Schengen Tourist Visa Consultant in Gujarat

Picking the Right Consulate Before Anything Else

Under the common Schengen rules, an application goes to the country that is your main destination, meaning the one where you will spend the longest time or where the main purpose of the trip lies. When no country clearly stands out, as with coach tours or an evenly split plan, it goes to the country where you first enter the Schengen area. Many families plan ten or twelve days across four or five countries, and the classic error is lodging the file with whichever country offered the earliest appointment instead of the one the itinerary actually points to.

So our first job is to lay the trip out night by night, count the nights in each country, and confirm that hotel bookings, flight routing and the dates on the form all agree. Our multi-country tourism case shows this reasoning applied to a salaried traveller visiting several countries in one holiday.

Timing follows from the rules too. A file can be lodged no earlier than six months before departure and no later than 15 days before it, and the standard decision period is 15 calendar days, which a consulate may extend to as many as 45 when it needs closer scrutiny. The visa fee for adults is €90, and the company operating the application centre adds its own service charge. Our processing time guide explains how we plan backwards from your departure date.

Since 10 April 2026 the EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational at Schengen external borders, so your fingerprints and facial image are also recorded on arrival and passports are no longer stamped. Indian passport holders still need a visa; ETIAS, the travel authorisation for visa-exempt nationalities, is not something they apply for.