How a company turned visas to Europe into big business

VFS Global enjoys a near monopoly on outsourced visa processing, including for travel to most European countries.

By MARGOT GIBBS, MAY BULMAN and SARASVATI THUPPADOLLA

Illustration by Johan Keslassy for POLITICO

Storing a backpack for €2.50, receiving an SMS notification for €3.50, scanning application materials for €150, “document verification” for €220 — for visa applicants trying to reach Europe, extra charges can appear at almost every step of the process, levied by a private company they have no choice but to use.

Headquartered in Dubai and majority-owned by private equity firm Blackstone, VFS Global enjoys a near monopoly on outsourced visa processing globally, including for travel to most European countries.

A year-long investigation coordinated by the investigative journalism organization Lighthouse Reports, in partnership with POLITICO and 13 international media partners, found that VFS has generated substantial operating profits from selling “optional” services that are sometimes forced on applicants, even as the EU governments that use it have documented repeated failures in the basic services the company is paid to provide.

The findings are based on inspection and monitoring reports by the European Commission and 22 countries from the EU’s Schengen free-travel zone that were obtained through freedom of information requests; internal correspondence between EU member countries; interviews with 24 current and former VFS employees; the company’s financial statements; and an analysis of receipts from customers in 16 countries.

Together, they show how European governments have outsourced a core state function to a private company that has repeatedly turned visa applications into a lucrative market for add-ons.

Most Western governments outsource visa administration to private companies to collect documents, fingerprints and fees before forwarding applications to consulates for a decision. The companies charge customers a fixed service fee for this work. But VFS has built a highly profitable business around supplemental services: SMS alerts, courier delivery, document scanning, premium lounges and at-home appointments, according to the company’s financial statements and an analysis of customer receipts.

For many applicants, declining these extras is harder than it might sound. Current and former staff in several countries said that employees were pressured to meet sales targets, causing them to sometimes add services to bills without customer consent or persist in trying to convince applicants to buy them.

That is what Vrinda said happened when she arrived 15 minutes late at VFS’s visa center in Pune, India, exhausted after waiting for a taxi in torrential rain and traveling an hour in traffic. The 71-year-old, who uses a walking stick, was applying for a visa to visit her son in Belgium and meet her new granddaughter.

“I explained the situation with the rain, and told [the visa officer] I had problems with my back,” recalled Vrinda, whose name was changed to protect her identity due to concerns over her pending visa application.

But the VFS officer told her she had two choices: Go home and book another appointment, or pay the equivalent of €35 for the company’s “premium service” — roughly the cost of what Vrinda pays for a month’s worth of groceries. “They said no, you can come back another day or pay. I was quite shocked,” she said. “But whatever they told me, I had to follow.”

Vrinda is one of 19 applicants interviewed for this investigation who said they were pushed, misled or left with little practical choice but to pay extra fees to VFS — a practice that was widespread, according to 10 of the former and current staff members interviewed by Lighthouse Reports.

Meanwhile, European governments contracting with VFS have documented the firm’s failure to adequately protect customer data and provide appointment slots within legal limits, according to the internal inspection reports by Schengen governments.

French Ambassador to India Alexandre Ziegler with VFS Global’s Vinay Malhotra after the opening of the French Visa Application Centre in Bangalore in May 2017. | Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images

And yet, despite these documented failures, the company has faced limited consequences. Some EU member countries have fined VFS or moved to other providers when contracts expired, but the company has continued to process visas for every EU country except Spain, according to its website.

In a reply to a request for comment, VFS said it operated a “zero tolerance approach to any coercion or misrepresentation” by its staff, and that applicants are “clearly informed … that these [supplemental] services are optional, do not influence visa decisions or processing times, and are priced transparently.”

The company added it was a “world leading, trusted technology and services provider, empowering secure mobility for governments and citizens,” and that its “operations are subject to rigorous and continuous government oversight,” and “undergoes more than 10,000 audits and assessments annually, conducted by internal and external auditors, including those assigned by client governments.”

Value-added services are designed to enhance applicant convenience and are developed in “consultation with, and approved by, client governments,” added the company.

All nine EU governments that responded to Lighthouse Reports’ requests for comment said they issued sanctions against VFS where appropriate and took allegations of aggressive upselling seriously. Still, seven of the respondents noted they were generally pleased with the practice of outsourcing visa applications, and two said they were specifically happy with their cooperation with VFS.

When approached with the findings of this investigation, the European Commission said that, due to EU countries’ growing reliance on VFS and its competitors, it was launching a “comprehensive study” on the outsourcing of visa services, “with a view to drawing up options to prevent system abuses.”

