Welcome
Digitalisation of the national visa procedure from 1 January 2025
The Consular Services Portal is being launched worldwide today, 1 January 2025, enabling people around the world to submit applications for German visas online. The course was set for this change over two years ago. What started with one visa application and three pilot visa sections will now become digital reality at all 167 visa sections at German missions around the world. 28 categories of national visa can now be applied for online.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock commented as follows:
Every year, Germany is short of at least 400,000 skilled workers. 400,000 clever minds and even more agile hands to keep our country running – in the skilled crafts sector, in the care sector, in tech companies. Our national economy is also in a global competition to attract trainees, apprentices and students.
At times like these, we cannot afford to downright put the best off coming here to roll up their sleeves because of long paper application forms and even longer waiting periods. At times like these, as one of the biggest economies and as a modern country of immigration, we need a national visa process that is state-of-the-art – modern, digital and secure.
And that is exactly what the Consular Services Portal is. From now on, it will be available at all 167 of Germany’s visa sections worldwide, providing digital services. Over the last two and a half years, in a comprehensive and long overdue structural reform, we have paved the way and entirely revamped the old visa process. We are now at last bringing Europe’s most modern immigration law into the digital era.
The online visa application process is a real administrative revolution that both craft businesses and major companies have been calling for for a long time. It will strengthen Germany as a business location.
Whether you want to work or study in Germany, whether you want to do a training course or join other members of your family, you can now apply for these national visas from any visa section in the world online via the Consular Services Portal. This will cut out postal deliveries and reduce long waits for appointments. Following a pilot phase, in four cycles, the Federal Foreign Office linked all other visa sections to the Consular Services Portal, digitalising the relevant visa applications for employment, studies, training and family reunification.
The digitalisation of the visa process will continue even after the global roll-out: we want to make it possible for families, groups and authorised representatives to submit joint online applications.