The consulate is not chosen by the applicant. Article 5 of the Visa Code decides it by your itinerary, and the rule has not changed since 2 February 2020. One Schengen visa is valid in every Schengen country, so you never need separate visas for each stop — but you do need the right consulate.
One country
If you visit only one country, you apply to its consulate or the visa centre that works for it: a trip to Paris means France, a week in Athens means Greece. The airport where you change planes does not matter: a flight via Frankfurt does not make Germany responsible.
Several countries: the main destination
If the trip covers several countries, or several separate trips within two months, you apply to the country of the main destination. It is measured first by the number of days and then by the purpose of the trip. The purpose can outweigh the days: in an example from the European Commission's handbook, a traveller who spends 20 days with family in France and two days at a business meeting in Belgium applies to France, even though he lands and leaves through Amsterdam.
If you spend the same number of days in two countries, each of them is a main destination. Apply to the first country on your route where you actually stay — not to the one where you only change planes. Only when the main destination cannot be determined at all does the country of first entry through the external border decide.
| Itinerary | Where to apply |
|---|---|
| Paris, 7 days | France |
| Rome 4 days, then Paris 6 days | France: more days |
| Madrid 5 days, then Lisbon 5 days | Spain: equal days, first country where you stay |
| Budapest 10 days, flight via Vienna | Hungary: the transit airport does not count |
| Family in France 20 days, business in Belgium 2 days | France: the purpose and the days point to it |
A multiple-entry visa
For a multiple-entry visa you apply to the country you usually travel to, where most of your trips go. If there is no such country, it is the country of the first planned trip. In the handbook's example, a woman from Senegal who regularly visits her family in France applies to France, even if her first trip is to Switzerland.
Which consulate: where you live
You apply in the country where you legally live, at the consulate covering your region (Article 6). If you are only visiting a country, its consulates take your application only if you explain why you cannot apply at home, and the decision is theirs. A sudden illness of a relative in Europe while you work abroad is a good reason; a long queue for appointments at home is not.
Since September 2022 the European Commission has asked consulates not to accept applications from Russian citizens who are only staying in a third country — in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Türkiye or the UAE — and to send them to their consulate at home, except in humanitarian cases. Russians with a residence permit in another country apply there as residents.
If the country you need has no consulate where you live, another Schengen country may represent it: it either decides on the visa or only collects documents and fingerprints. The list is on the consulate's website and changes. If you apply at a consulate that is not competent, it returns the documents and the visa fee, but the visa centre keeps its service fee.
Why "the easier consulate" backfires
Some applicants pick a country with fewer refusals or faster appointments and then travel elsewhere. The visa can be annulled at the border by any Schengen country if there are serious grounds to believe it was obtained by deception. The handbook describes such a case: a traveller with a single-entry Italian visa flies to Brussels with no onward ticket to Italy and no explanation, and Belgium annuls the visa.
Not every change of plan is a problem. If something is missing at the border — money or a document — the traveller is refused entry, but the visa is not annulled automatically. With a multiple-entry visa you may travel freely, as long as the first trip matched what you declared. And the next consulate will see your visa history: how you used earlier visas is one of the things it checks.
Vizir works out the competent consulate from your itinerary before booking an appointment, so the application goes to the right place the first time.