1. How long does the visa process in Germany take?

How long a visa process takes in Germany depends on many factors. The decisive factors are sometimes the country or embassy in which the visa process takes place, the type of visa being applied for and how well the documents and information are prepared. The responsible embassy or immigration authority in particular often plays a major role. While processing in Western countries (e.g. USA and Europe) is usually comparatively quick , the same process can take many months or even years in other countries. This is especially true for countries from which many visa applications are submitted and in which the document and administrative systems are very different from those in Germany (e.g. Pakistan, Iran, India, Turkey and African countries). The authentication and translation of documents (lawyer verification) alone can take several months. In addition, the embassies in these countries are usually extremely overloaded and have too few staff.

The type of visa applied for is also important for determining the processing time. In principle, certain visas are processed more quickly than others because of the corresponding internal guidelines. For example, D visas for employment (especially the EU Blue Card ) are processed comparatively quickly, while visas for family reunification do not have priority in processing and are therefore only issued on a secondary basis. The type of visa issued often also influences whether processing takes place at the embassy or at an external service provider (e.g. VFS Global or TLScontact).

2. Why does visa processing take so long?

There are various reasons for the long processing times for visa applications in Germany. Some of these reasons can be influenced and some cannot.

The following reasons are usually responsible for long processing times:

Factors that cannot be influenced:

• Lack of or poorly trained staff at the embassy or immigration office

• High number of visa applications in the respective country

• Major differences between the German and foreign administrative systems (translation and certification)

Advance approvals can be applied for at the Federal Employment Agency, the immigration authorities and the central offices for skilled immigration. Unfortunately, this hardly works in practice because the authorities are massively overloaded. As a result, applicants sometimes wait as long for advance approval as they do for visa processing. However, the processing speed for advance approvals has increased significantly in recent years (as of December 23, 2024).

With regard to the advance approval, it should also be noted that special appointments are usually made at the embassies for advance approvals. However, these appointments are also rarely available. The only exception to this can be the accelerated skilled worker procedure in certain individual cases in accordance with Section 81a of the Residence Act . Here too, however, the practicability depends on which authority is carrying out the accelerated skilled worker procedure.