FLIGHT BOOKING IS NECESSARY BEFORE APPLYING FOR VISA?

 

No. You don’t need to book a flight ticket before you apply for a visa. We see this question asked often such as on stack exchange flight itinerary or on Quora section for flight itinerary when applying for Schengen visa application. We have travelled to several countries and you can take our word for it. The visa consulates also realize that the rejection rates for visa applications are remarkably high (Denmark at one point of time had only 35% acceptance rate). It is not wise to expect visa applicants to actually buy the flight ticket and risk losing hundreds or in some cases thousands of dollars if the visa application is rejected. Then why do visa consulates ask for flight itinerary and reservations:

To establish that you do have flights from your city to your Destination to validate your flight itinerary against your travel itinerary that you have submitted. If you have mentioned that you will be holidaying in France but your itinerary says Germany. Then something is fishy.

When you apply for Schengen visa, then you must apply in the visa consulate of a country in which you would spend the most time in. Ex: if you are holidaying for 20 days and plan to stay in France for 15 days. Then you should apply for your visa in the French consulate. But if you are spending 10 days in France and 10 days in Germany, then you will need to apply in that consulate where you would be landing first. A flight itinerary confirms this fact since your arrival city would be your first point of entry

So, to reiterate, please book your travel ticket once your visa application has been confirmed.

Here is another link which explains why it is not a good idea to get an air ticket before your visa has been approved.

For more information, please visit: https://www.schengenvisaitinerary.com/