Summers are here, and with it, a surge in Schengen visa applications that could cause a damper on your plans to go for a getaway to Europe. But if you plan smart, you could still spend the season savouring gelato in Italy or cruising along the Seine.

Schengen visa wait times this summer

On average, the Schengen visas have a 15 to 45-day turnaround time post your appointment; however, the tough part is getting an appointment to submit your documents and biometric data.

Schengen visa appointments are tricky to get in peak vacation time. When we checked VFS Global on 24th April, countries like Switzerland’s (check flights) earliest slot is available on 1st May (Bengaluru) and Germany’s (check flights) on 3rd June (Bengaluru).

Italy (check flights) has no open slots in Bengaluru and Delhi. The earliest slot available in Mumbai is on 3rd July but there is a workaround. Nihal Daswani, founder of EASA, shares that previous Schengen visa holders can get an appointment as early as next week as long as they’ve visited a Schengen country at least once before.

On the other hand, France (check flights), Hungary (check flights), Norway (check flights) and Finland (check flight) have slots available sooner, Norway and Finland being the quickest with the earliest spot available on 25th April (Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru), as per VFS.

Spain (check flights) has appointments available in May in major Indian cities and takes four working days, on average, to process visa applications, as per BLS. More information here.

Nihal Daswani shares that Sweden (check flights) is the only country offering walk-in appointments between 9am to 11am from Monday to Friday at all Indian centres. More information here.

The wait times are high but it might be worth it. The new ‘cascade’ visa regime lets Indian travellers acquire a longer multi-entry Schengen visa valid for two years. provided they have obtained and lawfully used two visas within the previous three years.