Hi all

I am a China passport holder holding student visa type D (Spain, +1 Trans 05 Schengen). I have booked return air tickets from China to Madrid with Lufthansa.

Does that mean I can only transit once from Germany? If so, my return tickets don't make any sense.

Could anyone help me with this problem?

Thanks

I believe, you cannot leave Spain untill they process your residence card which takes 1-2 months.

Thanks for your reply, el_cid_cdor. I will only stay in Spain for at most 5 months as my following semesters will be in Shanghai and L.A. starts from Sep 2009.

I dont think it's possible for me to get a student card here...

Then maybe you should also get a regular schengen tourist visa if you plan to travel a bit in europe.

In 2004, when I started my studies in Norway, I was issued a D-type visa (on the sticker, it said valid for: Norway+1 transit). So, yes, once you enter the Schengen zone, you are permitted to transit through a country which did not issue you the D-type visa only once. For the rest of the duration of your visa, you should not leave the borders of the issuing country.

On the other hand, having a D-type visa in your passport, you should not have any problems of applying for and being granted a regular C type (tourist/business) visa valid for Schengen zone. In general, if you travel within Schengen zone, airport/airline agents rarely, if ever, check anything else than the front page of your passport to confirm the identity of a passenger and do no bother verifying whether you abide by the visa regime rules (but once again, valid only for traveling with the Schengen zone and only when nothing important is happening and the countries suspend the Schengen zone agreement). However, it also happened to me (once in VIE) on a VIE-TXL flight, one of agents in the lounge wanted to see my visa, despite the flight being purely domestic European.

I'd suggest applying for a C visa. It is easy to justify why you need it (am in Europe, would like to see famous cities, and so on).

Dear olm022

Thanks very much for your detailed explanation. My concern is whether I can fly back to my home country with the same air tickets (transit in Germany). I understand that I don't need transit visa for Germany. However I was confused by the visa. Travel agent told me I don't need a visa for that country when I'm flying back to home country.

Do you have an idea?

Thanks!

If your visa allows ONE transit through another Schengen country then you will have used that one transit on the way to Spain and you can't use it again on the way home.

In practice it is quite possible that you won't have a problem boarding your flight to Germany on the way back as the only people who will check your ID will be airport/airline staff. However, when you get to Germany you will go through a passport check with the German border agency before you are allowed onto your flight home, and if they notice that your paperwork is not in order then you could have some problems.

So... this means that you will need another visa for your flight home. As you will be a (temporary) resident in Spain you should be able to obtain this after your arrival, but you may want to play safe and get it before you leave China.

Visas which only allow ONE transit seem like a pretty dumb idea to me, but I presume that whoever thought of the idea probably isn't a traveller!

So why do they issue visas for a country plus 1 transit if this is not even sufficient to get you back home ? Surely the rule should be country + 2 transits ? Not every Schengen country has direct flights to anywhere ...

Thanks, Aviatrix & Rambuster.

We received no instructions on visa application here and it seems weird if we stay here for only several months and we need to apply a visa to go back?

I'm already in Spain and when I asked the embassy of Spain which issued me the visa, they told me to take direct flight, which looks ridiculous as it's common that people buy return tickets...

I guess we only need the permit to enter EU (+1 transit) and we don't need that when we fly back? If they check my visa when I fly to Germany, they won't let me get on board as my visa is only national visa which doesnt allow me to other schengen states.

I suggest you go to the German embassy (or nearest consulate) with your ticket/travel itinerary. Hopefully they will be able to help you. It's their jurisdiction, so they're definitely the people you need to talk to.

If you don't know where the embassy/consulate is this page should help:

http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Startseite.html

If the German embassy in Spain is anything like the one here in the UK you will probably need an appointment - suggest you check before you go there!

I booked a swiss flight and i am starting from Barcelona.Then the flight goes to Zurich. Do I will face any problem at Zurich Airport??

shiningkey2008,
Sorry I did not reply earlier - I completely forgot about this threat.

Like noted before, you have the right to go through other Schengen countries only one time. Once you have landed in Frankfurt and they have put an entry stamp in your passport, your "+1 transit" is used and only the "national" part of your visa is valid, i.e., only for Spain.

The best, safest and quickest option is to go to the German Embassy in Madrid (or any other consulate), bring the application form, your ticket and apply for a transit visa. These type of visas are the easiest to obtain. In your case there should not be any problem in getting one. After all, German will collect 35 euro for putting a sticker which costs less than 20 cents to produce.

Also, though I do not recommend it, in case the immigration officer in FRA does not put an entry stamp in your passport, you can still use your current visa when you fly back. But this may involve you having to lie in case they ask whether you flew to Madrid last time nonstop or via Frankfurt (you can always claim that you flew via London and in this case the only stamp you could get would have been a MAD airport stamp). But like I said, it is not really worth it.

ghsrikanth,
Elaborate more about your current visa status and your citizenship.
If you are in the same position as shiningkey2008 (i.e,. you have a National visa with only one transit), you may run into troubles. Now that CH has fully entered the Schengen, they will do the passport inspection in ZRH in case this is the last place before you leave Schengen.