Steps on How to Apply for Schengen Tourist Visa

Hello Nomads!

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It's good to be back in the blogosphere. My apologies for not updating this site. It's been awhile! Anyway, I would like to share the steps on How to Apply for Schengen Tourist Visa for those passport holders that belong to one of the third-world countries. In my case, I am a Philippine passport holder.

First and foremost, Schengen refers to the European Union passport-free zone covering most of the European countries. What are the European states that belong to the Schengen Area? Apparently, there are 26 Schengen Area members which area are as follows:

1. Austria
2. Belgium
3. Czech Republic
4. Denmark
5. Estonia
6. Finland
7. France
8. Germany
9. Hungary
10. Iceland
11. Italy
12. Latvia
13. Greece
14. Liechtenstein
15. Lithuania
16. Luxemberg
17. Malta
18. Netherlands
19. Norway
20. Poland
21. Portugal
22. Slovakia
23. Slovenia
24. Spain
25. Sweden
26. Switzerland

In short, Schengen countries are European states that reached a visa-liberalization agreement.

Secondly, choose your desired Schengen country and know the nearest embassy in your location. If you are currently residing in the Philippines, most of the embassies are located in our country's capital city, Manila. For me, I am currently in Dublin, Ireland.

Next, know the requirements of your desired embassy. Like for me, I applied this year in the Netherlands embassy. Last year, I had my first Schengen Visa from the Germany embassy, however, I wasn't able to use it because our flight was cancelled due to the heavy snow brought by storm Emma (the Beast from the East) that hit Ireland.

Basically, most of the requirements are the same to all Schengen zone. Here are the basic;

1. Valid Passport
2. Visa Application Form
3. Valid Dutch passport-size photo (provide at least 2 photos)
4. Supporting Documents
5. Visa Application Fee

Then, book for an appointment to submit your requirements. Ideally, a month before your date of flight. After booking, you can start complying your visa requirements. For your guidance, print a Schengen Visa checklist before submitting your documents.

Lastly, submit the visa requirements on your visa appointment.

On my next post, I will share some tips on how to comply the Schengen visa requirements.

Cheers!