It depends on three things: your nationality, your destination, and why you are going. A U.S. passport gets visa-free tourist access to most of Europe, the Americas and much of Asia, but almost every country requires a visa for work, study or residence regardless of nationality. Look up your destination on this site and read the purpose that actually matches your trip, not just the tourist row.

A visa is permission to travel to a border and ask to be admitted. A residence permit is permission to live somewhere. For long stays the visa is usually just the entry document, and you must apply for the permit within days or weeks of arriving. Missing that deadline is one of the most common ways a successful application falls apart after approval.

Across almost every long-stay category: your FBI Identity History Summary, your birth certificate, your marriage certificate if a spouse is involved, your diploma for study and skilled work routes, and any notarised letter, affidavit or power of attorney. Short tourist visas usually need none. The critical routing rule is that the FBI check is a federal record authenticated by the U.S. Department of State, while vital records are apostilled by the Secretary of State of the issuing state.

If your destination is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, an apostille is the whole chain and it is recognised as-is. If it is not, you need consular legalisation, which means domestic authentication followed by a stamp from that country embassy. Every country page on this site states which applies, and the difference is weeks of time and a materially different cost.

Short-stay visas are typically decided in about 15 calendar days once you are seen, and can extend to 45 in complex cases. Long-stay and residence visas run from one to six months. The part people underestimate is everything before the decision: appointment availability, document lead times, and authentication. Build the schedule backwards from the appointment, not forwards from today.

No, and the definition of work is broader than most people expect. Several countries treat remote work performed on their soil for a foreign employer as work, and some retirement and non-lucrative visas prohibit it explicitly. If you will be earning while you are there, find the category that permits it rather than hoping the question does not come up.

In the Schengen area you may be present for no more than 90 days in any rolling 180-day period, counted across the whole zone rather than per country, with entry and exit days both counting. It rolls forward daily rather than resetting. Since the Entry/Exit System became fully operational in April 2026 the count is automatic and biometric.

For a straightforward tourist visa, no. The forms are free and the official portals are usable. Agencies genuinely earn their fee on complex long-stay files, on countries that require a local representative by law, and on document authentication, which has real routing rules and unforgiving deadlines. Be wary of any site that charges for a free government form or claims privileged access to appointments.

Get the written reason first. Most refusals are fixable paperwork, and re-applying with a corrected file is usually faster and more effective than appealing. Where the finding is substantive, you need genuinely new evidence rather than the same application resubmitted. And disclose the refusal on every future application anywhere, because concealing it is treated far more seriously than the refusal itself.