I want to travel to Spain however the requirements state that my UK residence permit be valid for 3 months after intended date of departure from the Schengen area. I'll only have 1 month left when I return. The Greek rules just states I need to have a valid Uk residence permit. Could I apply through the Greek consulate but then use the visa to travel to Spain or do I at least need to touch down in Greece?

  • @Dirty-flow Why do people often point to this question that does not even begin to address the issues raised here? If you must find related questions, travel.stackexchange.com/questions/26459/… or travel.stackexchange.com/questions/26939/… are the only ones that make sense (but there are also important differences). – Relaxed May 27 '14 at 12:02
  • @Relaxed the accepted answer says: "When deciding which country to apply for a visa, this is determined by which country you're spending the most time according to your filed itinerary." So - the OP should apply to the Spanish consulate. The rest is a workaround that can go wrong. – Dirty-flow May 27 '14 at 12:15
  • @Dirty-flow Maybe but, beside being rather incomplete compared to the other answers I mentioned, it's not what the question is about (the only things that matters when deciding on duplicates). Incidentally, the rest is not a “workaround”, it's outright fraud. – Relaxed May 27 '14 at 12:24
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    @choster I had read this page before and it certainly does not suggest anything like what you implied earlier. If you read carefully, you will notice that the question themselves have to be similar and the answers must be exactly the same. Neither apply here and vaguely related answers are certainly not enough on their own. – Relaxed May 27 '14 at 18:36
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    I would recommend to read Joel Spolsky's answer here: meta.travel.stackexchange.com/questions/698/… TO cite the most important parts: "Remember that a duplicate answer is not the same as a duplicate question. Close duplicate QUESTIONS. Don't close a question that *happens to have the same answer as another question." – RoflcoptrException May 27 '14 at 21:14

No, in principle you cannot. If you only want to go to Spain, you should apply to the Spanish consulate and the Greek consulate should refuse to consider your application (see Applying for a Schengen visa in another country than my main destination). If you somehow do get a Greek visa to travel to Spain and the Spanish border guards notice it, they can annul the visa and deny entry (see Schengen visa requirements and "validation").

You can however enter Spain with a visa issued by the Greek consulate (see Should my first trip be to the country which issued my Schengen Visa?) or even travel to other Schengen countries without going through Greece at all (see Does a multiple-entry Schengen visa allow visiting other Schengen countries later, without going via the issuing country?). But that's mostly relevant if you have a legitimate reason to have a Greek visa in the first place (e.g. Greece is your main destination or you have a multiple entry circulation visa because you go to Greece regularly) and not for a single-entry visa obtained for another trip.

In practice, you could still get away with it, especially if you buy a ticket from Spain to Greece so as to make it look like Greece is your main destination. But this would obviously be a form of fraud and could have serious consequences if found out.

  • Yes I realise I can't use a single entry one but if I applied for a multi-entry one but then Went to Spain instead of Greece? – user2035796 May 27 '14 at 12:55
  • @user2035796 As Relaxed mentioned, you can but it will be considered as fraud and you can get caught. In theory it's definitely possible. I'd say in practice it is too, but that's not the ideal path at all. – Aditya Somani May 27 '14 at 13:00
  • That could work (see travel.stackexchange.com/questions/26939/… and travel.stackexchange.com/questions/9646/…) but why would you get a Greek multiple-entry visa, with no plans to go to Greece and a residence permit expiring soon? It's even less likely than the single entry visa. As long as your only real need is that one trip to Spain, the only fully legal solution is getting a visa from the Spanish authorities. – Relaxed May 27 '14 at 13:02
  • Okay thanks for the responses. Seems like i'm going to have to postpone the trip until I renew my UK Visa, dont want to risk it :( – user2035796 May 27 '14 at 13:16
