How a company turned visas to Europe into big business – POLITICO

Skip to main content

Advertisement

POLITICO Pro

Log In

POLITICO Pro

May 28, 2026

4:00 am CET

By

Margot Gibbs,

May Bulman and

Sarasvati Thuppadolla

Storing a backpack for €2.50, receiving an SMS notification for €3.50, scanning application materials for €150, “document verification” for €220 — for visa applicants trying to reach Europe, extra charges can appear at almost every step of the process, levied by a private company they have no choice but to use.

Headquartered in Dubai and majority-owned by private equity firm Blackstone, VFS Global enjoys a near monopoly on outsourced visa processing globally, including for travel to most European countries.

A year-long investigation coordinated by the investigative journalism organization Lighthouse Reports, in partnership with POLITICO and 13 international media partners, found that VFS has generated substantial operating profits from selling “optional” services that are sometimes forced on applicants, even as the EU governments that use it have documented repeated failures in the basic services the company is paid to provide.

Advertisement

The findings are based on inspection and monitoring reports by the European Commission and 22 countries from the EU’s Schengen free-travel zone that were obtained through freedom of information requests; internal correspondence between EU member countries; interviews with 24 current and former VFS employees; the company’s financial statements; and an analysis of receipts from customers in 16 countries.

Together, they show how European governments have outsourced a core state function to a private company that has repeatedly turned visa applications into a lucrative market for add-ons.

Most Western governments outsource visa administration to private companies to collect documents, fingerprints and fees before forwarding applications to consulates for a decision. The companies charge customers a fixed service fee for this work. But VFS has built a highly profitable business around supplemental services: SMS alerts, courier delivery, document scanning, premium lounges and at-home appointments, according to the company’s financial statements and an analysis of customer receipts.

For many applicants, declining these extras is harder than it might sound. Current and former staff in several countries said that employees were pressured to meet sales targets, causing them to sometimes add services to bills without customer consent or persist in trying to convince applicants to buy them.

That is what Vrinda said happened when she arrived 15 minutes late at VFS’s visa center in Pune, India, exhausted after waiting for a taxi in torrential rain and traveling an hour in traffic. The 71-year-old, who uses a walking stick, was applying for a visa to visit her son in Belgium and meet her new granddaughter.

“I explained the situation with the rain, and told [the visa officer] I had problems with my back,” recalled Vrinda, whose name was changed to protect her identity due to concerns over her pending visa application.

Advertisement

But the VFS officer told her she had two choices: Go home and book another appointment, or pay the equivalent of €35 for the company’s “premium service” — roughly the cost of what Vrinda pays for a month’s worth of groceries. “They said no, you can come back another day or pay. I was quite shocked,” she said. “But whatever they told me, I had to follow.”

Vrinda is one of 19 applicants interviewed for this investigation who said they were pushed, misled or left with little practical choice but to pay extra fees to VFS — a practice that was widespread, according to 10 of the former and current staff members interviewed by Lighthouse Reports.

Meanwhile, European governments contracting with VFS have documented the firm’s failure to adequately protect customer data and provide appointment slots within legal limits, according to the internal inspection reports by Schengen governments.

French Ambassador to India Alexandre Ziegler with VFS Global’s Vinay Malhotra after the opening of the French Visa Application Centre in Bangalore in May 2017. | Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images<br>And yet, despite these documented failures, the company has faced limited consequences. Some EU member countries have fined VFS or moved to other providers when contracts expired, but the company has continued to process visas for every EU country except Spain, according to its website.

In a reply to a request for comment, VFS said it operated a “zero tolerance approach to any coercion or misrepresentation” by its staff, and that applicants are “clearly informed … that these [supplemental] services are optional, do not influence visa decisions or processing times, and are priced transparently.”

The company added it was a “world leading, trusted technology and services provider, empowering secure mobility for governments and citizens,” and that its...