Passport requirements for a Schengen visa. General requirements for documents for obtaining a visa to the Schengen country

Every tourist who wants to go to must be familiar with the passport requirements for a Schengen visa. This will help him, if necessary, take steps to extend the validity of his passport.

You need to figure out what a Schengen visa looks like. The procedure provides for its obligatory gluing into a foreign passport.

As for the appearance of a visa, it is universal, regardless of which country or Consulate issued permission for its issuance.

It is a small rectangular card, which is dominated by pink and green colors.

A visa in a foreign passport includes the following elements:

Passport ID.
Photo. It is unacceptable to use a photo in which a person is depicted with accessories or in a headdress, for example, in a hat. Check out .
Permission type. There are 3 main types of permit: A, D and C. Permit A is issued in case of transit movement of a person, permit C - in case of business or tourist trips, and permission D is granted when a person goes to study or work.
Date of issue.
Effective date. The date of issue of the document may not coincide with the date of commencement of its validity. You need to pay attention to this date, because until a certain time the visa may be invalid.
The scope of the document.
The address where it was issued. Be sure to indicate the city and address of the embassy.
Date of issue.
Number of possible entries into the European Union.
The exact number of days a person can spend in the EU. It is worth paying attention to the fact that this number of days does not have to coincide with the date until which the document is valid. That is, for example, a visa can be valid for 25 days, and a person can stay in the EU for 10 days.
Receiver name.
Purpose of the trip. It can be tourism, business, arrival by invitation, etc.
Visa number. Before the numbers, you can see 2 letters, which are the country code.
Signature of the consul, as well as the seal of the embassy.
Other information: document issue number, country of destination, state in which the passport was issued, surname, etc.

As for the last point, service information, special devices are used to read it.

The filling language can be national or English. All words, except Wiza, are written in Latin.

Is it possible to travel to the EU with an old passport

The visa in the old passport may be valid for entry into some countries, for example, Latvia.

If a person's passport is canceled, but he wants to come to this country, then he will do it. However, this is not possible in all cases. The main requirement is that the Schengen visa in the old passport must be valid.

What are the requirements for a foreign passport for a Schengen visa?

These requirements can be found in the EU Visa Code. Consider the main ones:

When a passport is handed over to the Consulate, it should not be in the cover. It is also recommended to ensure that no papers are enclosed in it.

What to do when your passport expires

It is important to pay attention to this issue in advance in order to replace it in a timely manner. old document on new. However, in some cases it is possible to cross the border even with an old passport.

The consulate can make concessions if a person has died one of his family members, and he urgently needs to travel to his destination for the funeral.
It is possible to use an old document for entry into the EU when applying for a long-term permit. But even in this case, a person is obliged to issue a new passport as soon as possible.

If a foreigner is abroad and the validity of his document expires, he must contact the Consulate of his state as soon as possible. This must be done in order to avoid a number of problems that may arise while crossing the border.

Rules for "reading" a Schengen visa

This document contains a number of information that allows you to get information about its owner, terms, as well as the procedure for issuing it.

How to find out in which state a visa permit was obtained

The easiest way is to see what language the text on the document is written in. But since there is a pluralism of languages, not everyone will be able to identify the country in which the visa was issued by text. Therefore, there is another, simpler method: you need to pay attention to the abbreviation located in the upper right corner of the document. This is the country code.

If a person finds it difficult to determine the country even after he paid attention to this code, he can apply for help to the Visa Code of the European Union. All codes are there.

But also the full name of the country on its national language indicated at the bottom of the document.

How to find out the document type

In most cases, a document of category “C” is issued, that is, with it a person has the right to stay in the Schengen zone for some time, or rather, from several days to 3 months.

What is visa coding

This encoding is at the bottom of the document. To read it, use a special device. This code is a set of letters and numbers.

A person can independently decipher the code for himself if he turns to the Visa Code. The encoding consists of two lines, each of which contains certain information.

The first line contains the following data:

Title of the document. It starts with the letter "V".
Code of the country from which permission to issue the document was obtained. It consists of three letters.
The type of visa represented by a letter, such as category "C".
Surname of the owner on the passport.
Name of the owner on the passport.

The second line contains the following data:

Document number consisting of 9 digits.
Control character from a single character.
Another checkmark.
The nationality of the owner, represented by 3 letters.
Date of birth in the following order: the last 2 digits are the year of birth, then the month and day.
The expiration date of the visa is indicated by six digits.
The third control sign.
The territory where the visa is valid. In the event that the zone is limited, this is indicated by the letter "T".
The number of allowed entries in the country of destination.
Length of stay in the country of destination, which is indicated by two digits.
The date that indicates the start of the visa. Specifies the day and month.

