Applying for a Schengen Visa in Hong Kong as a Non-Permanent Resident Student

Applying for a Schengen visa in Hong Kong as a non-permanent resident student, especially for Spain, can be a bit of a hassle for many who wish to study in Hong Kong. However, the process is now quite straightforward. Below, I share my experience applying for a Schengen visa in Hong Kong as a non-permanent resident student.

I. Background Information

I am a non-permanent resident student studying in Hong Kong. I have a Hong Kong-Macau Pass with a stay permit and a Chinese passport.

I was scheduled to attend a conference in Portugal this summer. Following the conference, I planned to travel to Spain for a week. My stay in Spain would only be one day longer than my stay in Portugal. According to Schengen visa application guidelines, you should submit your application to the consulate of the country where you will be staying for the majority of your trip. My primary purpose was attending the conference, so logically, I should have applied to the Portuguese consulate. However, the Portuguese consulate in Hong Kong and Macau is located in Macau. The German consulate in Hong Kong handles visa applications for Portugal. After reviewing the list of required documents for the German consulate, I felt that booking flights and accommodation would be very difficult. They required confirmed bookings that were non-cancellable. Therefore, I decided to apply to the Spanish consulate, claiming that my purpose was tourism and that I would be spending more time in Spain.

The Spanish consulate website for Schengen visas:

http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/HONGKONG/hc/ServiciosConsulares/cs_in_hk/Pages/VisadosUniformeSchengen.aspx

II. Online Appointment

Starting June 6, 2016, all applicants are required to make an appointment to submit their application. Online appointment slots are available every 5 minutes. I am not sure if it is because of the summer, but when I made my appointment in late May, I could only find a time slot in late June. Therefore, it is recommended to book an appointment at least one month in advance. You can prepare your documents later.

After successfully booking your appointment, an email will be sent to your email address. You can use this email to modify or cancel your appointment. Though the staff asked me if I had printed the appointment confirmation email, I did not have it printed and it was fine. I think it is more environmentally friendly to avoid printing the confirmation email.

III. Document Preparation

The required documents vary depending on your purpose of travel. As mentioned earlier, I decided to apply for a visa based on tourism in Spain, but I also had to attend a conference in Portugal. The leave letter from my department included both purposes, so I prepared documents for both tourism and the conference, consistent with the leave letter. You can view the required documents for different categories on the link above (see below). However, although the updated date on the list seems recent, there are still some discrepancies between the list and the actual documents required. For example, copies of some documents were not needed.

Spain

1. Application Form

You can download the form from the website and fill it out in English. I found some areas where I had questions:

(1) Date Format. The format for the birth date is clearly stated as “Day-Month-Year”. Other dates, such as the issuing date and expiry date, do not have a specific format requirement. You can either use the same format as the birth date or follow the format on your original document (e.g., “01 JAN 2011”). I chose to follow the format on my original document for the other dates on the application form and there were no issues during submission.

(2) 7. **Current Nationality**. I know the nationality should be filled in as “CHINESE,” but I mistakenly typed in “CHINA.” I was too lazy to fill it out again and there were no issues during submission.

(3) 16. Issuing Authority. Copy the issuing authority from your passport in very small font.

(4) 17. Address and Email. Your address should be consistent with your bank statements and other documents.

(5) 18. Do you live outside your current nationality? I answered “No” and there were no issues during submission.

(6) 31. Hotel Address and Email. **I had three hotel bookings and randomly selected one hotel address in Spain to fill out. There were no issues during submission.**

2. Photograph

White background, 35mm wide x 45mm high, one photograph, to be affixed to the application form.

I had some leftover photos from my previous US visa application. I used scissors to cut them to the required size. The photos were a bit crooked. However, I ended up using a photo taken at the consulate (which was ugly and deformed) instead of the ones I prepared. It probably had nothing to do with the photos I prepared because my friend’s photos, which were neatly prepared, were also not used. They used a photo taken at the consulate instead.

3. Original Passport and Copy

You need to copy the personal information page and previous visa pages of your passport. To be safe, I copied all the visa pages, but only the US and Schengen visa pages were collected. The Japanese and Thai visa pages were not required.

4. Original Hong Kong Identity Card and Copy

You are required to show your original Hong Kong Identity Card before submitting your application. It is mainly used to verify your identity. They also collected a copy of my ID card.

5. Hong Kong-Macau Stay Permit (residence visa) and Copy

It seems like the original Hong Kong-Macau Pass is only used to verify your identity. I copied the personal information page, the mainland stay permit page (light blue), the Hong Kong Immigration Department permit page (red), and the tag page from my first entry (white paper). Only the first and last pages were collected. I think the tag page from your most recent entry would also be acceptable.

6. Travel Insurance and Copy

You need medical insurance with a coverage of at least €300,000. You can purchase this from your credit card issuer or any major insurance company in Hong Kong. I bought mine from Prudential. It cost HK$245.7 for 15 days with a coverage of HK$1,200,000. The confirmation email with English and Chinese explanations is sent by email. You can simply print the confirmation email. In addition to the email, I also printed the detailed policy terms and conditions, with two copies each as required by the document checklist, but they were not collected. Therefore, you only need to prepare one copy of the confirmation email including the coverage overview, and the detailed policy terms and conditions and copies are not needed. I wasted a lot of paper, guilty!

