Schengen visa from India

There is no single answer, because the rate that applies to you depends on the consulate deciding your file rather than on the country whose visa you hold. In 2025 the same country, France, refused 7.9% of applications in Bangalore and 27.4% in New Delhi, a gap wider than the one between most countries. For an applicant in Gujarat, whose file is read in Mumbai or in New Delhi depending on which country it goes to, the published rates ranged from 4.6% to 46.5%. The route section on this page shows the figure for the consulate that would decide yours. It is also the wrong question to start from, because the Visa Code decides which country you apply to rather than leaving it to preference: you apply to the one where you will spend the most nights. Choosing a country by its refusal rate is itself a ground for refusal.

The visa fee is EUR 90 for an adult and EUR 45 for a child aged 6 to 11, with no fee at all under six. It is collected in rupees at the European Central Bank reference rate, so the rupee figure moves through the year, and it is not refunded if the visa is refused. On top of that you pay a VFS Global service charge, which each consulate sets separately rather than sharing across the area, and travel medical insurance, which has to carry at least EUR 30,000 of cover to be accepted at all. Budget for all three rather than the headline figure, because the fee is the smallest of them for a family. Pages quoting EUR 80 predate the increase of 11 June 2024, or are citing the 2020 consolidation of the Visa Code rather than the version in force now.

The Visa Code gives the consulate 15 calendar days from the date an admissible application is lodged, and allows that to be extended to 45 calendar days where the file needs further scrutiny. Both numbers run from lodging, not from the day you started gathering documents, and neither includes the wait for a VFS appointment, which is the part that lengthens through the summer and which no consultant can shorten. The same Code lets you lodge from six months before the trip and, as a rule, no later than 15 calendar days before it, so the way to protect a summer trip is to apply early rather than to pay for anything faster. There is no premium tier that moves a Schengen decision. Plan on the 45 rather than the 15 if you are travelling between May and August, and book the appointment the day the window opens.

Indian passport holders do not need ETIAS for Europe, at any point and for any trip. ETIAS is a travel authorisation for nationals who can already enter Europe without a visa, and Indian passport holders cannot, so it does not apply to you at any point in the process. It is also not yet in operation, which makes the advice doubly wrong. If you hold an Indian passport you need a Schengen visa, and no ETIAS application, fee or waiting period forms any part of that. Several travel sites conflate the two and tell Indian readers to budget for both, which produces a fee that does not exist and a delay nobody is waiting on. If a page tells you to apply for ETIAS from India, it is not written for you and the rest of its advice is worth checking as carefully. The document you need is a uniform Schengen visa, applied for at the consulate of your main destination.

A France visitor visa is a Schengen visa, if you are going for up to 90 days. France issues a uniform Schengen visa, and so do the 27 other countries that decide applications in India, and any one of them admits you to the whole Schengen area rather than only to the country that issued it. A visa granted in Paris and a visa granted in Lisbon are the same document with the same reach. What differs is who reads your file, how often that particular consulate refuses, and how readily it grants more than a single entry, which is why the country you apply to matters even though the visa does not. A long-stay French visa for study or work is a different document under French law and is not a Schengen visa at all, despite the name people use for it. Do not treat advice about one as advice about the other.

There is no single Schengen figure, because each country sets its own threshold and publishes it on its own visa site rather than agreeing one across the area. Check the country you are actually applying to rather than a number quoted for somewhere else. What consulates do share is the test behind the threshold: the money has to cover your trip, it has to be yours, and it has to have arrived in a way that matches the income you have declared. A balance that appeared in the account a week before the application is the pattern most often read as arranged, and it does more harm than a smaller balance with six months of ordinary salary credits behind it. If a large deposit is genuine, document where it came from and submit that alongside the statement, rather than leaving the officer to guess at it.