Schengen Visa for Indians: Apply without a Visa Agent

Okay, I will be addressing the elephant in the room- the Schengen Visa. Every Indian who dreams of travelling to Europe goes through this ordeal of applying for a Schengen Visa from India and waiting for the verdict. Thankfully, Schengen Visa application is not as tedious as the US visa application and there’s no formal interview for the same. I have applied for a Schengen Tourist Visa three times and my application was processed instantaneously and visa was approved almost immediately.

In this article, I’ll be discussing the best ways to apply for aSchengen Visa, how it works and how to make sure you get one approved.

What is Schengen Visa? Which Countries are covered in Schengen Visa?

As most of you know Schengen Visa is a permit to spend up to 90 days in the Schengen area of Europe. This includes 22 countries in the European Union.  Countries covered on Schengen Visa include: 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, Switzerland & Liechtenstein.

Countries such as Croatia and Turkey can be also visited with few additional documents if you have a valid Schengen Visa.

Schengen Visa: The Scare

Travel agents and beneficiaries manage to implant enough scare about thetourist Schengen Visa in traveller’s minds. This leads to the travellers rushing into a panic mode, ultimately paying an amount to get the Schengen Visa approval. My verdict- absolutely unnecessary.

The travel agents make fake bookings on your behalf, leaving the air ticket to be booked at the last minute. I have made my stand on last-minute air travel booking pretty clear in the previous post- How to Book the Cheapest Flights from India. This is in case your visa is not approved, you won’t have monetary losses. In my observation, the Schengen tourist visa for Indians is most likely approved, especially if you are into a full-time job. The scare created around visa is by visa agents who want to squeeze out money from you, no offence but that’s the reality.

I highly urge you to apply for a Schengen Visa from India without an agent, on your own. It’s not only fairly easy, but also because even if you hire an agent to do so, you are going to do all the running for gathering YOUR documents, the agent will only provide you a checklist, which you can find in this blog as well.