₦airaland Forum

hunee:
If you are a frequent traveler, no wahala. But if you are a first timer, dont do this.

Even some frequent traveller we recently saw their visa approval post, their application spent like 3weeks. Probably there is high traffic during this time.

When I put in an application in Nov. I got biometrics appointment just 3 days after. A frequent traveller I assisted in booking an application earlier this month, there was more than 2 weeks ahead before I could get a biometrics slot. So there's most likely a surge this period.

And also weekend may affect processing period. I think he should plan that the application will stay longer.

Chelseaboy101:
Guys ! Please enlighten me ... How many months SOA do I need to print ?

As many as you want!

Though they may not ask for it. When I went for interview, like 30 plus people ahead of me were not asked for any document except their passport. Same with me.

From what I've gathered here and there, they hardly ask for documents, but I'd advise you go with your relevant documents though.

6 months should be okay. That's what I went with, despite that I know it will not be requested. I just printed it from my Internet Banking platform, no need stressing.

Shofat4real:
Good evening all,

Please I want to update my Ds160 and I realised that there's no update feature yet since I filled my application last year. Now someone suggested I fill another DS160 that they will update it from their back end. However, I need clarification.
1. Will I have to fill another DS160 with new email address?
2. Do I have to upload a passport photograph again?
3. Am I raising a ticket from the new DS 160 account or old account?
4. After filling out new DS 160, how can I attach it to be uploaded, is it with new DS 160 or old account?

Thank you for your time and help. God bless you.

1. You can fill with same email. Infact you can fill as many DS-160 forms as you want It is the one that you map to your appointment that will be used.

2. Yes, you have to upload passport photo.

3. DS-160 'account'? . Update/linking of the new DS-160 form to your appointment will be done on your AVITS profile. A good fella shared the process here way back which i followed and it reflected on my appointment confirmation slip less than 24hrs.

4.

lekefew:
Login to AVITS dashboard and go to support on the menu, create a ticket, select Profile Inquires for the topic , fill the form and upload your new DS-160 form in the attachment section and submit. Wait for 24 hours and your confirmation number will be updated on the appointment, you'll get a response on the ticket letting you know it has been updated. I don't know if the weekend will affect the response time. I did mine yesterday and got a response today.

I asked this question a week ago and nobody replied. I figured it out and I thought to help someone else

God bless lekefew

Bonus point
- If you log-on to your former DS-160 form, though you cannot modify as you have already submitted, if you click fill new DS-160 form or something like that on that last page; the new form it opens for you, would have carried over some of your earlier entries, so you may not have to retype everything.

This really assisted me as it was just 2 entries I wanted to update. I doubt I spent 5 mins on the new form.

babstanley:
Good day all, thank you all for the good work you are doing. Please I want to know if Tax clearance or pension is compulsory for tourist visa application. I'm self-employed and I own my law firm.

It's not compulsory, but can add credibility to your documents especially since you are self-employed. I once had a refusal with UK, and one of the points was that they doubt I'm employed where I claimed I'm working. On my next application, which was successful, I added my tax clearance which shows the name of my employer including my pension certificate, which also shows name of same employer.

cucumbar:
Yes, starts with FRA.

This is my third Schengen visa

Then its a France Schengen. Safe travels 👍🏾

cucumbar:
VISA alert !!!

Applied for nertherland visa through the French embassy.
Submitted 21/02/2025 at Lagos TLS
Received a mail for collection today (17/03/25).

This is actually the longest time I’ll wait for a response 😡

Was given 90 days multiple entry eventhough I asked for 14 days single entry.

I applied for Nertherland and don’t intend to go to France, but nothing on the visa indicates that it’s a nertherland visa.

I hope it wont count against me subsequently if I don’t get stamped in in France.🤔

That took quite a while. Is this your first Schengen as well?

Is the visa code starting with FRA?

Enokela34:
I submitted my application since the 3rd of March and I am yet to get a message from TLS , what could be the reason I am worried pls or is it just a normal way to them

Is this your 1st Schengen? If yes, probably the reason. More scrutiny I guess

gr8femfred:
No vex sir ...

✌️ ✌️

gr8femfred:
That is very low ... And I know of genuine bank statements source if you don't mind contact me.

how can it be genuine when the funds does not belong to the person.

10m is sufficient. Stop confusing the person because you want to advocate your unethical hustle.

EllyCiciCarter:
Congratulations!!! Please were you asked for your MRV at the point of entry ?? My IV is in a few days.

No I wasn't. Only the DS160 confirmation page and appointment printout. BTW, Lagos post

Milito:
My interview is in few days time!

Good people, what should I expect? What do I need to do to ensure a seamless and positive outcome?

