People plan backwards from their travel date using the processing time, discover they have plenty of room, and then lose two months to something the processing time does not describe.
Here is where the time actually goes.
What the published times say
We parsed the fact sheets VFS publishes for the routes on this site — 42 routes, 328 visa categories, 316 of them with a stated processing time. The numbers cluster tightly:
| Stated period | How often it appears |
|---|---|
| 15 calendar days | 94 categories |
| 15 days | 76 |
| 45 calendar days | 52 |
| 15 working days | 46 |
| 90 days | 45 |
That shape is not a coincidence. The Schengen rules set a standard decision period of 15 calendar days from the date an admissible application is lodged, extendable to 45 days where the case needs a closer look. The 90-day figures are mostly national long-stay categories, which run on their own rules.
The distinction between “calendar days” and “working days” is worth reading carefully on your own route. Fifteen working days across a stretch with public holidays is a meaningfully different wait from fifteen calendar days, and both appear in the published sheets.
Each direction page here reproduces the wording for its own route rather than reducing it to one figure, because the wording varies and the variation matters. Portugal from Saudi Arabia, for instance, states 15 working days for Saudi nationals and 20 for everyone else, plus 48 hours of logistics if you apply in Jeddah or Dammam.
When the clock starts
At your appointment. Not when you start looking, not when you finish the form, not when you pay.
That single fact reorganises the whole plan. An appointment six weeks out pushes the decision six weeks out with it. The processing time is a fixed cost you can look up; the wait for an appointment is the variable one, and on a busy route it is the larger of the two by a wide margin.
Which is why the applicants who look relaxed are the ones who started early — not because their file moves faster, but because they got the appointment out of the way while there was still room.
Building a realistic timeline
Work backwards from the date you must travel:
- Travel date.
- Minus the processing time on your route — the published figure, and the extended one if your case has any complexity: a previous refusal, a nationality that triggers consultation with other member states, a category beyond straightforward tourism.
- Minus a margin for the passport to come back, to you or to a courier. Several routes state additional logistics time for centres outside the capital.
- That is your deadline for the appointment itself — not for starting to look.
- Minus however long it takes to get one. This is the part nobody can promise. On the routes we measure, openings appear roughly once in a thousand calendar checks, in unannounced batches.
Applications can generally be lodged up to six months before travel, and the fact sheets say so. If your route is under pressure, use that window. There is no prize for starting late.
What the processing time does not cover
- Getting the appointment. Covered above, and usually the biggest block of time in the whole exercise.
- The consulate asking for more. A request for further documents or an interview stops the clock in practice, whatever the published figure says.
- Peak season. Demand runs heavily seasonal, with the crush from late spring through summer. The published period does not change; the queue in front of it does.
- Courier and logistics. Several routes state extra time for passport movement between a regional centre and the consulate. It is in the fact sheet and it is easy to read straight past.
What makes it worse
- Planning from the standard period alone. If your case can be extended to 45 days and you budgeted 15, one routine consultation and the trip is gone.
- Booking travel before the visa is decided. Non-refundable tickets create a deadline the consulate has no obligation to meet, and there is no expedite path once the file is in.
- Withdrawing the passport mid-process. Some routes state plainly that it is not permitted while the application is being processed. Plan around that rather than assuming you can retrieve it.
- Leaving the appointment to the last possible week. The one part of this with no published timetable is the part people leave least room for.
Where we come in
The appointment is the piece with no schedule, and it is the piece we take on. We watch the calendars continuously and book the moment something opens, so the clock starts as early as your route allows. You pay after the booking is confirmed.
Look up the published times for your own route on its page — we reproduce them as VFS states them, awkward wording included — or tell us the route and your travel date and we will say what is realistic.