On this moment An ordinary Russian who intends to travel abroad must have two passports: a civil one and a foreign one. Some states, for example, Belarus, refused such duality: the citizens of this power - single passport suitable for both domestic use and overseas travel.

Rather standard requirements are imposed on the civil passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation: for a trip abroad, it must be valid, that is, it must correspond to the parameters that are relevant for internal use. Usually it is required to submit photocopies of its pages (all or some), sometimes the original is required for verification.

If we are talking about a passport, then the requirements for it are more stringent, because it is the main document proving the identity of the traveler during the trip. It should be presented at the first word of the police and immigration officials. And, of course, you can’t do without it when applying for a Schengen visa and crossing the border.

Passport requirements in the light of the provisions of the EU Visa Code

The international passport in the EU Visa Code (in its official translation into Russian) is called a "travel document", which brings some confusion into the heads of ordinary travelers. The fact is that this is a fairly broad term: in this case, a travel document can be a service and diplomatic passport, and other similar certificates. In addition, in many official sources passport is called travel document and travel document. Therefore, be careful in this matter: travel documents are not tickets!

The foreign passport of a Russian receiving a Schengen visa must have a certain period of validity and meet a number of parameters.

The travel document must have an appropriate appearance, not be dirty, deformed, unreadable. That is, if you mistakenly stretched it in the car, it is better to immediately go for a new one.
The passport must be obtained no earlier than 10 years before applying for a visa.
The travel document must be valid, and its validity must expire no earlier than 3 months after the expected end of the trip (visa corridor is taken into account).
The passport must have at least 2 free pages for gluing visa stamps. However, some states require that the entire spread be left blank, not the sheet on both sides. If a child travels with a parent, whose data is entered in the adult's passport, it is required that free pages are available for his visa. For each child who has reached the age of 6, in this case, a photo must be pasted. However, some European states require pasting photos of children of any age.
Every child over the age of 14 is required to obtain their own passport. But personal travel document you can have from any age: it is not prohibited. Moreover, some missions are gradually abandoning the practice of entering the child's data in the parent's passport altogether.

When applying to 101visa for a Schengen visa, be sure to check your passport. If it does not meet the above requirements, please inform our specialists: they will help you get a new travel document as soon as possible!

To obtain a Schengen visa, you need a passport, which is issued in Russia by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Issued by different ministries, they have a different appearance, but their significance and functionality are equivalent to each other.

Primary requirements

The requirements for a passport for a Schengen visa are clearly set out in the EU Visa Code:

The validity of the passport is at least three months from the date of expiration of the pass. That is, if the permit was issued on 08/28/2017, then the passport itself must be valid before 11/28/2017.

Please note that the permit will take effect from the day you indicated as the day of the planned entry into the union. If you have tickets for 05/28/2017, then the permit will be valid from that day. It is from this date that you start when calculating the expiration date of your passport.

Please note that the expiration date of the pass, and the number of days of permitted stay in the Schengen are two different things. For example, you received a permit for six months from 05/20/2017 to 11/20/2017. But during this time you will be allowed to stay in the Union countries for no more than 90 days. And if you plan to exhaust the limit during the first three months, before 08/20/2017, then this is still not a valid reason to reduce the requirements for a passport. In this case, it must be valid until 02/20/2018.

Visas are affixed to the passport. To avoid possible problems, consulates do not accept it if it does not have at least two free pages.
The passport must be issued no later than 10 years before the date of application for the Schengen.

If you have expired foreign passports, they must also be provided for a Schengen visa.

Be sure to free the passport from the cover and remove everything superfluous from there before submitting it to the consulate.

What to do if the expiration date

According to the above information, the requirements for a Schengen passport require that it be valid for at least three months from the date the visa expires. To avoid possible inconsistencies - control this issue and worry about receiving a new document in advance.

At the same time, this situation has two significant reservations:

In the event of an urgent need to enter the Schengen area, the consulate may make concessions. For example, if one of the close relatives living in the union died. But this does not mean that you can apply without a valid passport at all. It should be enough at least to enter the Schengen area.

In this case, there is no certain certainty that the consulate will definitely make concessions. It might force you to urgent clearance new document.

The validity period rule is irrelevant when applying for a long-term permit. The only restriction is that the document must be valid for at least three months from the date of expiration of the first visa semester. That is, if the permit was issued from 06/21/2017 to 06/21/2022, then the international passport must be valid until 03/21/2018.

Please note that this clause does not relieve you of the need to replace your passport in a timely manner.

What to do if the document expires while you are abroad? Contact the nearest Russian consulate to apply for a new one.