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My wife has a Schengen visa issued by the Italian consulate in the UK.

It expires at the beginning of December, and as we want to travel to Europe for the Christmas holiday, we were hoping to cancel the current Schengen visa early in order to apply for another one in time.

I have contacted the Italian consulate in London by email, and they have told me that they are unable to do this.

After a quick search online, it seems other people have had more luck cancelling their visas.

So my question is: has anyone cancelled a Schengen visa issued by Italy, and if so - how?

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  • Do you know you can apply for another visa while already in possession of a valid one? The important thing is that the visa dates don't overlap.
    – JoErNanO ♦
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 10:26
  • Thank you for your reply. So are you saying that we can apply for a new Schengen visa while the current one is still valid, as long as our dates of travel are after the current visa has expired? If so, this would contradict what the Italian consulate told me, which is that we are only able to apply for a new Schengen visa the day after the current visa has expired. Am I mis-reading what you are saying, or do you know of another way to solve this problem?
    – David
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 10:48
  • Yes. Basically you can have only one visa at a time, for any given country (or country agglomerate i.e. Shenghen). But nothing stops you from applying for several visas concurrently.
    – JoErNanO ♦
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 10:49
  • Ok. Don't know if it works differently wherever you are or depending on consulate, but was told by the Italian consulate that our application would have to be made the day after the current visa expires
    – David
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 10:53
  • There actually was a question about applying for a Schengen Visa while another is still valid.
    – Karlson
    Commented Nov 6, 2014 at 15:06

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“Unwilling” would be more accurate. They are certainly able to do both, legally speaking.

On applying for a visa before its expiry, cf. article 9 of the Schengen Visa code:

Applications shall be lodged no more than three months before the start of the intended visit. Holders of a multiple-entry visa may lodge the application before the expiry of the visa valid for a period of at least six months.

(An application for a new visa during the validity period of the old visa is only explicitly envisioned for multiple-entry visas – and you haven't specified whether your current visa is a multiple-entry visa or not – but it shows that is indeed possible and the text does not preclude it in other cases either.)

On revoking a visa, cf. article 34:

  1. A visa shall be revoked where it becomes evident that the conditions for issuing it are no longer met. A visa shall in principle be revoked by the competent authorities of the Member State which issued it. A visa may be revoked by the competent authorities of another Member State, in which case the authorities of the Member State that issued the visa shall be informed of such revocation.
  2. A visa may be revoked at the request of the visa holder. The competent authorities of the Member States that issued the visa shall be informed of such revocation.

But of course that's not a very useful information if the consulate won't accept your request. Note that the wording of article 34 suggests another country could do it too, they only have to inform Italy. I am not sure whether you will have much luck convincing another consulate to do this but that could be a solution.

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