Europe long stay D visa, applying from India, documents and timing
A national D visa from India is filed at the assigned VFS Global centre, and the German mission says the file takes up to 6 working days to reach the embassy.
The D visa is a national visa for stays longer than 90 days. From India it is filed at the VFS Global centre assigned to your place of residence for that country's mission. On employment files the embassy also needs the consent of the labour or migration authority in the destination country before it can decide.
A D visa is not a Schengen C visa
The Schengen Visa Code (Regulation 810/2009) governs the short stay C visa, a maximum of 90 days in any 180 day period. The D visa sits outside that regulation. Each member state issues it under its own national law, which is why the document list, the fee and the processing time are not the same in Germany, the Netherlands and Czechia.
The German mission in India states the difference plainly. Conveniences that exist on the short stay side, such as filing at a centre outside your own jurisdiction in certain cases, do not carry over to national visas. A national visa applicant has to attend the VFS centre assigned to the area where they live. A candidate resident in Pune falls under the Mumbai jurisdiction, and arriving at the wrong centre usually means the file is handed back and a new appointment has to be booked.
The second difference is who decides. On a C visa the embassy decides alone. On an employment based D visa the embassy does not move until the destination country's labour or migration office has given its consent. In Germany that role sits with the Bundesagentur für Arbeit, in Czechia the labour office vacancy register condition applies, and in the Netherlands the employer's recognised sponsor status is what matters. In most files that consent, not the visa counter, sets the total elapsed time.
How the VFS step runs, and which waiting counts as processing
VFS Global is the mission's service partner, not the decision maker. The centre accepts the file, takes biometrics, collects the fee and sends the bag to the embassy. According to the German mission in India, an application can take up to 6 working days to reach the embassy from the centre, and that period is not counted inside the embassy's stated processing time. The clock does not start on the day you file.
There are also two separate amounts to budget. The German mission sets the national visa fee at 75 euro, charged in rupees at the exchange rate of the application day. The VFS service charge sits on top of it, and optional services such as courier return or SMS tracking are charged separately again. If the application is refused, the visa fee is not returned.
| Step | Who performs it | Indicative time |
|---|---|---|
| Contract and employer documents prepared | Employer and candidate | 2 to 4 weeks |
| Labour or migration office consent | Destination country authority | Several weeks, country dependent |
| VFS appointment and filing | Candidate | Depends on appointment availability |
| File travels from centre to embassy | VFS Global | Up to 6 working days (German mission India) |
| Embassy decision | Embassy | Per national rules |
How far that total moves between destinations is set out in the country by country timeline. The German employer side of the chain is covered separately in Germany's residence permit steps.
The document set, and where files actually stall
Each embassy publishes its own checklist, but employment based D visa files almost always ask for the same group of papers.
- A signed employment contract naming the role, the salary and the working hours, with the same salary figure that appears in the authority's consent.
- Educational and vocational certificates with an apostille. In India the apostille is affixed by the Ministry of External Affairs, and state level authentication has to come first.
- A police clearance certificate, which has a limited validity window, so obtaining it too early is its own problem.
- Travel and initial period health insurance, plus proof of accommodation at the destination.
- A passport meeting the remaining validity and blank page conditions written in the embassy checklist.
Two failure modes account for most returned files, and both are technical. The first is a salary mismatch between the contract and the authority's consent. When the two figures differ the file goes back and the consent has to be reissued, which costs weeks. The second is apostille sequence. A certificate sent straight to the Ministry of External Affairs without state authentication is not accepted, and candidates usually discover this after the VFS appointment is already booked.
Even under one directive the paperwork differs by route, as set out in the single permit explained.
A D visa is planned backwards. Start from the consent period at the destination labour office, add the apostille and police clearance windows, then add VFS appointment availability and the 6 working days the file spends in transit to the embassy. The start date comes out of that sum, not out of the embassy's published processing time.
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