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Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than for a conference or business. I have been denied a visa to attend business meetings in a Schengen country despite an explicit invitation from the concerned company registered in that country simply because the consulate couldn't believe that the meetings were scheduled over the span of ten days. They wouldn't even blink at a tourist visa for the same duration.

i_no_can_eat 3y ago
Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?
- brightball 3y ago
  This was my first question
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  On the basis of almost zero relevant knowledge, I would guess that if the conference is paying you to speak (or to do anything else), you'll be in violation of local law, but otherwise you're fine.
- nirbheek 3y ago
  Yes, there are two problems: 1. You are misrepresenting the purpose of your visit and you can get deported and/or barred from entering the country. For example, you can be stopped and asked for your passport at any time (this has happened to me multiple times, even though technically it's against Schengen rules). 2. Visiting for 2-3 days makes sense for a conference, but it makes no sense for a vacation and you will raise flags. This would lead to a request for more information from the consulate plus a delay then a rejection, or just a straight rejection. The dumbest thing is that all this friction is completely unnecessary. The EU can copy the homework of other countries mentioned by the author of the post, but are unable to for unfathomable bureaucratic reasons.
  - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    >Visiting for 2-3 days // Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes. Can you not go to a conference when in holiday? Isn't the difference who is paying - if you pay then it's a holiday, if work pays then it's business. Could work just give you a bonus to cover the amount at some later point? What's the rationale for not allowing business travel but allowing the same people to travel for tourism?
    - gumby 3y ago
      > Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes. Maybe to the Costa Del Sol, but not the lovely city of Melbourne. The overhead of flying from India to Europe makes a 2-3 day holiday pretty unlikely. The flights depart in the middle of the night, and then there is jet lag. > Can you not go to a conference when in holiday? That is immigration fraud. If you’re a white Australian coming to the UK and doing that I seriously doubt there will be any negative consequence (source: an unofficial comment during an unfortunate visit to the Home Office). People in other situations may not fare as well.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        > That is immigration fraud. If you’re a white Australian coming to the UK and doing that I seriously doubt there will be any negative consequence (source: an unofficial comment during an unfortunate visit to the Home Office). People in other situations may not fare as well. Speaking of Australia, it isn’t clear to me at all if the e-visa Americans have to apply for to visit covers conferences or not. It is weird that Americans require a visa to Australia for a short visit (we don’t have a visa waiver agreement for some odd reason), but at least they make it easy, but if it involves a conference…well, I didn’t look into the e-visa terms very closely on my last visit, and very well could have violated visa terms.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      >What's the rationale for not allowing business travel but allowing the same people to travel for tourism? Many countries don't draw the distinction at least for people with the right passport. But to the degree there's a real rationale (beyond possibly charging more for a business visa and red tape), it's probably something along the lines of the boundaries between routine business travel in another country and working in that country are blurrier than in the case of tourism and therefore some countries think it should attract more scrutiny. You're right that I could (and have) attended tech events on my own time and my own dime and that seems like tourism by any reasonable definition but does that fact that I didn't take vacation time and maybe submitted an expense report really fundamentally change that?
- ghaff 3y ago
  Assuming the country in question requires an explicit business visa for you as an $X citizen to attend a conference, it's probably not a good idea to lie--even though you also probably won't get caught. (Many countries don't draw a distinction between tourism and a routine business trip or some combination thereof for at least some passports however.) (And as the sibling comment notes, if you're just dropping in for a quick conference and heading home again, that probably is suspicious as a tourist.)
- pandaman 3y ago
  When you arrive to another country's border you need to state the purpose of your visit to a border control officer. If you say "conference" - you may not be allowed in because your visa is for another purpose, if you say "tourism" you lie to a government officer, which may result in various penalties according to the local laws.
  - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
    I have a question. How does "break local laws" work? I applied to a tourism Visa in say Netherlands or uk for 2 weeks. After 5 days, I attend a "conference" of say 2 hours or something. Is it like the man in the suit sends a call to the home ministry who sends a Hollywood style swat team or the American ice agents to drag you out of the border ?
    - pandaman 3y ago
      More like someone processing your next visa application getting automatically collected data on your previous visits from all kinds of sources public and private and seeing that you lied about your visit the last time.
      - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
        What sources would keep track of foreigners doing private business meetings and conferences?
        arunarunarun 3y ago
        Some of this is also a question of "do you want to take the risk of having an indelible black mark in your travel history?" As an example, the US asks for your travel history (where you went and why) and a list of your social media accounts. It would be trivial to correlate a conference related social media post with a stated reason of tourism and flat that. They might not do this, but I certainly would not want to jeopardise all future travel for that if.
        3y ago
- xenophonf 3y ago
  > is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference? In the U.S.A., lying on a government form is illegal, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001. I can't imagine other countries treating that differently.
  - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    Is it necessarily lying? If you go to a conference for a hobby that's tourism, right?
    - pc86 3y ago
      Very few people speak at conferences as a hobby. Even fewer speak at conferences as hobby about things they get paid for. Even fewer would be legitimately willing to do this if it included an expensive middle-of-the-night flight, jet lag, and a Visa application process.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I've done it. Of course, I didn't travel internationally just for the conference and I didn't need a visa, but I've attended tech conferences on my own--including speaking. Why not? And how many Europeans who attend FOSDEM or Americans who attend Flock (admittedly a lower bar than traveling internationally) are doing so on their own? ADDED: And people with hobbies/interests like, say, medieval history absolutely will attend a conference/event as part of a vacation even if it has zero connection to a day job.
    - arunarunarun 3y ago
      Generally, when you apply for a visa, there's documentation guiding you towards the correct type of visa based on purpose of visit. Everything I've seen buckets conferences under "business visa".
    - xenophonf 3y ago
      That changes the parameters of the hypothetical. Your original hypothetical was explicitly about misrepresenting the purpose of one's visit to a country, which one should not do because that's illegal. *OBVIOUSLY*. Whether attending a conference for a hobby counts as a vacation trip or a business trip would be a question for the destination country's consular affairs office.
- registeredcorn 3y ago
  In addition to the legality issues that others have brought up, I have been asked questions about the details of my trip, which might be intended to weed out people doing the sort of thing you're asking about. "Which hotel are you staying at?" "Do you have an itinerary? Can I see it?" "Why are you coming here?" (With a weird intonation of something like, why would anyone come here to vacation? It's so boring here!") "What do you plan on doing while you're here?" "Are you meeting anyone?" "How do you plan to get back?" Etc. I think more often than not, the people asking probably don't even care about what your actual answer is, but want to see how you react to those questions, and if the answers make basic logical sense. I.e. "I'm vacationing for 2 weeks, but don't have a hotel.", or "I'm meeting friends and family at my vacation house, but I have never been here before." A person might not remember the address of their hotel for example, but they'll be able to give a general description without freaking out, "It's a Hilton in Albany, I don't remember which." I would imagine that they're trying to distinguish between the natural nervousness that people have with interacting with border guards, vs people who are trying to do various illegal activities. As a fun little sidenote: I actually got tripped up by a guard one time because he asked a weirdly phrased question, "Is this your vehicle?" I took that to mean, "Is this vehicle stolen?", so I told him "Yes, it is mine." (...because I had paid to rent it). He asked why the plates didn't match my drivers license. I explained that it was a rental, and he got very angry and said, "Well I guess it isn't YOURS then, huh!?" I didn't realize you could answer "Rental" to strictly Yes or No question! It was such a weird way of phrasing the question, because if I were to say, "No, this isn't my vehicle." the logical follow-up question would have been, "Why are you driving someone else's vehicle? Where are they? Why aren't they driving it!?"
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    For what it's worth, a common technique in those sorts of scenarios is that the questions asked don't really matter, what they are looking for is nervousness and evasive behavior. Don't read too much into why are they asking a specific question; they mostly want you to talk to gauge your mental state, with the idea that many people get nervous if they're committing a crime and made to talk to authority.
distant_hat 3y ago
This is not always true and depends on things like other visas on your passport, how often do you travel abroad and so on. For people who are traveling for the first time outside India compared to those who have other first world country stamps things can be very different. The first time I visited Germany from India (with an invite from a university there), I got an exactly 6 day multiple entry visa which might have landed me in trouble even if my flight was delayed by over 3 hours. The next time when I visited the consulate with a B1 visa for US and a visa for UK, they were apologetic about asking me to come to the consulate and returned the visa fees saying you are our guest and gave a 3 month visa.