7. Round-trip Air Ticket from Hong Kong

I was careless about the air ticket. I only prepared a copy of the itinerary for the round-trip flight from Hong Kong to Lisbon, Portugal. Because I thought my visa application would be approved, I had already paid for the ticket and it was confirmed. Actually, a booking confirmation is acceptable. You do not need to pay for the ticket.

Although I only prepared the round-trip ticket, I recommend preparing itineraries for inter-city travel in the Schengen area. Train tickets and plane tickets are acceptable, even if you have not paid or the bookings are cancellable.

8. Financial Proof and Copy

Three months of bank statements are enough. They did not collect the copies. At that time, I had approximately HK$30,000 – HK$40,000 in my account. Because the document checklist stated that electronically printed statements were not accepted, I went to the bank to apply for stamped bank statements for the last three months. Banks will not stamp documents that you print yourself. You need to apply for it. It takes 7 working days for them to mail it. Be sure to leave enough time. You will also need to pay HK$50 per month. It’s quite a rip-off! You need to explain to the bank staff the purpose and requirements, such as needing the stamp, otherwise they may mail a document identical to what you printed yourself. You will not be able to tell it was processed by the bank.

My friend was too busy to apply for stamped bank statements. The bank refused to stamp the documents she printed herself. She asked the bank to make a document for her. Although I don’t know exactly what document it was, it was obvious that it was not printed by her. She also submitted her own printed bank statement for the last three months and it was accepted.

9. Hotel Booking Confirmation

Booking confirmations for all hotels during your stay in the Schengen area are accepted, even if they are free to cancel on Booking.com.

10. Leave Letter from School, Copy of Student ID

The leave letter was prepared by the administrative staff of my department and signed by the department chair. My leave letter stated that I was going to Portugal for a conference and to Spain for tourism. Therefore, I also prepared a conference invitation letter, which was also collected.

IV. Application Process

The Spanish consulate is located at Suite 5303, 53rd Floor, Central Plaza. Take Exit A at Wan Chai MTR station and follow the footbridge towards the sea. After you reach the Immigration Department, turn right. The building is Central Plaza.

My appointment was at 9:20 AM. I arrived at the consulate office at 9:00 AM. It is a very small place with only two chairs. Although the appointment interval is 5 minutes online, it actually takes about 20 minutes to collect the documents from each applicant. So, by the time they finished with the applicant who had the 9:00 AM appointment, it was my turn.

The staff member who collected my documents was a middle-aged Hong Kong man. He was very nice. The main thing he questioned me about was my purpose of travel to Europe. He said that my primary purpose was attending the conference and that I should apply to the German consulate. I replied that I heard you should apply to the consulate of the country where you will be staying for the majority of your trip. He still said, “Your main purpose is not tourism, but the conference. I have collected your documents, but if it is not approved by the higher-ups, it will be a waste of your time.” I had nothing to say, so I just stood at the counter, thinking in my heart that my airfare and conference registration fees, nearly HK$10,000, would go down the drain. After a while, he asked me if I had applied to the German consulate. I said no. He checked the appointment schedule for the German consulate on his computer and said that it was too late to apply to Germany now. I did not say anything, still thinking about my airfare and conference registration fees. After a while, he said, “Well, in that case, you don’t have anything in your application materials besides your hotel bookings that shows you are going to Spain. Go back and supplement the travel from Portugal to Spain and within Spain. Train or plane tickets are acceptable. You don’t need to pay for them yet. You can email them to me. Let’s give it a try.”

Then he collected my materials, took my photo, scanned my fingerprints, charged me the fee, and told me how to check the application result. There was a notice on the wall stating that it would take about 7 working days to process the application.

V. Supplementation of Documents

On the way back, I found a ticket agent on Taobao who provided three English-language booking confirmations for the flights. I attached them to the itinerary and emailed them that evening. The subject of the email was “Missing Document Submission”. The content of the email included my name and passport number, consistent with my passport.

VI. Result Query

Visa application result query instructions: http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/HONGKONG/en/InformacionParaExtranjeros/Documents/Visa%20PDF/How%20to%20check%20the%20result%20for%20your%20visa%20application.pdf

I submitted my application on Friday. They do not work on weekends. I checked on Monday and there were no results. I did not check on Tuesday or Wednesday. I checked on Thursday morning and there were results. I took my receipt to collect the visa.

VII. Visa Approval

The same window collects the visa and processes the visa application. My passport was in a small basket behind them. After I received my visa, I realized that it was issued on Tuesday. Considering that I only submitted my supplemental documents on Friday evening, it only took 2 working days for the visa to be issued.

In addition, the date on the visa was 2 days earlier than my arrival date. The departure date was one month later than what I wrote. The duration of stay in the Schengen area was 30 days, twice as long as the 15 days I applied for. This is much more lenient than my previous Schengen visa application to the Swiss consulate in Beijing. Maybe it is because it was my second application. If I had more time, I would really like to stay in Europe a bit longer!

This was my experience applying for a Schengen visa to the Spanish consulate as a student studying in Hong Kong with a Chinese passport. I hope it is helpful!