Business model

Most Europeans have never heard of VFS. Accustomed to visa-free travel across much of the world, they are unlikely to ever wait in line at one of its application centers, pay its service charges or navigate its appointment portals.

But across much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the company is widely known, and often resented. For students, workers, tourists and families trying to reach Europe, VFS is frequently their unavoidable first encounter with the European border: a private checkpoint where access to a consulate begins with a booking form and a list of fees. In India, for example, the company operates visa services for almost every EU member country.

VFS’s rise began in 2001, when Zubin Karkaria, then working for travel company Kuoni, noticed embassies were struggling to manage growing demand for visas. A Zoroastrian priest and entrepreneur, Karkaria persuaded the U.S. embassy in Mumbai to let him run a pilot scheme, testing an outsourcing model that would later become the template for a global industry.

VFS now says it is contracted by more than 70 governments across 167 countries — making it the largest firm in the business, followed by Delhi-based BLS International and Paris-based TLS Contact.

The model is simple. VFS does not decide whether an applicant receives a visa — that remains the responsibility of the government in question. Instead, the company performs the front-end work: running appointment systems, receiving applications, collecting biometric data and forwarding documents to consulates, all at no extra cost to the countries that contract its services.

Karkaria — who told the Financial Times in March that he wanted to create “a solution which is secure, which benefits the government, which also deals with the travellers with empathy and respect” — is now CEO of VFS, which split off from Kuoni in 2017.

Passengers wait to board a May 2025 flight at Nnamdi Azikiwe International in Abuja, Nigeria, a country where a former VFS employee said there was constant pressure to sell value-added services. | Olympica de Maismont/AFP via Getty Images

Under the EU Visa Code — the regulation governing the issuance of short-stay visas into the bloc’s Schengen zone — VFS is allowed to charge a mandatory service fee for core administrative tasks, such as accepting applications, collecting biometrics, managing its appointment system and returning documents to the applicant.

The company also sells a range of “optional” extras, including SMS notifications when documents are ready for collection, passport courier services and access to “premium lounges” inside its application centers. At the top end, VFS also offers an “at home” service, sending staff to applicants’ homes to collect biometric data and documents, with prices ranging from €80 to €3,500.

According to the current and former employees across multiple countries interviewed by Lighthouse Reports, VFS has built a system of aggressive — and at times dishonest — upselling. Staff are typically paid low base salaries, with bonuses tied to meeting monthly sales targets for add-on services.

Rohit Taneja, who worked as a visa operations officer at VFS’s Delhi center between 2016 and 2017, said staff were under pressure to sell extras. “We had targets on SMS and courier [numbers]. We had to pitch, try to convince, even if the applicant said no,” he said. “People think that we are from the embassy and whatever we are saying is right — especially those visiting for the first time. So, we got very few denials.”

Taneja added that staff were given training on the “art of selling” and were “taught to catch the weak points of people” to sell extra services. “They teach us how to push to compel customers to buy value-added services,” he said.

One visa officer at VFS in Nigeria, who was granted anonymity over fear of retaliation, said the bonuses for selling value-added services for U.K. visas could amount to almost twice the base salaries of contractors. He said contractors make up the majority of the VFS workforce and are paid a little more than €125 per month. The result, he said, is constant pressure to sell.

“There is always a need to sell value-added services,” he said. “You have to be persistent in making sure the applicant sees reasons to buy them.”

A former senior officer at VFS in Nigeria, who left in 2020 but still works in the visa industry and deals with the company regularly, said the low pay encouraged aggressive upselling. “It’s highly exploitative, everyone knows that.”

Five former employees also said it was common for staff to include SMS and courier services on customer bills without their consent. “Most customers would just accept this,” stated a former staffer who worked for VFS in Kenya until 2024.

VFS said it has a strict policy against coercion or misrepresentation in the sale of optional services, and that the reporting for this article was based on “anonymous and unverified testimony from unnamed former employees, and individual anecdotal accounts,” which painted an “incomplete and misleading picture.”

Value-added services

VFS’s financial statements filed in Luxembourg show just how central extra services have become to its business.

Between 2017 and 2024, VFS more than quadrupled its operating profits from 36 million Swiss francs to 161 million Swiss francs (€31 million to €172 million), while its revenues more than doubled. The increase far outpaced growth in the number of applications handled by the company, which rose by just 15 percent over the same period.

Passengers queue at a security checkpoint at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, India. Former staff in VFS’ Indian operations have also spoken of the pressure to upsell. | Idrees Mohammed/AFP via Getty Images

An analysis of more than 2,000 receipts for Swedish visa applications from two-week periods in 16 countries, obtained under freedom of information rules, reveals how extra fees can add up. Value-added services accounted for an average of 30 percent of the revenue made by VFS.