- baybal2 3y ago
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i_no_can_eat 3y ago

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

brightball 3y ago
This was my first question
thaumasiotes 3y ago
On the basis of almost zero relevant knowledge, I would guess that if the conference is paying you to speak (or to do anything else), you'll be in violation of local law, but otherwise you're fine.
nirbheek 3y ago
Yes, there are two problems: 1. You are misrepresenting the purpose of your visit and you can get deported and/or barred from entering the country. For example, you can be stopped and asked for your passport at any time (this has happened to me multiple times, even though technically it's against Schengen rules). 2. Visiting for 2-3 days makes sense for a conference, but it makes no sense for a vacation and you will raise flags. This would lead to a request for more information from the consulate plus a delay then a rejection, or just a straight rejection. The dumbest thing is that all this friction is completely unnecessary. The EU can copy the homework of other countries mentioned by the author of the post, but are unable to for unfathomable bureaucratic reasons.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  >Visiting for 2-3 days // Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes. Can you not go to a conference when in holiday? Isn't the difference who is paying - if you pay then it's a holiday, if work pays then it's business. Could work just give you a bonus to cover the amount at some later point? What's the rationale for not allowing business travel but allowing the same people to travel for tourism?
  - gumby 3y ago
    > Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes. Maybe to the Costa Del Sol, but not the lovely city of Melbourne. The overhead of flying from India to Europe makes a 2-3 day holiday pretty unlikely. The flights depart in the middle of the night, and then there is jet lag. > Can you not go to a conference when in holiday? That is immigration fraud. If you’re a white Australian coming to the UK and doing that I seriously doubt there will be any negative consequence (source: an unofficial comment during an unfortunate visit to the Home Office). People in other situations may not fare as well.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      > That is immigration fraud. If you’re a white Australian coming to the UK and doing that I seriously doubt there will be any negative consequence (source: an unofficial comment during an unfortunate visit to the Home Office). People in other situations may not fare as well. Speaking of Australia, it isn’t clear to me at all if the e-visa Americans have to apply for to visit covers conferences or not. It is weird that Americans require a visa to Australia for a short visit (we don’t have a visa waiver agreement for some odd reason), but at least they make it easy, but if it involves a conference…well, I didn’t look into the e-visa terms very closely on my last visit, and very well could have violated visa terms.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >What's the rationale for not allowing business travel but allowing the same people to travel for tourism? Many countries don't draw the distinction at least for people with the right passport. But to the degree there's a real rationale (beyond possibly charging more for a business visa and red tape), it's probably something along the lines of the boundaries between routine business travel in another country and working in that country are blurrier than in the case of tourism and therefore some countries think it should attract more scrutiny. You're right that I could (and have) attended tech events on my own time and my own dime and that seems like tourism by any reasonable definition but does that fact that I didn't take vacation time and maybe submitted an expense report really fundamentally change that?
ghaff 3y ago
Assuming the country in question requires an explicit business visa for you as an $X citizen to attend a conference, it's probably not a good idea to lie--even though you also probably won't get caught. (Many countries don't draw a distinction between tourism and a routine business trip or some combination thereof for at least some passports however.) (And as the sibling comment notes, if you're just dropping in for a quick conference and heading home again, that probably is suspicious as a tourist.)
pandaman 3y ago
When you arrive to another country's border you need to state the purpose of your visit to a border control officer. If you say "conference" - you may not be allowed in because your visa is for another purpose, if you say "tourism" you lie to a government officer, which may result in various penalties according to the local laws.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  I have a question. How does "break local laws" work? I applied to a tourism Visa in say Netherlands or uk for 2 weeks. After 5 days, I attend a "conference" of say 2 hours or something. Is it like the man in the suit sends a call to the home ministry who sends a Hollywood style swat team or the American ice agents to drag you out of the border ?
  - pandaman 3y ago
    More like someone processing your next visa application getting automatically collected data on your previous visits from all kinds of sources public and private and seeing that you lied about your visit the last time.
    - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
      What sources would keep track of foreigners doing private business meetings and conferences?
