In order to submit your application, please attend your appointment in person at the Foreign Mission responsible for your consular district. Visa applications may be submitted by duly authorized representatives of professional, cultural and sports associations on behalf of their members, or by educational institutions on behalf of their students. In this case, submitting complete and conclusive documentation is of major importance. During this appointment, we kindly ask you to submit all of your application documents, pay the fee and answer questions about your planned trip. Your fingerprints will also be taken on this occasion. Fingerprints will also have to be taken in cases where the application was filed by a representative of an association or educational institution. In general, all applications have to be submitted in person.

The responsible Foreign Mission will review your application and make a decision on whether or not to grant you a visa. To this end, it will assess whether your application meets the legal requirements. The interest on entry must be balanced against the security interest of the Federal Republic of Germany. This also applies to visa applications for short-term stays for business purposes or the participation at conferences for example. It needs to be ascertained that knowledge acquired in Germany will not be used to jeopardize the peaceful coexistence of peoples and or public safety and security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany. Processing times for applications submitted with the full set of required documents is generally up to 15 days. In justified cases, the processing time may be extended to 45 days. For that reason, it is highly recommended to apply for your visa early. Applications can be submitted as early as 6 months prior to the intended travel date. Please take note that the visa section will not give information about the state of affairs in a pending application. We therefore appreciate if you could please refrain from any enquiries when your visa will be ready for collection or when it will be delivered to you.

As soon as the authorized mission has decided on your application, your passport will be mailed to you by using the Canada Xpress envelope provided by you. As soon as your passport is returned to you, please check whether the information contained in the visa is correct and corresponds to the information you entered in the application form. In particular, please verify your full name, passport number and validity, i.e. the period of time and the corresponding number of days in which you are allowed to travel. If you do notice an error, please let us know immediately so that the visa will be re-issued. Please note that in case you have not notified the visa section in time about an error in your visa, the visa section cannot be held liable. In case your visa had to be denied, the legal reasons will be given in writing in German and in English. The reasons will be stated in the letter notifying you that your application has been rejected. You are welcome to submit a new application at any time with complete, informative and verifiable documentation.