Romania Tourist Visa from India 2026: Road-Trip File

The newest full member of Schengen — and what that buys you

For years, a Romania visa was a Romania visa: it opened one country. Since 1 January 2025, that is history.

Romania now issues the uniform Schengen Short-Stay (Type C) visa — the same sticker Paris and Berlin issue. One Romanian visa is valid across all 29 Schengen countries, for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. Land borders included: you can drive out of Transylvania into Hungary and onward without a second visa in your passport.

There is one honest condition attached, and it shapes everything in this article: Romania must be your main destination — the country where you spend the most nights. Apply through Romania, then spend eleven nights in Austria and two in Brașov, and you have handed the Embassy its easiest refusal of the week. The itinerary is not decoration. It is the case.

Which is exactly why we call this the road-trip visa. A well-planned Romanian road trip — castles, mountain passes, painted towns — produces, almost as a by-product, every piece of paper a Schengen officer wants to see. Full requirements live in our Romania tourist visa guide; this article is about building the file the enjoyable way.

There is no VFS counter for Romania. Read that twice.

Every Schengen application most Indians have ever filed went through VFS Global. Romania is the exception: Romania is not available on VFS Global in India. The route is different, and knowing it in advance saves you weeks:

1. Register on the e-Visa portal — eviza.mae.ro. Create an account, complete the Schengen application form online, then print and sign it.
2. Book an Embassy appointment. Applications are submitted in person at the Embassy of Romania in New Delhi (A-52, Vasant Vihar), by prior appointment. Slots are limited — this is the single biggest timing risk in the whole process.
3. Attend, submit, give biometrics. Fingerprints and a live photo are captured at the Embassy — unless you gave fingerprints for a Schengen visa within the last 59 months. Children under 12 are exempt from fingerprinting.
4. Pay and wait. The visa fee plus a consular handling charge is collected at submission. Standard processing is around 15 calendar days, stretching to 30–45 days in individual cases or peak season.

What the Romania visa costs from India

Two footnotes that matter more than the table. First, every rupee is non-refundable regardless of the outcome — you are paying for the examination of the file, not for a yes. Second, the €90 moves with the exchange rate, so the rupee figure on the day you pay may differ slightly from the one above. On top of the fees sit the usual real-world costs: mandatory travel insurance, the flight reservation, and your document run. Estimate your family's full bill with our visa cost calculator before you commit.

A Transylvania itinerary that doubles as a visa file

A Schengen officer reads three questions into every tourist file: where exactly are you going, can you afford it, and will you come home. A road trip answers the first one in glorious detail — if you let it.

The checklist requires a personal cover letter stating your purpose, itinerary and intended means of transport, a day-by-day plan, and proof of accommodation for every night. Most applicants treat those as three chores. A road-tripper produces all three by simply planning the drive properly. Here is the classic week, and the paper each stop generates:

• Nights 1–2 · Bucharest Paper it creates: arrival city on your round-trip flight reservation; first two hotel nights; the opening lines of your day-by-day plan.
• Night 3 · Sinaia — Peleș Castle Paper it creates: hotel booking no. 2 and the first "means of transport" entry — the rental car mentioned in your cover letter starts earning its keep here.
• Nights 4–5 · Brașov + Bran Castle Paper it creates: the anchor of the trip. Two more booked nights, and a purpose so obviously touristic that no officer needs it explained.
• Night 6 · Sighișoara Paper it creates: continuity. A route that flows town-to-town reads as planned by a real traveller, not assembled by an agent the night before submission.
• Night 7 · Sibiu, then back to Bucharest Paper it creates: the return leg — the same flight reservation, closing the loop. Seven nights, seven confirmations, one coherent story.

Notice what that itinerary quietly proves: every night of the trip is in Romania, so the main-destination rule is satisfied without a single explanatory sentence. If you extend the drive into Hungary or Austria for a night or two, keep the arithmetic honest — most nights must stay Romanian, and the checklist requires accommodation proof for each Member State you touch.

The rest of the file, packed properly

Beyond the itinerary, the Embassy's checklist is standard Schengen — strict, but predictable. Pack these before you dream about mountain passes:

And the refusal patterns, so you can steer around them: funds that don't match the declared trip cost; weak ties to India (no job, business, property or family story); insurance under €30,000 or from a non-approved insurer; an itinerary where Romania is claimed as the main destination but the nights say otherwise; and incomplete files — the Embassy is not obliged to ask for missing documents before refusing. A previous Schengen refusal is not fatal, but it must be addressed with new evidence, not silence.