SMS notifications were among the most frequently bought services across the sample, accounting for an average of 5 percent of VFS revenue. In Kenya, where former staff said such fees were often added to customer bills without permission, more than nine in 10 applicants paid for SMS services, making up around 10 percent of VFS revenue.

The company’s rapid growth has taken place under successive private equity owners EQT and Blackstone. In October 2021, funds managed by Blackstone bought a 75 percent stake in VFS after the Covid pandemic devastated the company’s core business.

Under Blackstone management, VFS continued to forecast revenue growth partly on the basis of “high margin” sales of extra services. The company increased its core profitability by 25 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to VFS’s financial statements.

Former VFS employees told Lighthouse Reports that the pressure to sell value-added services became greater after Blackstone’s investment. Staff from VFS’s Dubai headquarters asked country managers to provide weekly sales reports and “continuously improve” performance. If a team fell behind their targets, “there would be threats,” said a former employee in one East African country.

In its response to Lighthouse Reports, VFS said it was “false and baseless to claim there was an increased focus on [value-added-services] sales after Blackstone’s investment,” adding: “There has been no material change to [value-added-services] revenue per application since their investment.”

VFS said its “revenue growth is the natural consequence of increasing global demand for visa services,” adding that its “financial performance reflects a legitimate structural shift in its business model, underpinned by targeted acquisitions, geographic expansion, enhanced operational efficiency, and the deepening of long-term government partnerships.”

Blackstone did not reply to a request for comment.

European governments have documented the pressure to buy additional services. Of the 22 countries that produced the monitoring reports obtained by Lighthouse Reports, four noted the services were not always described as optional.

A 2024 monitoring report by the Czech Republic said the company applies “excessive pressure to promote their additional services,” leading applicants to believe that buying them “will guarantee that they are granted a visa.”

Swedish authorities noted over successive years that VFS is “not always explicit that the value-added services are optional.” In 2023, the Swedish embassy in India received complaints from applicants that “VFS […] allegedly forc[ed] them to avail the extra paid service, like premium lounge, SMS service, despite it being as [sic] an optional service.”

EU regulations prohibit companies like VFS from selling additional appointment slots as a paid-for service, but a European Commission inspection from 2022 noted that in Senegal, VFS “systematically” made additional slots available for an extra fee under its contract with the Italian consulate.

Passengers arrive at London’s Gatwick Airport in 2025. | Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

And Latvia reported in 2023 that while premium appointments were available for applicants in Istanbul to buy, “when selecting the regular service no slots were available.”

In response to a request for comment, Czech authorities said they “consistently ensure that no inappropriate practices occur” in visa application centers and that any indication of such conduct would “immediately trigger a review and, where necessary, corrective measures.”

Regarding the value-added services, Swedish authorities said that “it is clearly stated on VFS’s websites that they are optional.” Italy and Latvia did not respond to a request for comment.

According to VFS, “there is no such thing as a premium appointment.”

Documented violations

In addition to the aggressive selling of optional services, the internal monitoring reports and evaluation documents by the European Commission, which were obtained by Lighthouse Reports, describe violations of VFS’s legal or contractual obligations.

Together, they identify 21 instances of VFS’s failure to handle personal data according to the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In 2022, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that VFS had transported applicants’ biometric data across the city to the consulate on an “unencrypted compact disk.” Norway reported that some VFS centers failed to delete data within legal deadlines every year between 2021 and 2024, while Sweden found a “lack of knowledge among staff when it comes to GDPR.”

VFS said data protection was a “core priority” for the company and that it operates within a “robust governance framework aligned with GDPR and local regulations,” which is subject to “regular audits to ensure compliance.”

Another violation documented in the internal reports is the failure to provide appointments within the time limits set by the EU Visa Code. Five EU countries reported that in some markets, bots or external agents block-book free appointments and sell them on, leaving genuine applicants unable to secure appointments.

VFS said it “actively deploys robust multi-layered security measures to protect its appointment booking systems, ensuring fair access for all applicants.” Those “security controls, including OTP authentication and CAPTCHA, are part of an overall suite of tools and are designed to prevent unauthorised system access, even in high-demand markets.”

But experts consulted for this investigation said the company’s anti-bot measures were inadequate. “Anti-bot measures must match the stakes,” said Michael Tiffany, co-founder of security company Human, which aims to make botnet schemes unprofitable.

When scalpers earn significant profits, they can afford to pay people to solve CAPTCHAs for them. “The simple measures that block spam bots do nothing to thwart scalping bots,” said Tiffany. “A profitable botnet demands dedication and expertise to defeat.”

