Schengen invitation letter and host forms, country by country

What the EU list for India asks of a host

When you stay with family or friends, the host’s documents take over part of the job a hotel booking would do. The EU’s harmonised list for India, Commission Implementing Decision C(2025) 4379, sets out what every Schengen consulate in India expects for a visit of this kind.

The formal host documents, country by country

The last two words of that list, “if applicable”, explain why advice found online is so inconsistent. There is no single Schengen invitation form. Each country decides whether it has a national form, what the host must prove and where the host files it, so the rules differ sharply from one consulate to the next.

The table covers the countries whose host documents were checked for this guide. For any other country, read the family and friends checklist on its VFS Global or BLS International page before your host prepares anything.

Germany: the invitation and the Verpflichtungserklärung

German missions in India publish a separate checklist for visits to family and friends (June 2025). It asks for an original, signed invitation letter giving the host’s address and contact details, the period of your stay, your name and passport number, and the purpose of the visit with a brief itinerary. Proof of the host’s legal residence in Germany goes with it.

The Verpflichtungserklärung is the formal step beyond the letter. On the India checklist it reads “If provided: Verpflichtungserklärung (formal obligation letter) of your sponsor”, which means you can apply without it. It is a commitment by the host to cover your costs, made in Germany, usually at the host’s local foreigners’ authority (Ausländerbehörde). Its fee and appointment times were not confirmed for this guide, so your host should ask that office directly.

If the person paying lives in India rather than Germany, the checklist moves to an Indian sponsor’s papers instead, covered in the sponsorship letter guide. German missions also accept documents only in German or English and treat anything else as “missing”, so an invitation your relative writes in another language needs a translation.

France: the attestation d’accueil, step by step

France is the clearest case of a national form. The attestation d’accueil (cerfa n°10798) is filed by your host, not by you, at the mairie of the place where you will stay. The host goes in person, usually by appointment, and pays €30 in timbres fiscaux.

The mairie has a month to decide. If it has not answered within one month, the request is treated as refused. The validated attestation has to exist before your visa application and is attached to the file, so your host should start well before you book a VFS Global appointment.

According to Service-Public, this is what the host brings to the mairie, and what follows on your side:

• An identity document, or a titre de séjour if the host is not French.
• Proof of ownership or a lease for the home where you will stay, and a recent proof of address.
• Proof of resources, such as three recent payslips and the latest avis d’imposition (tax notice).
• Your passport number, so send it to your host before their appointment.
• Visitor insurance of at least €30,000 is part of the arrangement, the same minimum the visa requires anyway.
• France assigns applicants in India to a post by state of residence, and you fill in the France-Visas form before the VFS appointment. Use the host’s address exactly as it appears on the attestation wherever the form asks where you will stay.

Italy: follow the checklist’s own terms

Many websites tell Indian applicants to get a dichiarazione di ospitalità from their Italian host. The India checklists read for this guide do not use that term. The Embassy in New Delhi’s checklist for visiting family and friends (2024) asks instead for the “Passport copy of the inviting person” and an invitation letter “filled up and signed by the host in Italy”, with a signature that matches the host’s ID.

It is strict about relationship papers. Italian certificates must be “requested online on the Italian ANPR portal, with QR code”, and it states that “Birth certificate including parents’ name, Marriage Certificate, Stato civile e Stato di famiglia are mandatory”. Indian documents must be apostilled. If your own funds fall short, the list asks for a “Fidejussione in original copy issued by Italian financial institute”.

Two flight lines in Italy’s lists are worth reading closely. The family and friends checklist says “Round trip flight ticket.” The invitation-visa list says “A return flight reservation or bookings.” If you cannot tell which one your post expects, ask VFS Global or the consulate before buying anything. The same checklist warns, in capital letters, that a forged or fake certificate, affidavit or passport will not be returned and that the applicant may be prosecuted in both Italian and Indian courts.

Netherlands and Spain: forms with conditions attached

The Netherlands uses two separate documents from the IND. A host who will pay completes the proof of sponsorship form, and a host who provides a bed completes a proof of private accommodation. Because Indian visitors need a visa, the sponsor signs in front of a municipal official, a step called legalisation, and the visitor must then apply within six months. A couple visiting together needs two forms.

Spain is strict about the form of the invitation. The Embassy in New Delhi lists hotel accommodation for the whole stay or, for a family or friends visit, “an invitation letter from the resident in Spain issued by the Spanish national police”. A letter your host writes and signs at home is not that document. Spain’s centres in India are run by BLS International, and jurisdiction depends on where you have lived for the past six months.

Writing the invitation when no form is required

For most countries the informal letter is the whole requirement. Ask your host to type it, sign it by hand and post the original if the checklist asks for one, as Germany’s does. It should cover:

• The host’s full name, home address, phone number and email.
• Your name exactly as in your passport and, where the checklist asks, your passport number.
• How you know each other: brother, daughter, cousin, college friend.
• The dates of your stay, matching your flight reservation to the day.
• Where you will sleep, and whether the host covers meals, local travel or the whole trip.
• The purpose of the visit and a short outline of any travel inside Europe.
• The host’s residence status, with a copy of their passport, national ID card or residence permit.
• Sample wording to adapt: I, [host’s full name], residing at [full address], [phone], [email], invite my [sister], [your full name as in passport], passport number [number], to stay at my home from [date] to [date]. I will cover her accommodation and meals. During her stay we plan to visit [cities]. I hold [citizenship or permit type], valid until [date], and a copy is enclosed. [Signature and date]

The flight reservation still matters

A host covers where you sleep, not how you get there. The EU list still asks every applicant for “Proof of intended means of transport and itinerary”, and Germany’s family and friends checklist has a “Flight reservation” as an item of its own. The dates on the invitation, the attestation or the sponsorship form should be the dates on that reservation.

Sequence matters. Host forms take weeks: France’s mairie has a month, and the Dutch form must be legalised before you apply. A flight reservation works the other way round, because the airline decides how long an unpaid hold lasts, and that is never fixed in advance. Collect the host’s papers first, then order the reservation for your appointment day so it is issued close to the day you hand the file in.

If part of the trip is away from your host, such as three nights in Paris after a week with family in Munich, those nights need a hotel booking of their own, because the EU list asks for proof of accommodation in each Member State you visit. The desk can add confirmed hotel bookings for those nights to the same order.

Questions people ask