Visitor's visa

• You should apply well in advance and as a rule no later than 15 days before you plan to travel. Due to the courier sending of documents in some countries, we recommend that you apply at least 4 weeks prior to your planned departure.
• You may submit your application up to six months before your planned departure, or up to nine months for seafarers.
• We recommend that you do not buy your ticket until a visa has been granted.
• You must register your application online before you can hand in the required documentation.
• When you hand in your application, you will be asked to provide fingerprints, unless your fingerprints have been collected within the last 59 months.

If you want someone to act on your behalf in connection with your application, you must authorize this person to do so. Please visit the UDI website for more information and the relevant form.

Group registration: If two or more people of the same nationality are travelling together, for any kind of purpose, they should register using the group application, not individual applications. This ensures quicker processing time. Groups of more than 15 people should be divided into smaller subgroups.

All applicants must present the relevant documents listed in the file below: 

• Checklist for Schengen visas
• Parental Consent
  (for applicants under 18 travelling without parents or with one parent)

Travel Medical Insurance

When applying for a visa, your travel medical insurance must cover the days of your intended stay in the Schengen area. Failure to hold an insurance that covers the actual stay may lead to problems at the airport or entering the Schengen area. The travel medical insurance must meet the following criteria:

• valid throughout the Schengen area;
• valid during the entire period that you will be in the Schengen area;
• the coverage is at least Euro 30 000,-;
• the coverage includes repatriation for medical reasons, urgent medical care and/or emergency treatment in a hospital and assistance in case of death.

Invitation for a visitor visa

If you plan to apply for a visitor visa to visit someone in Norway, for example family, friends, a business or an organisation, they must send you a written invitation. For more information, click here.

An invitation should contain:

• the name of the person(s) you are inviting
• information about why you are inviting this person
• suggested dates for the visit
• information about the person and/or organisation inviting you
• information about the relationship between you and/or your organisation and the person you are inviting

Family relationships should be documented with marriage and birth certificates. This is easier when the closest family member invites the applicant. 

Documentation of friendship can most conveniently be provided by submitting social media content and/or photos of the persons together.

Sponsorship for visitors

When you are going to visit Norway, you must document that you have enough money to finance your stay here and for the return journey. If you do not have enough money yourself, the person you will be visiting will have to provide a sponsorship form. For more information, click here.

• Sponsorship form (external link)

Power of attorney

If you want someone to act on your behalf in connection with your application, you must authorise a person to do so. This person can for example be your employer, a family member or another person who you trust. For more information, click here.

• Power of attorney form (external link)

Before you can hand in your passport and other documentation, you must register your application online and pay the fee. If this is the first time you are registering an application in the portal, you will need to create a user account first.

Once you have completed the application form online and paid the fee, you will receive confirmation by email with a copy of your application form (schengen.pdf), application summary and payment receipt attached. You need to print the application form (schengen.pdf) and submit it together with the other required documentation

Application fee

The visa fee is EUR 80. Children under six years do not pay a fee. Children from the age of six years and below the age of 12 years shall pay a visa fee of EUR 40. Please visit the UDI website for information about other groups exempted from the visa fee.

Please note that you pay the fee when registering the application in the portal. Applicants exempted from the visa fee requirement will have the fee refunded.

If you are a applying for a visa as a family member to an EU/EEA citizen you are not required to pay the application fee.

The payment of the visa fee is done online with VISA or MasterCard when you register your application in the UDI Forms application portal.

VFS Global charges an additional service fee of in local currency. This fee must be paid directly upon submission of the applications to VFS. Please note that the VFS service fee is non-refundable.

If you are excempt from paying the fee the Embassy will refund it to the card that was used to make the payment. When the refund is processed by the Embassy, it will take a while before the refund is processed by the bank and the money is available in your account. 

You must bring with you:

• a printout of the application form (schengen.pdf) received by email;
• the checklist and the documents listed.
• Your passport (must be valid for at least three months after your planned departure from the Schengen area)
• Photograph (must comply with international standards)
• Your travel health insurance policy
  • You should be covered for at least EUR 30 000, including expenses in connection with repatriation for medical reasons, treatment in medical emergencies and/or emergency hospital treatment, and death
  • Your insurance should be valid in all Schengen countries
  • It should cover the whole of your planned stay in the Schengen area
  • It should as a rule be purchased in your home country. If this is not possible it may be purchased in another country.

The application process will start once all the required documents have been submitted.

Missing documents may delay the application process.

Submit your application and all the required documents to one of the VFS Global Application Centers representing Norway.