Passengers wait near a flight information display board at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi in May 2026. | Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images

In some cases, the company’s own systems appear to push applicants toward paid alternatives. Five governments have recorded complaints about the VFS website, with one referring to it as a “non-functional website and booking system.”

Iman Raziq, a U.K.-based lawyer, said a “glitch” on VFS’s website made it difficult to upload documents, pushing applicants to pay the company to scan them. “I would usually merge all the documents to upload them, but when I do, VFS’s website says there’s a virus, so you have to upload each page separately,” he said. “I have to ask the customer to pay for VFS’s scanning service. Otherwise, I would have to spend the whole day uploading.”

A software engineer based in Cape Town, who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely, also said he had first-hand experience of this. When he tried to upload his documents to VFS’s website while applying for a U.K. visa, he said he was hit with error messages and then an alert claiming the files contained a virus.

“I know they don’t,” he said. “I work with software every single day, this is my job.”

VFS also operates a chain of “visa concierge” companies called OneVasco. Its offices often sit next to VFS application centers and offer applicants an “easy, traveler-friendly application process,” which is “much less complicated than dealing with foreign governments” and ensures “forms are correctly filled and submitted,” according to its website.

OneVasco is based in Dubai where VFS is not obliged to publish financial statements. In India, however, the company’s subsidiary made pre-tax profit margins of 53 percent in 2024 and 70 percent in 2023, according to financial statements filed there.

Many of OneVasco’s services resemble those provided by VFS. Two countries contacted by Lighthouse Reports said they were concerned by the similarities. “We are aware of the existence of this company, its connection to VFS, and the confusion its location has created in the minds of some applicants,” said one French diplomat, granted anonymity to speak frankly.

“An action plan has recently been requested from VFS to clearly separate the operations related to OneVASCO, with whom we have no contractual relationship, from those of our service provider, VFS,” added the diplomat.

Too big to discipline

EU governments acknowledge it is difficult to hold VFS to account, given the lack of alternatives and reduced staffing at consulates that once handled the administrative work.

In 2022, Luxembourg’s annual review on its visa outsourcing noted that “VFS is in a dominant position in India, making it difficult sometimes to ensure the quality of service needed by the Embassy.”

In 2023, EU countries created a working group to address “deficiencies in the quality of service” of VFS in India, according to a report written by the EU delegation to the country and obtained by Lighthouse Reports.

In an October meeting that year, members shared concerns over the company’s “laxity in following instructions, documents not arranged in a proper sequence, scanning related issues, IT infrastructure and bandwidth problems,” according to meeting minutes disclosed under a freedom of information request.

The working group then sent a questionnaire to all the member countries working with VFS in India. In response, they received complaints of persistent data entry failures and “dismal” communication between VFS management and application centers.

The Czech Republic reported it had raised issues with the company “repeatedly” but with only “temporary impact,” and that “eventually, VFS conduct […] deteriorated again.” The Swiss delegation stated it had “no other option [sic] to see VFS as a partner and to work intensively with them because we ourselves will never be able to accept this number of applications at one counter.”

VFS said that “where issues arise, structured remediation plans are implemented,” and that its “long-term relationships” with client governments were “underpinned by its commitment to continuous improvement.”

European authorities told Lighthouse Reports that, despite its imperfections, outsourcing the visa process has led to shorter wait times and freed up consular resources.

The Czech foreign ministry told Lighthouse Reports it “actively addresses identified deficiencies through continuous engagement” with the company, adding: “Generally, we consider the cooperation with the provider VFS Global to be good and cooperative, with any issues that arise being resolved efficiently.”

The Swedish Migration Agency said it had not been informed of basic standards not being met “more than occasionally,” and that those instances are “attended to.” It added that VFS addressed any problems identified in audits.

European officials also noted that there are few better private alternatives. Internal monitoring reports obtained by Lighthouse Reports accuse TLS Contact and BLS International — the other major visa outsourcing giants contracted by a number of EU governments — of aggressive upselling and GDPR breaches.

TLS, BLS and authorities in Luxembourg and Poland did not respond to requests for comment.

Not everybody, however, is satisfied with the model.

Joris Salden, a Belgian diplomat, decided to keep the country’s visa-handling in the Democratic Republic of Congo within the embassy rather than outsource it.

“What we see in other countries is that having a third-party partner does not automatically solve all problems,” he said. “If you outsource, you no longer have direct control over the problem. And a third-party partner does not work for free.”

Margot Gibbs is an investigative reporter with Lighthouse Reports. May Bulman is an investigations editor at Lighthouse Reports. Sarasvati Thuppadolla is a New Delhi–based investigative journalist working with Lighthouse Reports.