Visa application centres in Chennai

Before your appointment in Chennai

1. 1Look at the provider named on your confirmation. VFS, GVCW (Greece) and KVAC (Korea) counters are all on the 2nd floor of Ramee Mall in Teynampet, but a Spanish file goes to BLS on the 3rd floor of Olympia National Tower in Guindy.
2. 2For France, submit at the VFS France desk in Ramee Mall. Tamil Nadu files belong to the Consulate General in Pondichéry, whose visa service works from its Bureau de France in Mylapore.
3. 3For Italy, expect the Consulate General in Bengaluru to decide. The Italian VFS pages place Tamil Nadu in its district, judged by where you have lived for the past six months.
4. 4For Korea, allow plenty of time: KVAC lists a standard minimum of 25 working days for Chennai files, so lodge yours well before the travel date.
5. 5For a US visa, take the biometrics and interview locations from the official US scheduling site, because the addresses on third-party websites disagree with one another.
6. 6Have the flight reservation and hotel booking delivered for the day of your Ramee Mall or Guindy slot, compare the names with the passports, then print it with the form, insurance and cover letter so every date agrees.
7. 7Applying for Singapore from Kerala, Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh? Chennai is still the right place, since its Singapore consulate covers all of South India.

Ramee Mall and the buildings that are not

Ramee Mall, 2nd Floor, No. 365, Anna Salai, Teynampet is the visa address for 23 of Chennai’s 24 countries. VFS Global runs the UK, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Singapore and UAE desks there, plus 15 Schengen countries including Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Greece’s provider GVCW and the Korea Visa Application Center share the same floor, though GVCW’s own page spells the road “Annai Salai”. The German desk also lists a walk-in window for stamping national D visas after approval; its page gives the times.

Spain is the exception. BLS International handles it from the 3rd floor of Olympia National Tower in the Guindy Industrial Estate, a separate trip from Teynampet. US visa interviews take place at the US Consulate General at Gemini Circle, which is a consulate rather than a visa application centre.

Unlike Bengaluru, Chennai keeps its Canada and Italy desks in the same mall as the rest, so a family applying for two countries can sometimes handle both in a single visit if the slots line up. Some counters keep shorter weeks than others; Portugal’s, for example, takes submissions on selected weekdays only.

Getting to Anna Salai, Gemini Circle and Guindy

All three addresses sit on or close to Anna Salai, the old Mount Road that runs south-west from the city centre towards the airport. Heading out from the centre, Gemini Circle comes first, then Ramee Mall in Teynampet, and Guindy, home of the BLS office, further on, where the road continues towards Chennai International Airport (MAA) at Meenambakkam.

Chennai Metro’s Blue Line follows Anna Salai with stations at Teynampet and Guindy, and Guindy also has a suburban railway station, so both centres can be reached without driving. Applicants travelling in from Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli or Tirunelveli by overnight train or bus should leave a margin before the slot, because a late arrival can mean rebooking.

Which consulate decides a Tamil Nadu file

France is where jurisdiction gets confusing. Tamil Nadu is not in the Bangalore consulate’s district; it belongs to the Consulate General of France in Pondichéry, whose district also takes in Kerala, the four Puducherry territories, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. That consulate’s visa service is in its Chennai bureau, on the 6th floor of Bannari Amman Towers, Dr Radha Krishnan Salai, Mylapore, while files are handed in at the VFS France desk.

Japan’s Consulate General in Chennai covers Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Puducherry, and Singapore’s Consulate General in the city covers the whole South, Karnataka and Lakshadweep included. Italy is decided in Bengaluru. Spain, Belgium and Hungary are handled by consulates general in Mumbai, and German Schengen visas from every Indian centre are decided in Mumbai too.

For the UK, UKVI makes the decision and any centre in India can be used, while Czechia accepts applicants legally resident in India at any of its VFS centres.

Families, students and the Tamil diaspora

A Chennai visa file is often a family visit: parents going to see children who work in the UK, Canada, the US or Singapore, or relatives travelling for a wedding or a new baby. Tamil is one of Singapore’s four official languages, and Canada and the UK have long-established Tamil communities, so these journeys are an ordinary part of life in the city.

If you are staying with relatives, check what your country’s checklist asks of the host, which often includes an invitation and proof of their status abroad. If the trip mixes nights with family and nights in hotels, show both: the host’s letter for the nights at home and a confirmed hotel booking for the rest, with dates that join up.

Students heading to Germany, Ireland or the UK use the same Ramee Mall floor. A German national D visa is outside the any-centre rule that applies to Schengen visas, so follow the instructions on the German missions’ pages for your category.

Countries you cannot apply for in Chennai, and where to go instead

Chennai covers more countries than most Indian cities, but four gaps catch people out:

• South Africa: VFS Global’s South Africa list has no Chennai centre. The nearest is Bengaluru, at Gopalan Innovation Mall in J. P. Nagar.
• New Zealand: the Chennai centre is temporarily closed, and the address its page still shows is out of date. Mumbai is the nearest open centre; New Delhi and Chandigarh are the others.
• Australia: the Home Affairs biometrics list, updated in September 2026, shows no collection centre anywhere in India.
• US biometrics: the location could not be confirmed for this page. Book through the official US scheduling site and go to the address it gives you.

Timing your flight reservation and hotel booking for a Chennai appointment

A flight reservation is a booking the airline holds without payment, and the airline alone decides when it lapses, a point that varies from one airline to another. That is why Chennai applicants should order for the day they walk into Ramee Mall or the BLS office in Guindy, not for the day they booked the slot. If your appointment is first thing, place the order the evening before and check the spelling of each name as soon as it reaches you.

Where a Schengen checklist asks how you will be accommodated, the desk’s confirmed hotel booking names the property, the dates and every guest. Keep the hotel nights, the flight dates, the insurance period and the dates on your form identical. A flight booking invented in a PDF editor is document fraud, not a shortcut.

Visa centres in Chennai

Chennai questions, answered