Shofat4real:
@Milito,
Get your documents ready, compose yourself and go to the interview with a mindset of winning! You could go on YouTube to see videos of how to answer interview questions from Consular officer.... Good luck, bro!

Thanks, I'll sure look them up

cindermum:
Be firm with your responses. They hardly ever check documents so you have to convince them with whatever you want to say.

E.g what's the purpose of your visit? I'm going to Baltimore for a 2weeks family vacation in July.

what do you do? I am an engineer, I work with CNL( you can say a little bit about the company). They don't know what you are talking about unless you explain. It eases their job too. Make sure you have strong ties here in Nigeria. Dont let other refusals scare you.

Thanks for the extra details

It was a successful outcome guys. Thanks so much for your support

And also a big thank you to all the people dropping travel tips on Nairaland on a daily basis without expecting anything in return; without even expecting thank you. You guys are MVPs.

I started getting visas after taking my time to go through other people's experiences through Nairaland posts. And utilising tips dropped by different people.

The questions centred on the event I registered and going for in the US.

VO: Passport pls

Self: Good morning! (With a high pitch and smile)

VO: Purpose of intended travel to the US

Self: To participate at **** event.

VO: Have you participated at a similar event in other countries before?

Self: yes, in 2024 in Europe, 2023 in Europe and 2022 in South Africa.

VO: is that the only thing you'll be doing?

Self: No, after my event, I'll do some sightseeing and will visit my Sister for few days in another state.

VO: What do you do for a living?

Self: I work at so and so.

VO: Continues long typing and looking at PC

VO: Are you married and do you have children?

Self: Yes, married with 3 kids. I gave the VO their ages, and told her I'm traveling alone for now.

VO: I'll be issuing your visa.

Self: Thank you very much 😊 I quickly carried my load and ran off before they change their mind.

NB
First time applicant to the US. Though I've been to Europe a couple of times.

Paid in Sept 24, initially got June date, but kept searching till I got March 2025.

I studied the VOs and quickly queued behind the one with a smile and that I noticed approved Visas.

I noticed some peoples answers were too short and they were too rigid. In my own case, I added some humor about my event and made the VO laugh.

solihp:
Yes, I also experienced this issue with my dad. If you create an application and you go back and forth too much maybe because it’s showing duplicate applicant, when you eventually proceed, it would have created multiple users for the same user and when you pay for one, you won’t be able to proceed to the calendar especially because I paid using card.

I had to cancel that appointment, forfeit the money (because I paid with card) and restart again.

That’s why I advised people stuck on the duplicate applicant thing, to first cancel the current application before using the first name and middle name combo, because if you proceed using the previous application, the application would have created multiple users on that application.

If you do canceling after already making payment, you'll forfeit the payment. That seems to be the only way out now. And it's funny that the releases from the Embassy keeps saying you do not have to pay again after encountering technical issues, that one should raise a service request. Whereas, the service requests desk seems overwhelmed.

solihp:
Well I have had people that used the name combination that were able to successfully proceed. Infact, it’s not the DS160 numbers that gives the duplicate user error, it’s the passport number and first name/given name combo.

I know because my immediate family members had that issue too and they have gone for their visa interview, attended without issue, got their visas approved and had no issue tracking their passports when it was ready.

There were instances where I was waiting for them to resolve it, I opened tickets, called them several times, the tickets were escalated but nothing was done. It’s left to anyone who wants to wait for it to be resolved to make their decisions.

Nothing I've not done on this duplicate applicant issue for an application going 4 months now. It's tiring. I've raised countless service requests, sent emails, interchanged alphabets/numbers on the passport number, interchanged 1st and middle names. At the point of proceeding to update bank deposit details, it still does not proceed to scheduling. Though I didn't generate new bill after any data interchange as it keeps compounding the amount, kind of identifying each as a new application. I usually just go to bank deposit details to enter details of previous payment.

Shofat4real:
@Milito,

Get your documents ready, compose yourself and go to the interview with a mindset of winning! You could go on YouTube to see videos of how to answer interview questions from Consular officer.... Good luck, bro!

Thanks, I'll sure look them up

cindermum:
Be firm with your responses. They hardly ever check documents so you have to convince them with whatever you want to say.

E.g what's the purpose of your visit? I'm going to Baltimore for a 2weeks family vacation in July.

what do you do? I am an engineer, I work with CNL( you can say a little bit about the company). They don't know what you are talking about unless you explain. It eases their job too. Make sure you have strong ties here in Nigeria. Dont let other refusals scare you.

Thanks for the extra details

Pavillon:
How were you able to resolve this

I raised a ticket. And after some days like a week, it was resolved.

gateleo:
Hello all, I have a 3 months multiple entry to France and also have a month qatar visiting visa..

