German (Schengen) visa application from UK with UK visa valid less than 90 days

Question

I am an Indonesian citizen currently working in the UK. My wife and I will be applying for a Schengen visa at the German embassy for attending scientific seminar and a little bit of extra days for sightseeing in Germany. My wife (currently not employed in the UK, she is my dependant) will be accompanying my for the whole trip.

Now, in the requirement on the German embassy website, my current visa in the UK (Tier 2 General) has to be valid at least 90 days after my return date from the trip to Germany. This is not the case for me since my UK visa expiration date is only 2 months after my planned return date to the UK. However, I have been given a 2-year contract extension from my employer, but I can only apply for my UK visa extension 3 months before its expiration date, so there is no time for me to extend my UK visa before I apply for a Schengen visa.

I have asked my employer for a letter to confirm my contract extension, and mention that my UK visa can be extended only 3 months before its expiration date, no earlier.

Is the letter above sufficient for the German embassy so that they will consider our visa application, or is this 90 days rule is a hard requirement?

Has anyone experienced this situation?

Thanks!!

Answer 1

The Schengen rules allow the German consulate to consider your application if you convince them that there is a good reason why you couldn't have applied for the visa in Indonesia instead.

One of the standard "good reasons" listed in the consular visa handbook (pp. 23-25) is if the need to travel to the Schengen area arose only after you left your home country and you can't reasonably be expected to travel back to make an application.

So there seems to be an excellent reason why you could get your application processed -- whether it will work in practice is hard to say and may depend on whether the consular worker who sees your application first has a bad day or not.

Your wife has less of a good reason, but there's a reasonable chance that you having a good reason might be enough.

Make as good an application as you can and hope for the best.