Visiting Family / Friends Visa (Schengen Short-Stay, Type C)

An invitation naming you and the relationship, proof of their own status in Malta (residence permit, passport or citizenship), proof of address, and — if they are paying — their income evidence and a formal undertaking. Several countries have a specific sponsorship form; using a plain letter where a prescribed form exists gets the file bounced. Send us their documents together with yours: the two sides have to agree with each other, and mismatched addresses or dates between sponsor and applicant are one of the quietest refusal causes.

It is the question officers probe hardest on a family visit, because a visitor visa turns on whether you will come back. It is not a bar — thousands of these are approved every month — but it has to be answered rather than ignored. The answer is your own life here: your job or business, your dependants, your property, your bookings. A file that names the relative and then says nothing about your ties invites the officer to assume the obvious.

Up to 90 days in any 6-month period (Schengen area-wide), from the date of first entry. The window rolls: on any given day the authorities count backwards 180 days and add up the days you were inside. It is not 90 days per country and it does not reset when you leave and come back. Entries are single, double, or multiple entry as granted by the high commission. type c limited to 90 days in any 6-month period across the schengen area from the date of first entry. the schengen code allows lodging applications up to 6 months before intended travel; not later than 15 calendar days before.. Getting this arithmetic wrong is how people end up overstaying without realising, which follows you into every future application.

You apply to the country you will spend the most nights in. If the nights are equal across several, you apply to the one you enter first. Applying to the "easier" consulate when your itinerary says otherwise is a well-known refusal ground and, if the mismatch looks deliberate, it reads as misrepresentation rather than a mistake. Send us your itinerary and we will tell you which mission is the correct one for your trip — sometimes that is not Malta.

Three things sit between today and your trip: preparing the file properly, waiting for an appointment, and the mission's own processing. Malta currently states Standard processing time is 15 calendar days at the High Commission of Malta, New Delhi (from the date the file is received from VFS — not the VFS submission date). May extend up to 3 weeks for applications lodged at non-Delhi VFS centres or from Indian states outside Delhi. Applications from Cochin, Lucknow, and Nepal add 3 days transit; from Maldives add 6 working days. Allow an additional 3–6 days for the transmission of documents between VFS and the High Commission and for their return to VFS. Apply at least 4 weeks before travel — 6 months in advance is the earliest the Visa Code allows. for the decision itself. We control the first, which is usually days. The middle depends on slot releases. The third is entirely the mission's and no consultant can shorten it — anyone telling you otherwise is selling something they cannot deliver. Tell us your travel date and we will tell you honestly whether it is realistic.

Most of it is not ours. The Malta government fee (currently ₹9,828) goes to the mission and the visa-centre fee goes to VFS — both charged to you at cost, never marked up, and shown as separate lines on one GST invoice in the registered company name. Our service fee is the only part we set, and it is published rather than quoted case by case.

You send what you have on WhatsApp and a licensed consultant says the same working day whether the case is ready. We build the file around your profile, check every document against the others, write the cover letter to match them, and hold the file complete so the first workable appointment can be taken the moment it appears. You attend biometrics; we track the file to the decision (Malta currently states Standard processing time is 15 calendar days at the High Commission of Malta, New Delhi (from the date the file is received from VFS — not the VFS submission date). May extend up to 3 weeks for applications lodged at non-Delhi VFS centres or from Indian states outside Delhi. Applications from Cochin, Lucknow, and Nepal add 3 days transit; from Maldives add 6 working days. Allow an additional 3–6 days for the transmission of documents between VFS and the High Commission and for their return to VFS. Apply at least 4 weeks before travel — 6 months in advance is the earliest the Visa Code allows.). Government and visa-centre fees (₹9,828 for this visa) are charged at cost; our own fee is published, and if the visa is refused that fee comes back in full.