      - arunarunarun 3y ago
        Some of this is also a question of "do you want to take the risk of having an indelible black mark in your travel history?" As an example, the US asks for your travel history (where you went and why) and a list of your social media accounts. It would be trivial to correlate a conference related social media post with a stated reason of tourism and flat that. They might not do this, but I certainly would not want to jeopardise all future travel for that if.
      - 3y ago
xenophonf 3y ago
> is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference? In the U.S.A., lying on a government form is illegal, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001. I can't imagine other countries treating that differently.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  Is it necessarily lying? If you go to a conference for a hobby that's tourism, right?
  - pc86 3y ago
    Very few people speak at conferences as a hobby. Even fewer speak at conferences as hobby about things they get paid for. Even fewer would be legitimately willing to do this if it included an expensive middle-of-the-night flight, jet lag, and a Visa application process.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I've done it. Of course, I didn't travel internationally just for the conference and I didn't need a visa, but I've attended tech conferences on my own--including speaking. Why not? And how many Europeans who attend FOSDEM or Americans who attend Flock (admittedly a lower bar than traveling internationally) are doing so on their own? ADDED: And people with hobbies/interests like, say, medieval history absolutely will attend a conference/event as part of a vacation even if it has zero connection to a day job.
  - arunarunarun 3y ago
    Generally, when you apply for a visa, there's documentation guiding you towards the correct type of visa based on purpose of visit. Everything I've seen buckets conferences under "business visa".
  - xenophonf 3y ago
    That changes the parameters of the hypothetical. Your original hypothetical was explicitly about misrepresenting the purpose of one's visit to a country, which one should not do because that's illegal. *OBVIOUSLY*. Whether attending a conference for a hobby counts as a vacation trip or a business trip would be a question for the destination country's consular affairs office.
registeredcorn 3y ago
In addition to the legality issues that others have brought up, I have been asked questions about the details of my trip, which might be intended to weed out people doing the sort of thing you're asking about. "Which hotel are you staying at?" "Do you have an itinerary? Can I see it?" "Why are you coming here?" (With a weird intonation of something like, why would anyone come here to vacation? It's so boring here!") "What do you plan on doing while you're here?" "Are you meeting anyone?" "How do you plan to get back?" Etc. I think more often than not, the people asking probably don't even care about what your actual answer is, but want to see how you react to those questions, and if the answers make basic logical sense. I.e. "I'm vacationing for 2 weeks, but don't have a hotel.", or "I'm meeting friends and family at my vacation house, but I have never been here before." A person might not remember the address of their hotel for example, but they'll be able to give a general description without freaking out, "It's a Hilton in Albany, I don't remember which." I would imagine that they're trying to distinguish between the natural nervousness that people have with interacting with border guards, vs people who are trying to do various illegal activities. As a fun little sidenote: I actually got tripped up by a guard one time because he asked a weirdly phrased question, "Is this your vehicle?" I took that to mean, "Is this vehicle stolen?", so I told him "Yes, it is mine." (...because I had paid to rent it). He asked why the plates didn't match my drivers license. I explained that it was a rental, and he got very angry and said, "Well I guess it isn't YOURS then, huh!?" I didn't realize you could answer "Rental" to strictly Yes or No question! It was such a weird way of phrasing the question, because if I were to say, "No, this isn't my vehicle." the logical follow-up question would have been, "Why are you driving someone else's vehicle? Where are they? Why aren't they driving it!?"
- yencabulator 3y ago
  For what it's worth, a common technique in those sorts of scenarios is that the questions asked don't really matter, what they are looking for is nervousness and evasive behavior. Don't read too much into why are they asking a specific question; they mostly want you to talk to gauge your mental state, with the idea that many people get nervous if they're committing a crime and made to talk to authority.

distant_hat 3y ago

This is not always true and depends on things like other visas on your passport, how often do you travel abroad and so on. For people who are traveling for the first time outside India compared to those who have other first world country stamps things can be very different. The first time I visited Germany from India (with an invite from a university there), I got an exactly 6 day multiple entry visa which might have landed me in trouble even if my flight was delayed by over 3 hours. The next time when I visited the consulate with a B1 visa for US and a visa for UK, they were apologetic about asking me to come to the consulate and returned the visa fees saying you are our guest and gave a 3 month visa.

baybal2 3y ago
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