The Germany visa from Pakistan

The short answer. Germany is a Schengen country, so the visa is the standard short stay type C and the document list is the Schengen one. Apply to Germany when Germany is where you will spend the most nights, not because your flight changes in Frankfurt. Business travellers and trade fair visitors need two or three papers beyond the usual file, and those papers are usually what decides the case. What every Schengen file needs

Germany is the Schengen visa this office files most often, and it is not close. Three kinds of traveller come through the door for it.

Who actually applies, and what each one needs

Business travellers and trade fair visitors. Germany runs the trade fairs the rest of the industry comes to: textiles, machinery, surgical instruments, sports goods, food. Sialkot and Faisalabad send people to them every year. If this is you, your file is not really a tourist file. It needs the fair's own confirmation of your exhibitor or visitor registration, a letter from the German company or organiser inviting you, and your own company's papers showing what it does and that it is paying. A manufacturer with an export history and a fair ticket is an easy case. The same person without the fair confirmation is a hard one, and the difference is a single email somebody did not bother to forward.

Families visiting relatives. Germany has a long-settled Pakistani community, and a visit to a brother in Hamburg or a daughter in Munich is a different file again. The host's own documents carry most of the weight: their residence permit or passport, their registration, proof of what they earn, and a formal invitation. Where the host is paying rather than you, say so plainly in the covering letter and let their bank statements do the work. A file that pretends a pensioner in Karachi is self-funding a month in Germany is a file that gets read twice.

Tourists. Fewer than you would think, and usually part of a wider European trip, which is where the next section matters.

When Germany is the wrong consulate, and the mistake costs the trip

Frankfurt is the airport most European itineraries from Pakistan change at. That is not the same as Germany being your destination, and the two are confused constantly.

The rule is where you will spend the most nights. Two nights in Frankfurt and seven in Vienna is an Austrian application, and the German consulate is entitled to refuse it on that ground without reading the rest. A connection where you do not leave the airport counts for nothing at all.

The other direction catches people too. If the trip is genuinely Germany, Germany is the application even if you fly in through Istanbul or Doha. The rule is about nights on the ground inside the Schengen Area, not about which airline you booked.

What to allow, from Karachi

Treat the document list as the easy part. Appointments are what decides whether the trip happens, and in the trade fair months and over the summer the German calendar runs well ahead.

Two to three months for a summer trip. Six to eight weeks otherwise. For a fair, start the moment your registration is confirmed, not when you have finished planning the rest.

Q: Does Germany need anything the other Schengen countries do not?

For a tourist, no. The list is the Schengen list and it is set out here. For business it does in practice: the invitation from the German side, the trade fair or meeting confirmation, and your own company's registration and tax papers. These are not extra rules so much as the evidence that answers the question the consulate is actually asking, which is why this particular trip is happening.

Q: I am flying through Frankfurt to another country. Do I apply to Germany?

No. Apply to the country you will spend the most nights in. A change of planes at Frankfurt, even an overnight one at the airport, does not make Germany your destination. Bring us the whole itinerary and we will work out which consulate it belongs to before anything is booked, because applying to the wrong one is a refusal that costs the fee as well as the time.

Q: My relative in Germany is paying. Whose bank statements go in the file?

Theirs, and yours as well. Theirs because they are the ones funding the trip and the consulate needs to see they can. Yours because the consulate is also asking what brings you home, and an empty account in Karachi answers that question badly. Say in the covering letter exactly who is paying for what.

Q: How long does a German Schengen visa take from Pakistan?

Fifteen working days is the normal answer once the file is submitted. Some go to a further check and take longer. The part people underestimate is not the decision, it is getting an appointment in the first place, which in the summer and in the trade fair season can be the longest wait of the whole process.

Before you pay anything

Requirements and appointment arrangements change without announcement, and they change more often for business files than for tourist ones. We confirm the current position before every submission rather than trusting any list, including this one.

Send us the passports and tell us what the trip is for. We will tell you what your file needs before you spend a rupee on it.