The Visa Empire: Borders as a Business - Lighthouse Reports

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The Visa Empire: Borders as a Business

NEWSROOM: BORDERS

Co-published with

Kash Tembo

CREDITS

Margot Gibbs, May Bulman, Maud Jullien, Tomas Statius, Eva Constantaras, Charles Boutaud, Sarasvati Nagesh Thupadolla, Ruben Nyanguila, Klaas van Dijken, Sidy Yansané, Azil Momar Lo, Jean-Baptiste Léni, Lyas Hallas, Jéremie Baruch, Gong Jue, Ngina Kirori, Andrew Thompson, Sandeep K Singh, Nirbhay Thakur, Ritu Sarin, Steffen Ludke, Almut Cieschinger, Serafin Reiber, Innocent Duru, Kemal Göktaş, Canan Coşkun, Sebnem Arsu, Elly Millican, Kash Tembo

May 28, 2026

Outsourcing giant VFS Global has made huge profits by exploiting people around the world whose ‘weak’ passports require them to apply for visas to travel

Most European citizens will never have heard of VFS Global. Accustomed to visa-free travel, they have probably never had to queue at one of its application centres, pay its service charges or navigate its complex appointment booking systems.

But across much of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the visa outsourcing giant has become notorious. For people in these regions seeking to travel for work, study or to unite with family, VFS is often their first encounter with the border. And for many, this entails not only the stress and uncertainty of restrictive visa regimes, but also being compelled to hand over cash for what should be optional services — sales that have become central to the VFS Global’s growth.

Since its founding in 2001, VFS has grown into a multi-billion-dollar company whose owners include a major donor to Donald Trump and Dubai’s ruling family. It now holds visa outsourcing contracts with 71 governments worldwide. While applicants are charged a mandatory service fee, VFS has built an adjacent business around selling add-ons such as SMS updates, courier return services and access to premium lounges.

A year-long investigation by Lighthouse Reports, in collaboration with 14 media outlets, has found that VFS has created a system of aggressive – and at times dishonest – upselling. Staff are typically paid low base salaries and awarded bonuses contingent on meeting monthly sales targets for value added services, creating perverse incentives to sell.

Sales of these services have been key to the company’s growing profitability, which has increased fourfold in recent years, and have helped drive huge profits for its investors, our analysis shows.

We also found evidence that customers are exposed to bribery at the hands of both external agents and sometimes VFS staff, as well as repeated mishandling of personal data, amounting to what experts described as "manifestly serious violations of the GDPR". Internal documents show that contracting governments know about these violations, but rarely take robust action.

Drawing on hundreds of internal EU documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, as well as financial statements, analysis of customer receipts and interviews with dozens of former VFS employees, this investigation reveals how governments have offloaded a core state function to a company that treats would-be would-be workers, students and tourists as a captive market to be exploited.

VFS said that “any suggestion that VFS Global’s financial growth has been generated through improper conduct is false”.

METHODS

EU member states are required under EU law to closely and regularly monitor outsourced visa service providers such as VFS. Through Freedom of Information requests we obtained inspection and monitoring reports of visa service providers by 22 countries from the EU’s Schengen free-travel zone that have contracts with VFS, as well as dozens of EU documents evaluating member states’ application of the Schengen laws, including the outsourcing of visa processing to companies including VFS. We obtained leaked reports from the European Commission’s own diplomatic service which revealed EU governments are aware of consistent deficiencies in VFS’s service. Diplomatic sources confirmed they were aware of these problems.

We interviewed dozens of current and former VFS staff across several countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to gain insight into the company’s sales practices that push applicants to buy value added services. They told us workers are typically paid low base salaries, with bonuses tied to meeting monthly targets for sales of additional services, creating huge pressure to meet these targets.

By analysing financial statements of VFS and its subsidiaries around the world we were able to understand the role of value added service to the business. Its consolidated financial statements in Luxembourg showed that its revenues increased out of proportion to the number of visa applications it processed, that its profits had increased fourfold between 2017 and 2024, and that the company consistently attributed its profitability, and its future growth, to sales of value added services. Accounts...