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Applying for a visa is arguably the most important step in moving to another country. The visa application process can be intimidating and stressful. There are very few resources to get your questions answered and/or find the information you are looking for. To help make everyone going through a similar process feel better, this was our experience applying for a French visa.
If you are curious about what this process is like because you are going through it or just curious about what it was like for us, this post is for you. I’ll talk about all the steps of applying for a French visa and all of the details that no one tells you when going through this process – based on our personal experience.
We started the visa application process as soon as Kelvin signed his contract in the beginning of July, had our appointment at VFS Global Center at the beginning of August, and received the visas in the mail towards the end of September. It can be a long process with a lot of waiting, which can be stressful, especially when you need to be there for work.
Applying for a Visa
The first step (and biggest step) to moving to a new country is applying for your visa. Every country has a different process for obtaining a visa. For France, you apply online for the specific type of visa for your needs. The French-Visas Government website walks you through the steps for applying – this makes it sound easy, and while the application process is, navigating the website is a pain. Make sure to read everything carefully, choosing which visa you need can be confusing. The applications are different for each type of visa.
After submitting the application, you will schedule an appointment with one of the VFS Global Centers in your home country. In the United States there are only nine centers, so the chances are high you will need to travel to that appointment. The appointments typically schedule out about a month or two, but sometimes you can get lucky if there is a cancellation to get a sooner appointment (which is what happened to Kelvin this year). You will have to pay for the appointment when you are scheduling it.
Once you have your appointment set, the application that you previously submitted will have a checklist of everything you need to bring to the appointment. Make sure you have EVERYTHING on that list. You will need copies of all the paperwork you listed, copies of your passport, and all the pages of your passport that have any stamps or previous visas on them (make sure the copies of the passport are good quality, they will be denied if it is not to their standard). Different visas requires different paperwork, so make sure you read over everything thoroughly.
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Visa Application Appointments
When your appointment time comes and you have all the documents on the checklist from the back of your application, you will head to the VFS Global Center. I went to Kelvin’s appointment with him in Chicago despite not having my own appointment just in case I was needed or added as a walk-in (we were clueless on how to apply). Luckily, because we are married, they filed our visas together at Kelvin’s appointment so it was a good thing I went with. If you are filing with your spouse, make sure you bring your marriage license – it wasn’t on the checklist but it was needed.
The VFS Global Centers are very strict. No visitors are allowed – I walked into the appointment with Kelvin and they turned me away when we were checking in. Once Kelvin was in his appointment and explained the situation, they asked me to come back and I was allowed in. No phones are allowed, you cannot even take out your phone to check the time (we watched someone get yelled at for this).
During your appointment, the VFS Submission Officer will go through the checklist with you and review all your documents to make sure you have everything. Make sure you over prepare for this, we had documents that weren’t on the checklist but thought they might be important (like the marriage license).
You will pay for the filing of your visa at the end of the appointment. All together, it comes out to be about $170 for the appointment and filing per person. The receipt will have a tracking number for your application as well so it is really important to keep it. Your biometrics will be taken at the center after your appointment. There can be a long wait for this after your appointment time; I recommend bringing a book to keep yourself entertained.
Waiting for your Visa to be Returned
All your paperwork and your passport will then be shipped to the Washington DC French Embassy for approval. It did feel strange leaving my passport there. Once it is approved, it will be shipped back to you. Keep an eye on your email during this time, that is the only way the embassy will communicate with you if they need more paperwork or have questions. They will also send you shipping updates via email. The visas can take anywhere from one week to three months to get back to you… so plan accordingly.
The estimated return time for your visa is a difficult thing to plan around… it could be two weeks or two months. For us, it was closer to the two-month mark, but for many of Kelvin’s teammates, it was closer to the two-week mark. Planning your flight around your visa arrival is a challenge because you have no idea when they will show up until you get the shipping notification… our visas showed up an hour before we had to leave for the airport after pushing back our flight for almost four weeks. You will have to sign for your visas when they arrive at your house!
Once visas are here, you are ready to go! Planning when to schedule a flight can be difficult when you are waiting for your visas to show up. Make sure the flights are changeable to avoid wasting too much money if you do have to postpone your flights.
Check out my post on Moving to Europe to read more on what moving to another country is actually like!
