Week 1
The decision, and the pleasant discovery about timing
It started, as these things do, with canal photos on a cousin's phone. By Sunday we had dates — twelve days in tulip season — and my first genuinely useful discovery: you can apply up to 6 months before travel, and the sensible window is 4 to 8 weeks ahead. We had nine weeks. For once in my life, early.
Second discovery: the visa wouldn't just be for the Netherlands. A Schengen Type C visa opens all 29 Schengen countries, for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The Netherlands simply has to be the main destination — the country with the most nights.
Note to self: stop calling it a "Holland visa" at the VFS counter. It's a Schengen short-stay visa. The Netherlands issues it.
Week 2
The form with a secret code, and the shopping list
The application form is online only. When you finish it, it generates a unique code the embassy uses to process your file — which is why handwritten forms are simply not accepted. Print, sign, done.
Then the passport inspection: not more than 10 years old, at least 2 blank visa pages, valid 3 months beyond the day we leave Schengen, and signed. Mine passed. My husband's had seven months left — enough for this trip, barely, and a lesson to renew before we book anything bigger.
The week's spending, carefully un-spent: we reserved flights instead of buying them — a reservation in your name is sufficient, and nobody should be buying non-refundable tickets before a decision. We booked hotels for every night. And we bought the one thing that is genuinely compulsory: travel medical insurance of at least €30,000, valid in all Schengen countries for the entire trip, arrival and departure days included, covering illness, accident, evacuation and repatriation.
Week 3
The paper pile (in which the bank stamp becomes my nemesis)
This was the heavy week. The list, as we assembled it:
- Bank statements, last 3 months — stamped and signed by the bank. Plain printouts don't count. Two branch visits before someone found the right stamp.
- ITRs for the last 2 tax years as financial backup.
- Proof of ties to India — employment contract, leave-approval letter, three payslips. The embassy wants to believe you're coming back, and this is where you prove it.
- A cover letter — reason for the visit, duration, fellow travellers, transport and accommodation. We wrote ours day-by-day: Day 1: Amsterdam canals and the Rijksmuseum. Day 2: Keukenhof. Day 3: Zaanse Schans… Apparently that reads far stronger than "tour the Netherlands for 10 days," and having now written both versions, I believe it.
- One photo, 3.5 × 4.5 cm, colour, light background, under 6 months old — though VFS can take a digital one at the appointment.
The cover letter took the longest. If yours is fighting you too, the Schengen cover-letter guide is the template I wish we'd started with.
Week 4
VFS day, and the strange goodbye to my passport
Appointment booked online — the Netherlands takes applications at twelve VFS centres: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune. Everyone attends in person, babies included; fingerprints and a digital photo are taken unless you gave biometrics for a Schengen visa in the last 59 months.
At the counter we paid, signed a declaration acknowledging that an incomplete application can be rejected with no refund — and then came the part no one warned me about: the passport stays with VFS for the whole processing period. You hand it over. You walk out lighter in a way you don't enjoy. (Pilots and flight attendants are exempt. The rest of us must simply cope.)
| What the counter took | Amount |
|---|
| Schengen visa fee — adult€90; fees effective 1 April 2026 | ₹9,790 |
| Schengen visa fee — child 6 to 11€45 | ₹4,890 |
| Schengen visa fee — child under 6 | FREE |
| VFS service charge — per applicationIncludes biometrics; inclusive of GST | ₹1,855 |
Cash, card or UPI — and all of it non-refundable whatever the outcome. For your own family's total, the Netherlands visa cost calculator does the maths without the diary entries.
Weeks 5–6
The wait (average fifteen days; felt like fifty)
Processing averages 15 calendar days and can legally run to 45. Nothing speeds it up — not calling the embassy, not emailing NetherlandsWorldwide, nothing; the decision is made by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and VFS has no say in it either. The only sanctioned activity is refreshing the track-and-trace code, which I did with the devotion of a person checking cricket scores.
What I'd tell last-month me
The wait is part of the process, not a sign something is wrong. If there's no update after 45 days, the correct channel is the VFS application centre — not the embassy.
The sticker
Collection day — and the sixty-second check that matters
A quiet Tuesday SMS: passport ready. At the counter, before leaving, we did the check the process actually demands: name, validity dates, number of entries, duration of stay. Spot a mistake at VFS and you tell the agent on the spot; find it later (or if it came by courier), you contact the Dutch embassy without delay.
Ours was correct. Twelve days in April, and a 90/180 clock we now understand — because overstaying a Schengen visa risks a two-year visa sanction across all Schengen countries, and no canal is worth that.
Final diary line: the tulips were absurd. Worth every stamp, every queue, and both trips to the bank.
