How to avoid violating visa rules?
Violating the visa regime is a serious offense that can lead to refusal of future visas, and in the most severe cases, to deportation.
What is considered a visa regime violation?
1. Non-purposeful use of a visa
Each visa is issued for a specific purpose of visit, for example, tourism, study, work. If you obtained a tourist visa but started working, this is already considered a visa regime violation, and a very serious one at that. Another example of non-purposeful use is to obtain a visa at the Finnish consulate and travel to Spain with it, without ever visiting the country that issued the visa (i.e., Finland in this case) during its entire validity period. It's not difficult to check this; if suspicions arise, the consulate may call the hotel you listed in your application when submitting documents for the visa. It's better to be safe than sorry. For example, you obtained a visa at the French consulate and are flying to Paris with a layover in Riga. Your visa will have Latvian entry and exit stamps for the Schengen area. How can you prove that you were actually in Paris? Do not discard documents from your trips: hotel bills, flight boarding passes. If these documents are not available, a regular bank statement from your card (if you used it in Paris) for the period including your trip will suffice. It will clearly show that you used it in Paris, and not in Riga or anywhere else.2. Violation of rules limiting your visa
For example, if you obtained a student visa that allows you to work up to 20 hours a week, but you actually worked full-time (40 hours), this is also considered a violation.3. Violation of visa validity periods
There can be several options here:- Staying in the country after the visa expiration date. For example, your visa expired on September 1st, but you left the country on September 2nd.
Please note, the visa validity period ends exactly at midnight. If the visa expiration date is 01/09/2014, you must leave by 23:59 on 01/09/2014.
- Exceeding the permitted number of days of stay. For example, you have an annual Schengen visa with a permitted stay of 90 days per half-year. But you actually stayed for 91 days.
Related article: How to count days in Schengen
4. Violation of law and non-payment of fines
If you violated traffic rules and did not pay fines, or violated the law, obtaining a visa will not be easy.What is the penalty for violating the visa regime?
The severity of the penalty depends on how serious the violation is. Most often, you will simply be denied the next visa. Such a ban is not eternal; a visa may be denied for several months or even years. As a rule, this information will be communicated to you at the consulate. Most often, a ban on obtaining a Schengen visa is imposed for 1 year. The maximum period for which a ban can be issued is 10 years, but for this, you would have to try very hard. Please note that if you have a ban on obtaining a visa at the consulate of any country belonging to the Schengen area, it automatically extends to all other countries participating in the agreement.Currently, these include: Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, and Estonia.If you are denied a US or UK visa, this will not affect the decision to issue a visa to other countries. This collective responsibility only applies to Schengen and UK/Ireland visas, as there is no passport control between these two countries.
