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Let's say I have Schengen visa issued by Dutch embassy as business visa for business in Holland. Can I fly to Frankfurt and spend some time in Germany and then come to Holland?

I know I can travel to all Schengen countries with this visa, but I am not sure whether I can enter from different country.

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    This is an exact duplicate but @Doc's answer is the best one to date. Could we maybe merge the two questions?
    – Relaxed
    Nov 25, 2013 at 8:19

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Technically the Schengen Visa allows you to enter via any Schengen country.

Officially you are supposed to request a Schengen visa via either the country you intend to first enter the Schengen zone via (in this case, Germany) OR the country in which you intend to spend most of your time (Holland). However in general this rule is not strongly enforced unless the border officials at the country you are entering throught believe that you have specifically requested a visa via a country in order to bypass some form of checks/etc.

Keep in mind that when you fly into the Schengen Area, you pass through immigration in the country where you first land, and further flights after that are basically "domestic" flights. So even though you're saying that you intend to enter via Germany, if you end up flying Air France (for example) you will almost certainly enter Schengen in France, and then catch a domestic flight to Germany, followed by another domestic flight to Holland at a later stage. ie, People enter via different countries than that their visa was issued by all the time, based simply on the airline that they are flying!

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    This answer isn't quite correct. The applicant is not allowed to choose which country to apply to; the choice is made by the operation of the rules. The only room for subjectivity is in the determination of the "main destination." The country of entry is supposed to evaluate the application only if there is no main destination. The main destination may be identified by "length or purpose" of the visit. See Schengen Visa Code, Article 5.
    – phoog
    Jul 15, 2017 at 15:45

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