Current News

The Ghana Premium Application Centre in Berlin remains permanently closed.

The submission and collection of documents will again only take place directly via the Embassy from Monday to Thursday (Friday generally closed).

Appointments for visa categories F, M, and J can be booked again at the US consulate.
According to the media and also here officially by the US government, the social media are increasingly being checked.

Note for applicants of F, M and J visas for social media verification:

Effective immediately, all individuals applying for F, M or J nonimmigrant visas are asked to set the privacy settings of all their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate the required verification to establish their identity and eligibility to enter the United States under U.S. law.

When entering the country with a passport issued from May 2024, error messages may occur when using eGates, which may require additional manual passport control. According to the UK Border Force, this is due to a software problem; a solution is in preparation.

ID documents that have been reported as lost or stolen should not be used for entry. Even if they have since been reported as recovered, this does not automatically lead to the deletion of the lost entry in the Interpol database. It is therefore not uncommon for the British Border Police to confiscate such identity documents.

Source: Federal Foreign Office

The United States is currently not issuing F, M, and J student visas.
While this regulation was initially intended for specific nationalities, it is currently being applied to German applicants as well.

As we receive further information, we will update this page promptly to provide you with the latest details.

The current waiting time for an interview appointment for a B1/B2 visa at the US consulates in Germany is 6-8 weeks.

Due to technical problems, the appointment booking page for the USA is currently only available to a very limited extent.
Delays in appointment booking are currently to be expected.

The regular processing times of the consular section at the Embassy of Niger in Berlin are currently longer than 14 days.
The embassy cannot give an indication of how long a visa application will actually take.
All visa applications require approval directly from the authorities in Niger and the embassy is currently waiting several weeks for this.
Accordingly, express processing is currently not possible.

Please bear this in mind when planning your trip.

Germans and some other nationalities can travel to Namibia without a visa until March 31, 2025, for stays of up to 90 days per year for purely tourist purposes. A free entry stamp (Visitors' Entry Permit) will be issued upon arrival at all official border crossings.

From April 1, 2025, a visa is required. A Visitors' Entry Permit can be issued for a maximum period of 90 days. It is generally limited to one entry and the actual intended stay, which is determined by the return flight date.

In all other cases – including business trips or unpaid activities such as internships, study visits, volunteer work, etc. – a visa is required and must be applied for well in advance of entry.

Due to the current events and following feedback from individual customers, we would like to inform you via news:

USA ESTA: Please check in good time before departure to or via the USA whether your current USA ESTA is still valid. 
We have received information that existing ESTAs have been cancelled by the USA without giving reasons. 
In such cases, please apply to us for a new ESTA.

USA passport visa: If you apply for a passport visa for the USA and are invited to a personal interview, be prepared for more specific questions from the consulate employee so that you can answer accordingly and, if necessary, present the required additional documents.

In both cases (USA ESTA & USA passport visa), we recommend that you always carry at least the following documents with you: 

• detailed letter of assignment from the German company
• detailed letter of invitation from the USA
• curriculum vitae
• copy of purchase contract for so-called ‘after sales activities’ if a machine, system, service or similar has been sold to the USA.

For further information, please contact our branch office in Düsseldorf duesseldorf[at]business-visum.de 

An Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) has already been introduced for certain nationalities, who were previously able to enter the United Kingdom without a visa. Now other nationalities are gradually being added, who can apply for an ETA from March 5th, 2025, for travels to the UK from April 2nd, 2025 onward.

You can find out which nationalities this affects here.

Find further information here.