Destinations
What your consulate actually asks for
Every other site in this category publishes one number per country. We read 9 official sources and found the consulates do not agree with each other, let alone with the number everyone repeats. So we quote them instead.
Three things we found that cost people money. Spain is widely published as 90 days; all four Spanish consulates we read say six months. Portugal genuinely is 90 days, and that is almost certainly where the figure came from before it got copied onto Spain. Germany is widely published as needing an apostilled FBI report; the document usually wanted is a German Führungszeugnis, which you can order yourself for 13 euros.
How we decide what goes on these pages
A fact gets published when we have read it on the consulate’s own site or its own instruction sheet, and we quote the wording so you can check us. If sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than picking the tidier answer. If we cannot find a primary source, the page says so and stays unpublished.
Every claim carries the date we read it. Consulates change their instructions without announcement, and a page dated eighteen months ago is a guess wearing a suit. Ours can go stale too, which is why the date is on it.
We are a courier service and we make money when you order, so treat our advice with the scepticism that deserves. That is exactly why we quote sources instead of asking you to take our word: when the honest answer is that your consulate may not need this document at all, you should be able to see that for yourself.
We will tell you when your consulate changes the rules
Consulates revise their instructions without announcing it. When one of the posts we track changes a window, a fee, or what it asks for, we send a short note saying what changed and what it means. No more than that, and nothing else.
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