Hi All,

I'm an Indian resident of UK travelling from UK in Lufthansa via FRA (change over at terminal 1 - Layover for an hour) to MAA.
Return is also via the same route, same terminal and 1 hour layover time.

Do I require a airport trasit visa?

No you don't need any visa as FRA is one of the airports that allow transit without visa:
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/v...transit/606710

But that page has a list of countries whose nationals don�t qualify for visa free transit:



Does that not apply in this situation?

My understanding is "countries whose nationals don’t qualify for visa free transit" applies only if they need to enter Schengen in order to transit.

E.g. XXX-FRA-MUC-YYY

If they remain non-Schengen they are ok.

Edit: I defer to tom tulpe 's interpretation below.

The German version is clearer:
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/s...606472-6-panel

No visa if you remain non-Schengen.

The page starts out with defining “transit privilege” that nationals from these countries don’t have:



If you combine my two quotes, it seems to me that an Indian national doesn’t have the transit privilege that would allow them to connect visa-free at a German airport if they don’t leave the “international airport area”.

(it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that they would require a visa from Indian nationals given how many Indians LH is transporting between India and North America alone with a connection in FRA)

The standard answer for “do I need a visa” is often “see what Timatic says”. So I checked:

https://www.united.com/xx/xx/timatic?i=TIMATIC






For the Germany connection it shows:





Sadly that is confusing me more than the German web pages. Does this mean a TWOV is possible, but only if they have a visa from the countries listed? What if they travel to India?

Guess it’s too early here and I need more coffee.

The default position is that you don't need a visa if you don't need to go through passport control.

But, 12 nationalities do need a visa even if they don't pass through passport control. India is not one of them.

But, individual Schengen countries impose this requirement on various additional nationalities. Germany requires a visa from Indian citizens, as do CZ, ES and FR, but the other Schengen countries don't.

Finally, if the passenger has a visa from some non-Schengen countries, the transit visa requirement is waived. It does not seem that a UK visa qualifies although logically Schengen should trust UK visas.

See https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/po...-schengen-visa
It's roughly similar in the UK too - Indian citizens ordinarily need a visa to transit the UK (including airside), but as the UK trusts Schengen visas, they don't need a UK transit visa if they have a Schengen visa and are travelling between India and a Schengen country.

On the contrary:
"F�r die gro�e Mehrzahl ausl�ndischer Reisender gilt das sogenannte „Transitprivileg“: Wenn beim Zwischenstopp auf einem deutschen Flughafen der internationale Transitbereich nicht verlassen wird und das Endreiseziel in einem Land au�erhalb des Schengen-Raums liegt, wird f�r den Transitaufenthalt kein Visum ben�tigt."
(i.e.: if you change at one of the airports that have an international transit area, you ca avail yourself of the "Transitprivileg": No visa required.)

"F�r die Staatsangeh�rigen der folgenden L�nder gilt das Transitprivileg nicht, d. h. beim Transit �ber einen deutschen Flughafen ist in jedem Fall ein Flughafentransitvisum (Visumkategorie „A“) erforderlich:
(...)
Indien"
So if you're travelling on a passport from any of these countries, including India, you do need a visa, because Transitprivileg does not apply to you.

The confusion stems from the exceptions to the exceptions, at the bottom of the page:
"Ausnahmen vom Erfordernis eines Flughafentransitvisums:

• Inhaber g�ltiger Visa und nationaler Aufenthaltstitel der EU- und Schengen-Staaten
• Inhaber bestimmter nationaler Aufenthaltstitel der folgenden Staaten: Andorra, Japan, Kanada, San Marino, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika
• Inhaber g�ltiger Visa der EWR-Staaten (EU-Staaten und Island, Lichtenstein, Norwegen, Schweiz) sowie Japan, Kanada und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika ausgestellter Visa."

and that's why flying via Frankfurt was very convenient for UK-resident Indian nationals when the UK was still in the EU. As long as they had a valid UK residence permit, they were fine for transit without visa. But that is no longer the case since the end of the Brexit transition period, and a transit visa is now required. No concessions, especially since the UK now requires a full passport for EU citizens to enter the UK, a national ID card is no longer sufficient - this really got the collactive EU states' goat.

US green card holders OTOH can still transit without visa.

Brexit collateral damage in a way.

Yep, the German Embassy in London has added this:

https://uk.diplo.de/uk-en/02/visa/ai...-visas/2442170

So you have to get a A visa for 80€ plus 25 GBP for the visa agent

thanks all for the reply. Will start the process 😬