Visitor’s visa and residence permit

Finland represents Norway for Schengen visa applications in Hong Kong and Sweden represents Norway in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Norway represents Denmark for residence permits in the Republic of Korea. Applicants in Macao can use the application centers in Hong Kong. 

You should submit your application to the correct application center depending on where you live and whether you are applying for a Schengen visa or a residence permit.

You can apply for a Schengen visa provided that you are legally in a country, but in order to apply for a residence permit in Norway you have to have a permit for the last six months in order to be able to apply from the country where you are residing.

You should be able to find an appointment within 3 working days. 

If there are problems with the booking of appointments, please contact VFS. 

VFS does not have the authority to refuse to accept your application if you wish to submit it. 

Applications sent by mail/courier service are not accepted and will be returned without processing. 

If you are several people applying together and cannot get an appointment at the same time, contact VFS to arrange this.

When contacting VFS, please mention the applicant’s full name, DOB and passport number. If an application has already been submitted, please also include the VFS reference number when contacting VFS. The VFS reference number is not used by the Embassy or UDI.

Some applicants who do not need a Schengen visa may apply for a residence permit after travelling to Norway. Check this link whether you qualify.

For questions or queries regarding visa applications, please contact the visa application center where you intend to submit your application: 

When contacting VFS, please mention the applicant’s full name, DOB and passport number. If an application has already been submitted, please also include the VFS reference number when contacting VFS. The VFS reference number is not used by the Embassy or UDI.

VFS will reply to e-mails within 24 hours. 

People who have questions about residence cases should contact the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), which processes such applications.

How to contact UDI about residence cases

If you cannot call international numbers, you can instead call the switchboard of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Beijing both when the Embassy is open and closed, and choose extention 3 to be transferred to UDI free of charge. UDI is open from 10 am to 2:30 pm Central European Time Monday to Friday except Wednesdays, when the call center of UDI is closed. 

Sending an e-mail with multiple recipients creates delays, as it causes doubts as to whom the mail is addressed to and who is responsible for following up. Frequently such e-mails are also blocked by the spam filter, particularly when sending repeated e-mails about the topic. When contacting the Embassy, the Visa Section should be the sole recipient and e-mails should be addressed to the Visa Section as a whole, not to individual staff members. 

The Embassy will reply to e-mails regarding visas within maximum 7 days and other inquiries within maximum 14 days. It is not necessary to resend e-mails or follow up with phone calls.

For Danish residence cases, please contact Danish Immigration Authorities.

It is not necessary to register a new application in the application portal if a mistake is discovered in the first registration. Just correct it on the printed form and inform VFS when you submit the documents, and the Visa Section will update the information during the registration process. 

If the information or documentation you have submitted changes before a decision has been made, you can send the updated information/documentation to the Visa Section to be included in your application. 

If the plans change after the decision has been made, it is necessary to apply again with the new documentation to change the visa. 

Visas are issued with a 15 days period of grace, which makes it possible to postpone the visit up to 2 weeks and still travel the same number of days, without applying for a new visa, but it is not possible to stay more than the number of days mentioned in the visa sticker without applying with new documentation for the prolonged visit. 

Applicants with passports that do not require a visa to travel to Schengen, will get their passport returned immediately after the Embassy has registered the application. 

If a visa is required, the Embassy will keep the passport until the application has been processed. 

Applicants may request that the passport be returned during the processing, but in such cases, the applicant must pay both a courier fee to return the passport to the Embassy in Beijing when a visa is to be issued and a courier fee back to the applicant. 

Applicants in need of a visa who know at the time of submission that they need the passport back sooner than the visa or residence permit processing time, should notify VFS staff about the date they need their passport back. 

Applicants who did not inform VFS about the early return of their passport, should send an e-mail to the visa section to get the passport returned before the processing is finalized.

To find out where the passport is, please use the VFS tracking

Previously a stamp was placed in passports at the time of accepting the application as admissible. This stamp is no longer in use and does not have any legal implications. 

If you want someone to help you in connection with your application, you must authorise this person to do so. Please visit the UDI website for more information and the relevant form. Only the person who needs the visa or someone with a written power of attorney will be given information about a specific case.

If the e-mail address used when registering the application does not belong to the applicant, it will not be used for personal information about the individual case without a written power of attorney to the person whose e-mail it is. 

The rejection letter will explain how to send an appeal: 

The appeal has to be set forward within three weeks from the receipt of the rejection letter.

The appeal must be signed by the applicant or the holder of the power of attorney.

The appeal should mention the grounds on which the appeal is based and any other information of importance to the hearing of the appeal.

The appeal should be uploaded to the UDI Website. 

The Embassy will review your appeal. If no grounds to reverse the decision are found, the case will be sent to the Directorate of Immigration.

As soon as a decision has been made, the applicant will be notified. Until the decision is made, the case is under processing and no status updates are given.

The processing time for appeals can be found in the overview of the waiting time for applications according to the type of application. 

Refunds are only possible before the application has been submitted to VFS. 

Requests for a refund should be directed to the Embassy in Beijing with a copy of the receipt from the application portal. 

The Embassy in Beijing can only refund fees that have been paid to the Embassy. If the fee was paid to another mission or to the police in Norway, the applicant needs to ask that office for the refund.