I intend traveling to Paris next month and from Paris to Doha and from Doha back to Lagos..

Lagos to Paris
Paris to Doha
Doha to Lagos

Paris...staying for 2 weeks and Doha....staying for a week

Will there be any issue with these arrangements of multiple cities or i should just travel to Paris and return to Lagos before traveling back to Doha from Lagos
Thanks in advance

The multi city is a good one. It's called 2 holidays in one.

Issue ke? No issue at all. People do it all the time.

Use Qatar Airways to make it cheaper. You can decide to have your Qatar holiday either on your outbound or inbound trip.

You could book the 1-day discover Qatar ahead (its cheaper through Hayya), join them directy at the airport and after the drive around, jejely drop at somewhere close to your hotel. It'll reduce your supposed Airport to Town transport cost

...and you'd have explored popular places; albeit for a short time, but it'll give you a good idea of the city layout, which will be useful for your subsequent wakabout.

My personal experience indicated uber was cheaper than regular cabs. I wouldn't know if that is still the situation though.
Did you apply for your Qatar visa on Hayya or at their embassy?

My interview is in few days time!

Good people, what should I expect? What do I need to do to ensure a seamless and positive outcome?

racerve:
If anyone here has used the premium lounge before, was it worth it?

There's not much difference for now. The regular lounge moves quite fast. I even completed my appoinment ahead of a buddy who used premium. Both of us were asked to make new portrait photos though. And the premium lounge users had to queue with the rest of us at the photo booth.

The France photo requirement is quite high. It's better one should just snap the picture with them over there at TLS. It's well priced. Someone gave me this advice, but I still decided to go to a studio to snap, thinking it will be cheaper and standard enough, the reverse is the case 😃

LagosismyHome:
I don't know if Germany has a different system but in 2023 I booked for my mum using Germany embassy lagos. When she got there they said I filled a wrong form and she was allowed to do a new form inside and resubmit

The visa was given. I don't know if this different but I trust i would have completed a new form. Then when I get to tsl. I will put passport number and omit the last digit to let it go through to booking. If they are going to deny it wont be because one digit is missing in tsl portal. It would be for something else

But if it's not urgent ... then OK to wait

That's a good one. The advantage of dealing directly with the embassy and not these Visa Application centres.

At TLS France, someone filled a wrong form and was turned back and asked to book another appointment (fresh payment and fresh search for dates).

Slimbideb:
Thank you and please one more thing, Is it advisable to arrange the documents inside a folder or just a brown big envelope is okay?

Either. You can even carry them in your hand. Just get the documents there in good shape. They'll still collect them and arrange in their own envelopes by themselves.

Slimbideb:
Hello, please regarding the submission of both original and photocopy documents on the day of the appointment, will the original documents be returned to the applicant on the same day or at a later date? I’m asking because this concerns the submission of all original documents.

France does not require original documents. Only Italy requests for originals.

nnemak:
I plan on doing about three or four Schengen countries trips in 2025 (ie within a year), spending a max of 14 days each time. I applied for 1 year multiple visa, is the application supposed to fall under long-stay visa or short-stay visa?

Select Visitor/Tourism Visa

Someone that selected long stay was turned back and had to forfeit appointment date and appointment payment.

Perciy:
No. We've always travelled together. I just want to know the possibility of my spouse been given a visa and how I should go about it. Will my company have to state in the invitation letter that my spouse is accompanying me? Thanks for your help.

It's tricky but I don't think impossible. If both of you have gotten Schengen visas in the past, it may be easier.

In my own opinion, I think she'd have to apply for a tourist visa and not business like you. And thus the applications may be treated separately.

And for the sponsorship part, she may have to self sponsor or you sponsor her from your personal purse.

If you want the company sponsorship to cover her, the company will have to state expressly that they encourage spouse to accompany their partners during international travels and they cover the travel expense. The company will then provide statement of account for her as well. A copy of the company letter will be needed in her package too.

Provide photos of previous international travels both of you have done in the past.

Ensure to provide enough evidence that both of you have sufficient ties here: evidence of her job/business, children, socio-religious obligations, etc.

ZeroSpace:
Good day all, my sister invited my mom to Germany which all proper documents have been done on her end but the issue here is , we have been trying to book a short stay visa appointment on the website but it keeps saying “no appointment date”. I don’t know if this is a general issue or we are on the wrong website.
Anyone with a similar ordeal or can help with my situation should please reach out to me here or 08107203960
It being a Schengen visa is why I’m here, if you can help I will really appreciate it.

I saw this on the Germany visa thread:

pepakov581:
You should check at 11pm to midnight. That’s when they release new dates I think.

https://www.nairaland.com/2851626/general-german-business-tourist-visas/28

Other opinions from same thread on same appointment matter

jaeima:
You have to keep checking at intervals.
Early mornings and Late nights

jaeima:
You can try checking in the mornings. Around 6-9am as midnight checking doesn’t work anymore. This was how I got a date.

