Schengen Visa Requirements for Indian Citizens and Nationals

How to apply for Schengen visa if you are an Indian citizen? What are the requirements? How long will it take to receive the visa? How much will it cost? What are the tips to get approved faster and easily? This page is all about that.

Indian nationals and citizens requires visa prior visiting many countries like USA, Japan, Australia, UK, Italy, Spain and many more. But with Schengen visa, anyone can travel and visit countries and territories mostly in Europe with just one visa. Right now, if you have a valid Schengen visa, you can visit 22 European countries and 3 non-European. I’ve listed them here alphabetically for your reference. You can visit Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Steps in Application of Schengen Visa

1. Accomplish the application form

2. Gather the complete requirements and documents

3. Making an appointment to the embassy

4. Submit all the requirements to the embassy or consulate you chose and pay the necessary fee

5. Interview or no- interview at all if the visa officer is satisfied with your documents

6. Application result (if approved congratulations! If not, submit the requested documents to support your application)

7. You’re done, you can now travel to Europe and the countries under the Schengen treaty

Tips in applying for a Schengen visa if you are an Indian citizen

• There is no easiest way to get your Schengen visa for Indian citizen approved fast and sure. The best thing you can do is to complete your requirements before applying. Make sure your documents tally with each other and are consistent.

• I recommend making your application to the embassy of the country you will visit first or where you are gonna spend your tour longer (example: France if you will go here first or Italy if you are staying here most of your stay). Embassies and consulate offices are around Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata , Bangalore, Puducherry and other cities.

• Finalize your tour and trip itinerary, bookings, schedules to avoid re-scheduling and making changes to your application in the embassy.

• In the interview, they usually ask about your funds, where are you staying, who will accommodate you and who will you travel with. It is advised not to mention you have a family member in Europe or a fiancé or else you might give the officer to interrogate you more.

• To make things easier, just book your accommodation to hotels and submit the voucher copies too. If your friend will accommodate you, you will need an Invitation Letter and this is another requirement you need to furnish

• Have your Schengen visa travel insurance from accredited travel insurance companies only

• Have extra copies of your original papers and documents so in case the visa officer misplaced your any of your doc, you will be fine.

Schengen Visa Requirements for Indian Citizens

• Schengen visa application form (this can be downloaded for free online) check your embassy

• Valid passport

• Passport-size photos with white background

• Authenticated Birth Certificate

• Authenticated Marriage Certificate if you’re married

• Proof of funds (latest bank statement, passbook, bank certificate or recent Statement of account)

• Certificate of Employment if employed

• Business Registration if self-employed or into business

• Proof of assets like Land Titles, Vehicle Registration and the like.. (optional to support your financial capacity)

• Statement of Assets and Liabilities (optional to support your financial capacity)

• Travel insurance certificate

• Airline tickets including the return ticket

• Detailed itinerary including arrival and departure time

• Hotel vouchers

• Payment of processing fee and other charges

Cost of application and processing of Schengen visa is around 5000 Rupees and above not including the travel insurance and the small stuff for gathering your documents and requirements like photocopying, bank statements and the like.

If you are applying a Schengen visa as an Indian in India, Mumbai, USA, and other places, the requirements are usually the same. The cost for the processing though may be different.

By Fehl Dungo © 2012