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Schengen Type CVerified 1 May 2026Latvia Seafarer Visa (Schengen Type C) — special for sailors entering Schengen to board / disembark vessels at Riga or other Schengen ports. Carrier-driven (shipping company / maritime agency initiates). Informational only.
What it costs
Exact embassy fee, VFS charge and our service fee are confirmed for your case before you pay anything.
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✓ The ₹499 report is fully refundable · our refund promise
Latvia's Employment (D) and Residence Permit (D) visas require Latvian-side approval before VFS submission: for Employment, the Latvian employer secures an OCMA-approved invitation backed by labour-market clearance from State Employment Agency; for Residence Permit, the OCMA must first issue a positive decision on residence permit rights (the applicant only walks into VFS after that decision is in hand). Indian travel-visa consultancies cannot substitute for OCMA's substantive decision-making. Seafarer visas are carrier-driven — the shipping company / maritime agency in the Schengen Member State initiates the invitation with seafarer's book details, ship name and flag, port and itinerary; SureshotVisa specialises in individual short-stay and student visas, not carrier-specific crew submissions. SureshotVisa handles Latvia's Schengen Short-Stay (Type C) visas — Tourist, Business, Cultural/Sports, Family/Friends, Medical Treatment, Airport Transit — plus the Student (D) Long-Stay visa, all end-to-end through VFS. For Employment / Residence Permit / Seafarer cases, please initiate with the Latvian employer / OCMA / shipping agency directly; we can advise on the India-side VFS step once you have the underlying approval.
Check the official requirements
Guide last reviewed 2026-05-01. Fees, documents and appointment rules can change.
Latvia — Schengen member · Embassy New Delhi · Hello Verify is MANDATORY before VFS
All India applications are decided by the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia, New Delhi through VFS Latvia centres. India and Sri Lanka applicants cannot book a VFS appointment without first uploading their documents to Hello Verify and getting a confirmation slip — this is the single most-skipped step. For most categories, an OCMA invitation (from Latvia's Office of Citizenship & Migration Affairs at pmlp.gov.lv) is also mandatory and must be dated ≤6 months before application.
VFS helpline: 022-67866025 · info.latviain@vfshelpline.com
Note: SureshotVisa handles Latvia Tourist, Business, Cultural & Sports, Family/Friends, Medical Treatment, Airport Transit short-stay visas plus the Student (D) long-stay visa end-to-end through VFS. Employment (D) and Residence Permit (D) are informational only — those need a Latvian-side employer (with OCMA labour-market clearance) or an OCMA-issued positive residence-permit decision before VFS submission. Seafarer visas are carrier-driven (shipping company / maritime agency initiates) and informational on this site.
The Latvia Seafarer Visa is a special Schengen Short-Stay (Type C) allowing seafarers to enter the Schengen area to board and disembark vessels. The shipping company / maritime agency in the Schengen Member State initiates the invitation with the seafarer's book details, ship name and flag, port of boarding/disembarking, and the Indian collaborating agency that presents the visa applications. This is a carrier-driven category — the shipping company is the lead party. SureshotVisa specialises in individual short-stay and student visas, not carrier-specific crew submissions.
What it costs
Paid directly to Latvia / VFS — these are not our service fee, and we never mark them up.
Figures per VFS Global, last verified 1 May 2026. Fees change without notice — the official page is final.
Visa fees are set by the Embassy of Republic of Latvia in INR and are non-refundable in case of refusal. The applicable INR fee tracks the current EUR / INR exchange rate and may change without notice. All VFS service charges are inclusive of CGST 9% + SGST 9%. As of 9 July 2018, VFS service fees + Video Conferencing fee (where applicable) must be paid through contact centre / online when scheduling an appointment — without pre-payment, no slot is allotted. The VFS service fee is in principle non-refundable, even if the applicant doesn't attend the appointment. Helpline: 022-67866025 / info.latviain@vfshelpline.com.
Flights · Hotels · Insurance · Itinerary
Latvia applies the Schengen rules, so travel insurance is not a nice-to-have — it is a legal condition of the visa.
2 of 4 are compulsory for Latvia
Where people slip: Flying into one city and out of another with nothing showing how you travel between them. Officers read the whole route, and an unexplained gap reads as a plan that does not hold together.
Book for ₹708 (+₹472 per family member)Where people slip: Free-cancellation bookings are accepted, but if the entire file is free-cancellation the officer sees a trip nobody has committed to. Some of it should be real spend.
Confirmed hotel booking, ₹590 per hotel: message us firstWhere people slip: Buying cover for the adults and forgetting the children. Every traveller needs their own EUR 30,000, infants included — a real refusal we have seen on a family of four.
What a Schengen policy must showWhere people slip: Spending more nights in another Schengen country than in Latvia. That gets a file rejected before it is even assessed.
The letter your itinerary attaches toWe can arrange the flight reservation, the hotel and the itinerary for your Latvia file — each sold separately.
We are a B2B travel agency as well as a visa consultancy, working with partners including Riya Travel — so the flight reservation and the confirmed hotel booking both come from us, and you deal with one team. Every booking is a real one under your own name. We do not sell travel insurance: buy the policy directly from an insurer.
None of them is part of our visa fee: each is bought on its own, at the price below, with or without our visa service.
Flight reservation ₹708 (+₹472 per extra family member) · Confirmed hotel booking ₹590 per hotel · Travel itinerary ₹1,499. GST included.
Delivery. Usually within 30 minutes during office hours, Mon–Sat 10:00–18:00 IST. Confirmed hotel bookings are not bought online: message us first on WhatsApp or email info@sureshotvisa.com with the city, dates and travellers.
Tell us your dates — we will say which of these you actually need
What to gather
Having a document isn't the same as presenting it right — that's the part we handle.
Signed and sealed; must include: seafarer's name, place/date of birth, passport + seafarer's book number, validity dates, position on boat, name + flag of boat, port + dates of boarding / disembarking, itinerary into Schengen area, name + address of Indian collaborating agency, statement that the shipping company bears all responsibility (including repatriation).
Required · optional / if applicable
3 steps from intake to approval — never as linear as government sites pretend.
Shipping company / maritime agency initiates the invitation
Done by the airline / shipping / maritime employer's authorized person in the Schengen Member State.
Indian collaborating agency presents the visa applications
The shipping company indicates in the invitation the Indian agency that will present applications.
Crew member / agency completes Hello Verify + VFS appointment
Standard Latvia VFS flow.
Biometrics and the visit to the visa centre are yours to attend in person — no consultancy can do those for you. How we work
Each link opens the official page that issues the form (we never host third-party forms) — download or fill the current version there.
We're actively building per-visa quizzes. For now, the best way to assess your eligibility for Seafarer Visa (Schengen Type C) is a 1-on-1 consultation with our team.
A consultant at our licensed firm replies today
Every case here is different
There is no honest standard answer for Latvia seafarer visa (schengen type c) — the route depends on who is sponsoring you, what the employer has already started, and which region is processing it. So rather than publish generic answers that may not fit your case, we would rather read your actual situation. Send us what you have: an offer letter, an email from the employer, or just the facts as they stand. A consultant at our licensed firm will tell you straight what is possible, what is not, and what it would take.
A consultant at our licensed firm replies today
Reviewed by Sherbir Singh Grewal, SureshotVisa — a government-licensed consultancy (Licence 849/DC/PTA/PLA/LC-3/2024). Verify us.
Source & Disclaimer
Data on this page is sourced from the official VFS Global Latvia website and Embassy of Latvia. Last verified 2026-05-01. Always verify with the official embassy before applying — fees and requirements change without notice.
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