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I hold Kuwaiti passport, and will be in London until mid June on personal matter. I plan to travel for tourism in summer to Europe, and I'm wondering if I can apply for Schengen as Kuwaiti on tourist visa in London.

Are there any embassies that accept such conditions?

Thing is, if I don't while in London, it may be hard to get visa from Kuwait during summer as it gets too crowded.

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2 Answers 2

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I don't know how diligent each and every consulate is in enforcing this rule but in principle you should not be able to do that. Here is article 6 of the Schengen Visa Code:

Consular territorial competence

  1. An application shall be examined and decided on by the consulate of the competent Member State in whose jurisdiction the applicant legally resides.
  2. A consulate of the competent Member State shall examine and decide on an application lodged by a third-country national legally present but not residing in its jurisdiction, if the applicant has provided justification for lodging the application at that consulate.

Point 2 provides a bit of leeway and point 1 could theoretically allow you to submit your application elsewhere and have it forwarded to the proper consulate but I am not aware of any Schengen countries offering this. To the best of my knowledge, you must generally be a resident in the UK to apply to one of the consulates there.

Also note that visa applications for virtually all Schengen countries in London are handled by third-party outsourcing companies like VFS Global or TLS Contact. As a regular tourist, your application won't even reach the relevant consulate.

I haven't check them all but the websites from the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, Spain or Poland all contain language to that effect.

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  • But what is the definition of "legally resides" as applied to a homeless person?
    – WGroleau
    Commented Sep 13, 2016 at 0:29
  • @WGroleau Don't think it makes any difference, it's meant to exclude people who are present in the country illegally.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Sep 13, 2016 at 6:01
  • Understand. But if I must go to the consulate in whose district I reside, where do I reside? Where I am at the particular moment?
    – WGroleau
    Commented Sep 13, 2016 at 11:01
  • @WGroleau It depends on the country and on your situation. If you are a citizen, the consulate might not require any proof that you reside somewhere so you might effectively be free to apply anywhere in the country. Some countries have registration systems so you might need to provide a proof of registration with an address in the relevant consular district. And if you are not a citizen, you will often need to present some form of long-stay visa or residence permit.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Sep 13, 2016 at 12:27
  • Sounds like I need to either just go to a consulate and see what happens, or start a new question with more detail.
    – WGroleau
    Commented Sep 13, 2016 at 14:05
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Whether you can apply for a Schengen visa in London depends on the rules and conditions of the embassy that will be issuing the visa. And which embassy to choose depends on the "main country" of your planned travel.

So first find out which is the main country of your travel, then find the website of the respective embassy, and then look at the rules on their website.

By the way: you didn't state in your question whether you hold a UK residence permit. If you do, most embassies will allow you to apply.

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  • Sorry, missed that. No, I'm just tourist not resident.
    – Bashar Abdullah
    Commented May 6, 2015 at 18:12
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    anecdotal: I was able to do this for a French visa, but I needed my UK residence permit to do so (I was a student). A residence permit, for the French application process in London, is required.
    – la femme cosmique
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 12:09

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