and they gave me 16.
thanks for listening to my rant and i hope this helps out anyone. you can email consulate to check on ur status but please don’t spam them or they won’t respond and might take even longer. just a short email explaining ur flight is a week away and ur just checking in regarding ur visa, put ur full name and when ur suppose to fly and ur passport number so its easier for them to find ur application.
the email is cog.londres@maec.es
Application date - 12th August 2026
Received courier email - 20th August 2026
Visa Center - TLS London
Travel dates - 4th - 6th September
Previous Schengen visa - Dec 2024 (Netherlands)
Waiting for Passport.
EES shows visa approved for 15 days only. I had booked several trips this year and next year. Kinda bummed they gave short duration. How reliable is this EES?
Happy to answer any questions.
Sharing this as I’m seeing quite a few occurrences of confusion between visa validity versus the actual allowed duration of stay. Paying attention to both these parameters can help to prevent overstays.
Please understand that these are two separate values, and it is not necessary that the allowed duration of stay granted by the visa authority is going to be same as the visa validity.
The visa validity simply represents the window within which you must enter and leave the Schengen area. However, the allowed duration of stay is the actual number of days you are permitted to remain within the Schengen area, inside of the validity window. In many cases, these can be different.
Attached an image to help depict this. Apologies if it’s a bit blurry - it’s the best template image I could find to edit in my own example dates. 😅
For example, you may receive a visa that is valid for a 24-day span. That DOES NOT always mean that you are allowed to physically be in the Schengen area for 24 days. If you are given another number on your visa on the far right, that’s the actual duration you’re allowed to stay within the validity window. Only if you don’t have a cap on the number of days allowed, it means you can utilise the full duration of the visa validity while adhering to the 90/180 day rules.
Edit: TLDR: Don’t just pay attention to the start and end dates on the visa. Look at the duration of allowed stay / number of allowed days too.
Please be mindful of BOTH these values when you receive your visa. Hope this helps!
Has anyone who submitted their application before 13 July still not received their passport back?
I’m just extremely anxious. I have changed my itinerary since my original one has already passed, however, I haven’t received any email from them asking for my new one.. My flight is on the 28th of August.
Hi everyone,
I applied for my type d student visa on July 14th and I still haven’t received my passport/visa yet. With the semester approaching I’m getting very anxious as I do not want to miss anything and the maximum date is 15th Sept (will be kicked out of the program after that)
Does anyone have any experience about this? How much longer am I expected to wait?
I called VFS and they said the maximum processing time could go up to 60 days after our application (37 days have passed since I’ve applied)
Hello! Has anyone successful applied for short stay tourist visa to Italy and secured appointment date via the mobile app? It’s been an abysmal experience trying to login to the mobile app which I was made to understand is the only channel available to secure slots for tourist visa. Via web, I only see options for Long stay visa applications.
whenever I login to the mobile app, I get an error (see attached image), and if I keep trying after some time, I get the error that I have tried too many times.🫠
Please help! Any useful information would be greatly appreciated. 🙏
Update: My wife’s Schengen visa was denied … reason: Incomplete Itinerary. We provided the apartment reservation and dates and the air line tickets with dates to match. We were staying 30 minutes outside of Rome close to a beach location. What are they looking for with incomplete itinerary? When we eat sleep and 💩? 100 days wasted. Guess Italy doesn’t need our money! I’m beyond mad 🤬
Myself and my friend applied for Austria visa on 7 th August
I got my passport back on 18th August with visa stamp but my friend‘s application is still under process did someone experience the same ?
F28, Philippine passport holder, Singapore PR and full-time worker in Singapore.
Applied for a Spain Schengen visa as I’ll be one of my friend’s bridesmaids for her destination wedding in Málaga. I submitted all the required documents, plus an additional cover letter from my friend stating that she would be sponsoring a few days of my accommodation and providing details about the wedding and venue. I also brought the printed wedding invitation just in case but they didn’t take it presumably because they only accept A4 photocopies.
My appointment was at 11:15am. There was a queue when I arrived but it was for another country’s visa applications so I was able to go in right away. They checked my documents according to the checklist, took my photo on the spot and told me they would email me once my passport was ready for collection.
2 days later, I received an email saying my passport was ready for collection. I honestly got nervous because I expected it to take at least 15 days, so I started wondering why mine was processed so quickly. FYI collection is only on Tuesdays from 1–2pm. They handed me my passport, showed me the visa to check the details and that was it. Approved!
Also, I’m not sure why they asked me to provide a printed passport photo because they ended up using the photo they took during my appointment.
Definitely the fastest visa application experience I’ve had. I’ve previously applied for US, China and Korea visas, all of which were approved, but none were processed this quickly. Sharing this in case it helps anyone else applying for a Spain visa from Singapore!
