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.

• Applicants who are neither nationals or residents of Australia must document that they are legally in Australia and must provide justification for lodging the application at one of the Norwegian application centers (VFS Global) in Australia. Applications will in most cases not be processed for applicants who are in Australia on a tourist or short stay visa.
• If you wish to allow another person, including your reference person, to make enquiries or receive information on your behalf, you must provide a written Power of Attorney. The form for granting Power of Attorney is available for download on UDI's website. 
• A Schengen visa will generally not give the holder right to work in the Schengen area. This includes working remotely for an overseas employer. If travelling for business, it is the visa holder’s responsibility to ensure that the business conducted does not require a work permit.

Please note that it is your responsibility to ensure that all required documentation is provided.  If you do not submit all required documents, the application may be delayed or rejected.

Checklists 

Checklist - Visitor Visa (valid from 15.06.2023)

Checklist - Visit Family of EU/EEA National

Checklist - Seaman/Seafarer

Other forms

Sponsorship form

Invitation letter

Passport

In addition to the original passport, applicants are required to provide copies of both the bio and signature pages and all used pages of the passport.

Travel medical insurance

When applying for a visa, your travel medical insurance must be valid for the days of your intended stay in the Schengen area. If you after issuance of the visa decide to delay your entry to the Schengen area, you are yourself responsible to hold a valid insurance that covers the actual 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:

• It is valid throughout Schengen territory.
• It is valid during the entire period that you will be in Schengen territory.

• The coverage is at least EURO 30.000 for
  • urgent medical care and/or emergency treatment in a hospital,
  • repatriation for medical reasons, and
  • repatriation/assistance in case of death

We will only accept machine-written insurance policies. See the VFS Global website for information about approved insurances.

Supporting documents

According to Visa Code Art 14 the applicant shall present several documents with the application in order for the competent consulate to verify the fulfilment of the conditions for granting a visa.  For detailed description of the document requirements, please refer to the checklist from the VFS Global website.

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 application fee must be paid by credit card online when you register your application. Information regarding the current fee is available on the UDI website.

Please note that once supporting documents have been submitted and the application has been accepted as admissible by the Embassy, the application fee is non-refundable. This also applies if the application is later withdrawn or rejected.

In Australia, applications are received by the external service provider VFS Global. An additional service fee is payable to VFS Global when you hand in your documents.

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.

We will contact you if we need more information. The application process will start once all the required documents have been submitted.

VFS Global, Australia

VFS Global has visa centres in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Appointments are booked online via the VFS Global website.

When you apply for a visa, the application will be sent from VFS Global to the Norwegian embassy in Canberra for processing. 

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.

When further scrutiny of an application is needed and additional documentation is required, the period may be extended up to a maximum of 60 calendar days, in specific cases.

Please note that depending on where you hand in your application, it will take some days from when the case is submitted to the application center until it is received at the embassy. If we need to request further documentation from you, the processing time may be longer.

Applications for Schengen visas may be submitted up to six months prior to intended entry to the Schengen area. The embassy strongly recommends that you submit your application as early as possible.

All cases are considered individually to see if the conditions for a visa are fulfilled. To read more about the conditions that must be fulfilled in order to be granted a visa, please refer to the webpage of UDI in Norway here: Want to apply: Visits and holidays - UDI and select your nationality and the purpose of your visit.

As soon as a decision has been made by the embassy, we will send the passport with the decision in a sealed envelope to the VFS center where you applied. VFS will notify you as agreed when you submitted the application.

You may pick up your passport and visa/rejection letter at the VFS Global visa application centre where the application was submitted. Alternatively, you may organise and pay for a courier to collect the passport from the VFS Hub in Canberra. If you opted to provide a self-addressed pre-paid envelope with your application, VFS Global will send the passport to you directly.

If approved

Your visa will be issued in accordance with the provided itinerary and insurance. The visa sticker will be placed in your passport. Please check the validity period, the duration and number of entries specified on the sticker.

• Duration of stay

  Your stay in the Schengen area cannot exceed the number of days in the “duration of stay” field in the visa sticker.

• Period of validity

  For most visas 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. This means that the period of time between “from...until...” in the visa sticker will be 15 days longer than the number of days printed in the “duration of stay” field. No matter how many days you have stayed in the Schengen area, you must leave no later than the date printed in the “UNTIL” field.

If rejected

You will receive a written decision letter explaning why your application was rejected.

You can appeal the decision. It will be stated in the rejection letter how and where you should send the appeal. Please note that appeals must be submitted within three weeks from the date on which notification of the decision has reached you or from the date you have or should have obtained knowledge of the decision.

If your appeal is granted, you will be required to re-submit your original passport to enable the embassy to issue the visa sticker.

For more information about appeals, please see the UDI website Appealing a decision.

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.

Please note that your short-stay visa is a requirement for, but does not automatically entitle you to enter the Schengen area.