• VFS Global Ghana
• VFS Global Cameroon
• VFS Global Côte d’Ivoire
• VFS Global Nigeria – Abuja and Lagos
• VFS Global Senegal

Biometric identifiers

All applicants are required to visit a VFS Application Center in person. You cannot send someone else to submit on your behalf. At that time, the following biometric identifiers of the applicant shall be collected:

• a photograph, scanned or taken at the time of application
• 10 fingerprints from all persons over the age of 12

If you submitted your fingerprints to a Schengen country during the last 59 months, the fingerprints shall be copied to the new application and you are not required to submit fingerprints again. However, you may request to have your fingerprints collected again if you are unsure whether the fingerprints can be reused. If the Embassy is unable to copy your fingerprints from a previous application, you must return to VFS to give your fingerprints again.

Admissibility

If you have lodged the application no later than 15 days and up to 6 months (9 months for seafarers) before your planned departure date, and the application contains

• an application form,
• a travel document,
• a photograph,
• biometric data of the applicant and
• visa fee,

the application is admissible. Please note that in addition to these mentioned basic elements of your visa applications, further requirements of supporting documents must be handed in.

The processing time for applications is normally up to 15 calendar days after the embassy or consulate has received the application. In some cases, applications are sent to the Directorate of Immigration (UDI), and the processing time in these cases may be up to 45 calendar days.

According to Visa Code Art 23 1st paragraph, the normal processing time for a visa application is 15 days. However, according to Visa Code Art 23 2nd paragraph, that period may be extended up to a maximum of 45 calendar days in individual cases, notably when further scrutiny of the application is needed.

The processing time is counted from the day the application is received at the Embassy until the passport is picked up by the VFS courier in Accra. 

For citizens of certain countries, we must consult other Schengen Member States before granting a visa. In the area of resposibility for the Norwegian Embassy in Accra, this applies to Niger, Nigeria and Mali. This process may take up to seven days and applies no matter where you currently live. For further information and to see which other countries such prior consultation applies to, please visit the UDI website. 

Apply well in advance

If you submit your application in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria or Senegal, please allow extra time for shipping to and from the Embassy in Accra. This can take up to a week in each direction. It is recommended to apply at least 4 weeks before the intended departure.

As soon as a decision has been made by the Embassy, the Embassy will hand the passport over to VFS Global in a sealed envelope. Applicants will be notified by e-mail, and SMS if the applicant has opted for this service, when the application is received by VFS Global.

The applicant's passport can be picked up at the Norway Visa Application Centre (VFS Global) where the application was submitted, or it can be delivered by a courier service, if the applicant has opted for this alternative. 

When a visa is granted

If a visa has been granted, a visa sticker will be affixed to the passport.

Please check the following information on the visa sticker:
- That name and surname is correctly spelled 
- The visa's period of validity
- Permitted number of entries
- Permitted duration of stay
- Passport number

Your stay in the Schengen area cannot exceed the number of days in the “duration of stay” field in the visa sticker. However, when we issue a Schengen-visa, we will add 15 days to the validity of the visa to allow you some flexibility regarding when to enter and exit the Schengen area, but the total number of days you are allowed to stay in the Schengen area remains the same.

If there is an error on the visa sticker, please contact the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Accra.

When a visa is rejected - Appeal

If your application for a visa is rejected, you will receive a letter stating the reason for the rejection and how you can appeal the decision. The appeal must be signed by the applicant, a lawyer or a person you have authorised to represent you. You can find information about Power of Attorney / Authorisation and the Power of Attorney form on the UDI website. 

Please note that you must appeal within three weeks from the date you were notified about the decision or from the date on which you should have obtained knowledge of the decision. In most cases, this is the date you received the decision or when you were notified that you could pick up the decision. 

If your application was rejected by the Royal Norwegial Embassy in Accra, the appeal must be submitted to the Embassy by e-mail (visa.accra@mfa.no) or letter/courier. Please write "Appeal" in the subject field when using e-mail. See the rejection letter for more information. 

If an application was rejected by the Directorate of Immigration (UDI), the appeal must be sent to the UDI by uploading the documents on their website.

More information about the appeal process and processing times can be found on the UDI website.

You can submit service complaints to VFS or the Embassy regarding conduct of staff or the application process. Service complaints to the Embassy can be submitted in the same way as an appeal. Please write "Service Complaint" in the subject field. See the website of VFS Global to submit a service complaint to them.

When you cross the border into the Schengen area, you will have to present:

• your passport with the visa sticker
• proof that you have enough money to support yourself during your stay (e.g. cash or a credit card). If you have a guarantee form, you should also bring a copy of this with you.
• documentation showing the purpose of your visit, such as an invitation, hotel reservation, etc.
• a return or round trip ticket if you are visiting the Schengen area for tourist purposes or private reasons

You may be asked to provide fingerprints by the border control officer, in which case these will be compared with the fingerprints provided when you applied for your visa.
As long as your visa is valid, you can travel around freely in the Schengen area, or in the specific Schengen countries covered by the visa. If you leave the Schengen area, for example to visit the UK or Svalbard, you will need a multiple entry visa.

According to Visa Code Art 30, holding a visa does not give you an automatic right of entry to the Schengen area. It is therefore recommended that you carry with you copies of the documents which you presented when you applied for the visa.