EN
A medical visa differs from a tourist one in one fundamental way: it is issued not for a trip but for a specific course of medical treatment. The consulate has to see that a particular hospital is expecting you, that the treatment is paid for and that you will return home. So the visa paperwork begins not at the visa centre but at the hospital — and here the right order of steps matters more than speed.
Which visa you need: C or D
This is the first question, and getting it wrong is expensive. Everything depends on how long the treatment is expected to last.
A Schengen visa, type C, is only for a short stay — up to 90 days within any 180. It is enough for an assessment, a consultation, a second opinion or a small procedure with a short recovery.
A national visa, type D, is for treatment lasting longer than 90 days: a course of drug therapy or radiotherapy, treatment of cancer, long rehabilitation, a series of operations. This visa is issued under German national law rather than the Schengen rules, and requires fuller medical justification.
One thing to understand: a Schengen visa issued by another country does not entitle you to undergo long-term treatment in Germany. Nor should you count on “arriving on a Schengen visa and extending it on the spot” — an extension is possible, but it is a separate procedure at the foreigners’ authority (Ausländerbehörde) with its own grounds, not an automatic step. If the timescale points to a D visa, that is what you should apply for from the start.
What the consulate requires
The core of the visa package is two documents from the hospital. First: confirmation that it is ready to admit you for treatment, stating the diagnosis, the planned procedures and the dates. Second: the preliminary cost estimate (Kostenvoranschlag) and confirmation of payment or of a deposit made. Plus medical justification — why the treatment is necessary and why at that particular hospital.
To that is added the standard set: a valid biometric passport, the application form, photographs, medical insurance for the period of the trip, proof of funds for living costs and, for a C visa, accommodation and ticket bookings. A companion applies separately, and their presence must also be justified in the hospital’s letter — especially where a child or a patient needing care is involved.
Requirements and appointment waiting times change, so we always check the current list against the consulate’s or visa centre’s website at the time of application. Allow time for the appointment itself: in busy periods a free slot has to be waited for. Where the medical grounds are genuinely urgent, a letter from the hospital confirming that urgency sometimes allows an application to be made outside the ordinary queue — but that is for the consulate to decide, not for us, and it cannot be promised in advance.
What we do
We obtain the invitation and the cost estimate from the hospital, worded as the consulate expects to see them. We translate the medical documents into German. We check that the package is complete before it is submitted, because the commonest reason for refusal is not a suspicious consul but inconsistent paperwork: the dates in the invitation not matching the insurance dates, the diagnosis on the form not matching the medical report.
If the treatment dates shift, we ask the hospital to reissue the invitation for the new dates. You submit the application in person — nobody can attend the consular appointment or give biometrics for you.
This material is for information only and does not replace a consultation with a doctor. The decision to issue a visa rests solely with the German consular authority; current requirements should be checked on its official website. Whether treatment is possible, what it will involve and what it will achieve can be determined only after an examination at the clinic in person.