Theophinio:
Sir, this VFS appointment is it free or am to pay to book appointment

France now uses TLS.

Yes you'll pay their appointment fees, 50k plus. You then pay the proper visa fees at their office.

Be careful with the visa category you select, cos if you made a wrong selection, you'll
have to pay another appoinment fee and source for a new appointment date.

It happened to someone. He was even lucky it was not entirely a new visa fee as visa fees are paid at the visa centre and he was yet to pay the visa fees before the error was discovered.

knightingale:
Done via Travelbeta. Thank you so much.
My appointment is on the 13th, hope picking January 10th as travel date isn’t too far away? I don’t know if far away dates has any impact on the outcome of the visa.
Earlier travel dates are quite high in price. Thank you

Not at all, you can apply even 3 months in advance.

LaMujer:
I just used my last reschedule to reschedule my appointment from 31 Jan 2025, to 13 Jan 2026

E. B. Things 😂😂😂

Ha

Sorry oh. Chai

Someone would have snatched your 31st Jan date without wasting time.

davodyguy:
Congratulations, that was quite fast

Indeed fast. It'd seem France processes Schengen visa faster in Naija than all the others.

I'm even surprised to see that the visa stamp issued date is same day (today) that the passport was returned to TLS and TLS alerted me rightaway.

Milito:
Submitted application at TLS Lagos today. Received email that it's been sent to Consular authority, fingers crossed.
Hoping that France will once again prove themselves for speedy processing than the Italians.

Visa alert
Processing time quite impressive, less than 2 weeks.
Submitted on the 18th of this month and was transferred to their embassy same day.

Received email for collection today 28th and picked up without much ado.

6months multiple issued.
I earlier had 3 Schengen - 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 1 month.

Applied with the usual documents - 1 year travel insurance from Axa-Mansard, letter from employer, my own letter, personal and employer bank statements as employer will be covering cost, marriage certificate, children birth cert, previous visas, hotel reservation which got cancelled and got me worried; did the hotel reservation for same hotel again, though didn't send it.

maryini:
Thank you for responding. I will continue checking and waiting.

I also had a duplicate applicant issue but got around that by sending an email to the Lagos niv email using the format someone mentioned on this thread. Similar to your experience, I logged on and noticed the error popup stopped appearing and I was on the payment page.

For the duplicate applicant issue you resolved by sending email, was your payment with GTB or First bank? I'm asking as the instructions on that format was for applicants with old payment on GTB.

maryini:
Did the ticket status change to resolved when the issue was fixed or you just tried scheduling again and saw it was resolved?

My ticket has been on hold for 2 months now. You are the first person I have seen that raised a ticket and had an issue resolved.

Your last line is funny. I still have an unresolved issue "duplicate applicant" for my spouse. Payment since Sept.

For the one resolved, the error message "no active receipt " pops up whenever I wanted to reschedule appointment. The 1st ticket I raised was closed with the tag "resolved", even when the issue was not resolved. I then raised another ticket to complain about the issue and the fact that my ticket was tagged resolved, when the issue persisted. After which I kept checking to reschedule whenever I remember.

On a particular day, I just checked and discovered I can now reschedule and which I successfully did. I later observed the ticket changed to resolved.

Malevonent:
Am in same boat, ticket on hold close to 1 month now.
Both rescheduling and attempting to book a fresh appointment i get the receipt not found errors

Podson:
I get it when scheduling appointment please.

In my own resoved case, I got that error when trying to reschedule.

Podson:
Thank you so much for your response. Did you raise the ticket on the AVITS support portal? The ticket I raised there for this issue has been on hold for over a month now.

Yes, on the AVITS portal. The ticket was on hold as well. I just kept checking until I noticed the issue was resolved.

When do you get that error? Is it while scheduling appointment or rescheduling?

Podson:
I am also having this same "Receipt Not Found" issue. Please let me know if you solve it. Support and the NIV emails are not helping. They put my support ticket on hold for over a month now.

Zebaby89:
This us visa stuff issa whole racket ! You’ll unfortunately just have to pay the visa fee again .Thats what they want .

The person do not have to pay again. I experienced same issue, raised a ticket and it was resolved in like 3 weeks.

People should not be rushing to make another payment after encountering challenges on the AVITS site. US Embassy themselves admonish people on this. Raise a ticket and be patient, as there's a lot of traffic. A lot of people are applying and facing issues.

So just the same way you'll stay on queue for appointment date, is the way you'll stay on queue to have your issues resolved. Rushing to make another payment, when you'll still be on queue for appointment date does not sound smart.