The base fee: €90, since 11 June 2024
Article 16 of the Visa Code (Regulation (EC) No 810/2009) sets a single fee for a short-stay (Type C) Schengen visa application, charged at every consulate across the 29 Schengen countries. Under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1415 of 14 March 2024, that fee rose from €80 to €90 for adults, effective 11 June 2024 — the first revision since the fee was last set, reviewed on a three-year cycle against euro-area inflation and EU civil-service salary trends. Children aged 6 to below 12 pay €45, and children under 6 pay nothing. Applications submitted before 11 June 2024 were charged at the old rate; every application since has been charged €90.
Who doesn’t pay the fee
Beyond the under-6 waiver, the Visa Code lists categories that are automatically exempt from the fee: school pupils, undergraduates, postgraduates and their accompanying teachers travelling for study or training; researchers, as defined by EU Directive 2016/801, travelling to carry out a research activity or attend a scientific seminar or conference; and representatives of non-profit organisations aged 25 or under participating in seminars, conferences, sporting, cultural or educational events organised by non-profit organisations. Beyond that fixed list, consulates also have discretion to waive or reduce the fee case by case — the Visa Code allows this on cultural, sporting, foreign-policy, development-policy or other public-interest grounds, or on humanitarian grounds.
If the visa is refused, is the fee refunded?
No, as a general rule. Article 16(7) of the Visa Code states the fee is non-refundable except in the cases set out in Articles 18(2) and 19(3). In practice that means two situations: if the consulate receiving the application is not the one competent to examine it, the application and fee are returned to the applicant; and if the application is declared inadmissible on submission — typically for missing the minimum documents required — the fee is refunded and any biometric data already collected is destroyed. Outside those two situations, once an application has actually been examined, the fee is kept regardless of the outcome, including a refusal.
A longer-validity visa doesn’t cost extra
The fee set by Article 16 is the same whether the consulate issues a single-entry visa or a multiple-entry visa valid for 1, 2 or 5 years — there is no additional charge tied to validity length. This matters for anyone building toward the EU’s multiple-entry visa “cascade,” including the more favourable version the European Commission adopted for Indian nationals in 2024, which we cover separately in our multi-entry visa cascade explainer: qualifying for a longer-validity visa changes how long it lasts, never what it costs to apply.
The VFS/TLS service fee is a separate charge
Many Schengen consulates in India route visa intake through an external service provider — VFS Global, TLScontact or similar — rather than accepting applications directly. Article 17 of the Visa Code allows these centres to charge their own service fee on top of the consulate’s visa fee, for handling the application. That service fee is capped, normally at no more than half the visa fee — up to €45 now that the visa fee is €90 — though the Visa Code sets higher ceilings (up to €80 or €120) for specific circumstances the Commission has separately defined, such as centres operating under additional logistical constraints. The two charges appear as separate line items: the consulate fee goes to the state examining the application, and the service fee goes to the centre that handled the appointment and document intake.