The international portal now largely replaces appointment waiting lists.

Anyone wishing to apply for a German visa previously had to register on a waiting list at many German embassies. Then the real problem often began: waiting weeks or even months until an appointment for an in-person application was finally granted.

This system is changing increasingly. The Foreign Office's international portal is becoming more and more the central starting point for national visa procedures. We are also encountering this more and more in our legal practice.

A current example is the German Embassy in Dushanbe. From September 20, 2026, the embassy will abolish the existing appointment waiting list for numerous important visa categories. Applicants will instead have to submit their visa applications digitally via the international portal.

The change shows where the German visa procedure is headed: away from the classic appointment booking and towards a procedure in which digital application and preliminary checks take place before the personal appointment is granted .

How does the international portal work?

The Foreign Affairs Portal is the central digital platform of the Federal Foreign Office for consular services.

Since January 1, 2025, all German visa offices have been technically connected to the portal. According to the Federal Foreign Office, 28 different application methods for national visas are now available online.

The applicant first creates a user account, completes the application online, and uploads the required documents. A preliminary digital review then takes place.

Only after this does the personal appointment at the responsible foreign mission or an external service provider generally take place. There, biometric data is recorded, original documents are checked if necessary, and the visa fee is paid.

The crucial difference to the traditional procedure is that the application and documents can be digitally reviewed before the personal appointment.

The Foreign Office explicitly describes this procedure as an opportunity to resolve ambiguities or missing documents before the appointment.

Why is the international appointment booking portal becoming increasingly important?

One development that we are observing more frequently is particularly interesting: The international portal is no longer merely an additional option for preparing an application digitally.

In some foreign missions, digital application is becoming a prerequisite for even getting an appointment .

A very recent example of this is the German Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

From September 20, 2026, applicants for numerous visa categories will no longer be able to register directly on the existing appointment waiting list.

Among those affected are:

• Study and preparatory college (§ 16b Residence Act)

• Preparatory language courses for university studies (§ 16b AufenthG)

• Search for study and training places (§ 17 Residence Act)

• Vocational training (§ 16a Residence Act)

• company-based training (§ 16a Residence Act)

• Opportunity Card (§ 20a Residence Act)

• Employment as a skilled worker (§§ 18a, 18b Residence Act)

• EU Blue Card (§ 18g Residence Act)

• Qualification analysis (§ 16d para. 6 Residence Act)

For these categories, the application must first be submitted via the international portal.

The embassy then reviews the digital application. Only after this preliminary review is complete does the applicant receive a link through which they can book an appointment themselves.

An additional registration on the existing appointment waiting list is neither required nor possible.

What happens to people who are already on a waiting list?

For applicants who registered before the changeover, there is a transitional arrangement.

According to the German Embassy in Dushanbe, people who registered on the existing appointment waiting list by September 19, 2026 , will continue to receive an appointment according to the existing procedure.

An existing place on the waiting list is therefore not lost as a result of the change.

This also corresponds to the general policy of the Federal Foreign Office: Anyone who has already submitted an application or is registered on an existing waiting list does not generally have to submit a new application due to the introduction of the foreign portal.

Does the international portal mean the end of appointment waiting lists?

Not yet.

The procedures still differ considerably between individual foreign missions and sometimes even between different visa categories of the same embassy.

The example of Dushanbe illustrates this particularly clearly.

While skilled workers, students and applicants for an EU Blue Card will have to use the foreign portal in the future, waiting lists for appointments will remain there for family reunification, research, language courses, certain employments and some other purposes of residence .

Of particular interest is the accelerated skilled worker procedure according to § 81a AufenthG : Anyone who has a corresponding prior approval should continue to register in Dushanbe via a separate appointment waiting list and additionally send the prior approval to the embassy.

Therefore, there is currently no completely uniform procedure worldwide.

Is the online application already a legally valid visa application?

This is a particularly important legal point.

The German Embassy in Dushanbe explicitly points out that mere registration in the foreign portal does not yet constitute a legally valid visa application .

According to the information published there, the application should only be legally valid once the preliminary review of the uploaded application has been completed.

This is by no means insignificant.

The timing of the application can be relevant, for example, for deadlines, changes in the legal situation, and especially for the question of when an authority is obligated to process an application.

The increasing shift of the process to a digital preliminary review phase therefore also raises legal questions: An additional procedural phase can arise between uploading an application and the formal application submission, the duration of which the applicant can only influence to a limited extent.

Is the new procedure better for applicants?

The international portal definitely has significant advantages.

Applicants no longer have to wait months for an appointment, only to submit a potentially incomplete application for the first time. Documents can be uploaded in advance and reviewed by the visa office. Missing documents can be submitted before the in-person appointment, if necessary.

This can be particularly useful in complicated skilled worker, study, or Blue Card procedures.

However, this may also shift the bottleneck.

In the future, the decisive question will no longer be solely:

"When will I get an appointment?"

But increasingly:

"When will my online application be pre-checked and when will an appointment be made available to me?"

Whether the new system actually leads to faster visa issuance therefore depends significantly on how quickly the respective foreign mission processes the digitally submitted applications.

The international portal fundamentally changes the German visa process.

Therefore, from our perspective, the development in Dushanbe is more than just a local change in appointment scheduling.

The German Foreign Office has now established the necessary technical infrastructure worldwide. Since the beginning of 2025, all German visa offices have been connected to the international application portal. According to the Foreign Office, more than 100,000 applicants used the online service in the first year alone.

At the same time, the portal is continuously being expanded to include additional functions and application types.

In practice, this is increasingly leading to a new model of the German visa procedure:

Online application → digital pre-check → appointment release → personal interview → visa decision.

The classic situation, in which an applicant initially waits for months for an embassy appointment and can only submit their complete application there, could thus disappear at more and more visa offices.

For applicants, this also means that it becomes more important to prepare the digital application completely and in a legally sound manner from the outset. The submitted documents can determine how quickly the preliminary review is completed and the personal appointment is scheduled.