“The poorer the country, the longer the waiting times for visas”

In a recent analysis published in November 2025 together with four colleagues, you compare the waiting times for visa appointments at German embassies and consulates worldwide. What prompted this question and what methodology did you use?

We have been researching inequalities in international mobility for some time. In a previous study, we found that people in the Global South have to pay much more for visas than people in the wealthier North. When I presented these findings at a conference at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research in Berlin in 2023, Niklas Harder, who is co-head of the Integration Department there, approached me. He had the idea of investigating how long people actually have to wait for visa appointments at German embassies – another important form of potential inequality. Niklas had come across a list from the Federal Foreign Office containing links to the websites of individual German embassies and consulates in countries around the world where visa appointments can be booked.

I then brought data scientist Lorenzo Gabrielli on board, who managed to systematically read out these links. To do this, he wrote a Python script that called up the websites one after the other to see which appointments were available next. The difference between the date of enquiry and the bookable appointment then gave the respective waiting time. Lorenzo even programmed a Telegram bot that allowed the script to be run from a mobile phone. We did this every six days because we wanted to collect data over a longer period of time – ten months in total – in order to obtain as comprehensive and reliable a picture as possible. It is important to emphasise that we did not actually book any appointments. So there was no risk of “snatching” appointments away from real people.

In your opinion, what are the most important findings of your analysis? And what consequences do you think this has?

Once again, there is evidence of significant economic inequality: the poorer the country, the longer the waiting times for visas at the local German diplomatic mission. The chance of even being shown a selectable appointment is also lower in poorer countries. Overall, no appointments were available for 44 per cent of enquiries, but in some countries this proportion is much higher. In Uganda and Pakistan, for example, appointments were available for only about one per cent of requests. This means that as an applicant, I have to try again and again on the website; in extreme cases, you have virtually no chance.

The consequences are dramatic, as the example of student visas shows. At the European University of Flensburg, for example, we have several international degree programmes where the same thing happens time and time again: students from Africa, Latin America or Asia are admitted and want to take up their place, but do not receive their visas in time. By the time they finally arrive after a lengthy process that can take more than a year, their fellow students from the same cohort are often already three semesters ahead. Other universities are also familiar with this problem. There is often a lack of university staff who would actually be needed to provide individual support with the visa process in such cases. The main victims are, of course, those affected, for whom the whole situation is extremely frustrating, but German universities also lose out in the competition for the brightest minds, making it a lose-lose situation.

To improve the situation, we recommend two measures. First, a transparency initiative: the Federal Foreign Office should make current waiting times at foreign missions publicly available. This would make it easier for applicants to plan ahead and could thus reduce the current high level of dissatisfaction with the German visa system. And secondly, a fairness and efficiency initiative: by adjusting the capacities of embassies and consulates to the respective demand, waiting times could be standardised and shortened, which would not only be fairer for applicants, but would also be in Germany’s interest given the shortage of skilled workers.

Your analysis focuses on waiting times at German embassies and consulates. Are you aware of any other studies that have carried out similar analyses for the foreign missions of other countries? And on this basis, can you say whether Germany is a special case here or rather the norm?

To my knowledge, there are no comparable statistical analyses for other destination countries specifically on waiting times. However, there are numerous reports from affected individuals that show how disastrous the situation is for people from low- and middle-income countries, even at other destinations in Europe and North America. Ghanaian doctoral student Sandra Owusu-Gyamfi, for example, described her unsuccessful attempt to obtain a Schengen visa for a scientific conference in Lisbon at the Dutch embassy in Accra in an article in Nature entitled “Exhausted and insulted”. Back in 2013, the Washington Post reported on family members of a U.S. citizen from the Philippines who have been waiting for a visa for 24 years, while the process is much faster for other nationalities and there are no waiting times at all for renowned professors or business executives. This may be an extreme case, but everything suggests that this is a broader, global phenomenon.