Lithuania Opens Visa Application Center in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s citizens won’t have to apply for a Lithuanian visa through the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka anymore, as the Schengen Member has opened a visa center in Colombo through the VFS Global.

The center has been officially inaugurated by the ambassador of Lithuania in New Delhi, Julius Pranevičius, SchengenVisa.Info reports.

The regional group chief operating officer in South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Americas in VFS Global, Vinay Malhotra, said that “a long association with the Embassy of Lithuania, and extending our services to Sri Lanka reaffirms the faith that costumers have placed in us through the years. We look forward to welcoming the residents of Sri Lanka to our new center in Colombo and offering them our best-in-class services.”

The optional premium lounge service for visa applicants for Lithuania will also save more time during the process of application.

According to the new Schengen visa rules, effective as of February 2, 2020, all Schengen Member States are highly suggested to outsource visa admission to third-party visa centers so that the visa applicants will be able to avoid traveling to neighboring countries in order to apply for a visa.

The new code points out that all members of Schengen need to be present in every third country through an embassy/consulate, another Member State, or by outsourcing Schengen visa admission to an external service provider, as the VFS Global is.

The purpose of such a suggestion is to facilitate visa application for third-country nationals by saving them time and energy.

VFS Global is known as one of the largest outsourcing and technology services specialized in visa admission, all over the world. It manages tasks related to visa, passport, identity management, and other citizen services for client governments.

The company has 3425 visa application centers and is present in 150 countries, managing the interests of 64 client governments.