Visa requirements for passports and marriage certificates
One of the Schengen visa requirements is to have at least two blank pages in the passport for visas. So if there are no blank pages for visas in your passport, you should either renew your passport or apply for a new one. It may be a problem to get a new passport because it can take up to 4 months for some nationalities. So what can be done if you have run out of visa pages but you still need to go to Europe either for business or holiday? According to our experience, there are two solutions to this problem.
Some passports (for example Ukrainian, Turkish, South African have a few pages for endorsements at the end of the passport apart from pages for visas. We would advise you to contact your consulate to ask them to allow the endorsement page to be used as a visa page. Normally the consulate will put a stamp on a page for endorsement which says "visa" and it means this page is released to be used as a visa page.
One of the most frequent issues is that your name in the passport differs from your name on other documents, for example, marriage certificate, hotel booking, ticket or insurance.It may happen due to misspelling or if you changed your name. If your name is spelt incorrectly on your tickets, hotel booking or bank statements, you can contact the ticket office, your hotel or bank and they will correct the mistake. It is quite easy to correct your misspelt name on a British marriage/birth certificate - you just need to contact your registry office which issued the document and inform them about the mistake. It does not take long, in most cases it takes one day. If the document was issued in another country, but not in the UK, you should contact the consulate of that country for advice.
Other requirements that can cause delay in your visa application include certification of documents issued in countries other than UK or languages other than English and the language of the Schengen country you are planning to visit. If you hold a marriage certificated issued in Thailand and you are submitting your visa application for a French Schengen visa, first you need to get your marriage certificate translated into English or French by a notary service, then legalised/attested/certified by the Thai Consulate in the UK. Another example: if you got married in Bangladesh and you are applying for a Schengen visa at the German consulate, your marriage certificate must be translated either in English or German. Please note that marriage certificates of some countries (Pakistan, Ethiopia) are required to be sent to the country where they were issued which may take a few weeks, so allow enough time for the whole process so that you do not have to postpone or cancel your booked trip if you do not get your documents ready in time.
We would advise you to start your preparation for Schengen visa application by checking your passport, marriage certificate and birth certificate if visa is required for children.
Some passports (for example Ukrainian, Turkish, South African have a few pages for endorsements at the end of the passport apart from pages for visas. We would advise you to contact your consulate to ask them to allow the endorsement page to be used as a visa page. Normally the consulate will put a stamp on a page for endorsement which says "visa" and it means this page is released to be used as a visa page.
One of the most frequent issues is that your name in the passport differs from your name on other documents, for example, marriage certificate, hotel booking, ticket or insurance.It may happen due to misspelling or if you changed your name. If your name is spelt incorrectly on your tickets, hotel booking or bank statements, you can contact the ticket office, your hotel or bank and they will correct the mistake. It is quite easy to correct your misspelt name on a British marriage/birth certificate - you just need to contact your registry office which issued the document and inform them about the mistake. It does not take long, in most cases it takes one day. If the document was issued in another country, but not in the UK, you should contact the consulate of that country for advice.
Other requirements that can cause delay in your visa application include certification of documents issued in countries other than UK or languages other than English and the language of the Schengen country you are planning to visit. If you hold a marriage certificated issued in Thailand and you are submitting your visa application for a French Schengen visa, first you need to get your marriage certificate translated into English or French by a notary service, then legalised/attested/certified by the Thai Consulate in the UK. Another example: if you got married in Bangladesh and you are applying for a Schengen visa at the German consulate, your marriage certificate must be translated either in English or German. Please note that marriage certificates of some countries (Pakistan, Ethiopia) are required to be sent to the country where they were issued which may take a few weeks, so allow enough time for the whole process so that you do not have to postpone or cancel your booked trip if you do not get your documents ready in time.
We would advise you to start your preparation for Schengen visa application by checking your passport, marriage certificate and birth certificate if visa is required for children.
