Visa application centres in Kolkata

Before your appointment in Kolkata

1. 1Match your country to its floor before you set out: in Rene Tower the UK, Ireland and Canada are on the 4th floor, most European missions and Greece on the 5th, and Japan, the UAE and South Africa on the 6th.
2. 2For Italy, head to the Rudramani building at 1720 Eastern Metropolitan Bypass instead of Rene Tower; for Spain, go to BLS International at Ideal Plaza, Sarat Bose Road.
3. 3Applying for Spain? Fill in the visa form online before the visit, since BLS centres under the New Delhi embassy take only forms completed online.
4. 4For Denmark, Norway or Finland, finish the online form on applyvisa.um.dk, the Application Portal Norway or finlandvisa.fi before the day.
5. 5If a relative or an agent will hand in your Japanese application, carry the authorisation letter that the Kolkata consulate’s checklist requires.
6. 6Look up the opening hours on your country’s own centre page, because missions sharing a floor of Rene Tower keep different timings.
7. 7Have the flight reservation and hotel booking arrive on the evening before or the morning of the slot, check the names against the passports, then print the file in checklist order.

Which floor of Rene Tower handles which country

Rene Tower stands on Rajdanga Main Road in Kasba, in the south-east of the city, and the providers give Geetanjali Stadium as the landmark; New Zealand’s page adds that it is beside Acropolis Mall. VFS Global spreads its missions over three floors. The 4th has the UK, Ireland and Canada, and the Netherlands gives its address as the 4th and 5th floors. The 5th is mostly European: Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Czechia, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Poland, with GVCW running the Greek centre on the same level. Japan, the UAE and South Africa share the 6th.

Belgium, Portugal and Denmark give the same plot or building number, 1842 Rajdanga Main Road, without naming a floor. Take the floor from your appointment confirmation rather than guessing between the three.

Italy, Spain and the US: addresses outside Rene Tower

Three kinds of application take you somewhere else. Italy’s centre is on the 5th floor of Rudramani, 1720 Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, Sector C, Naskarhat, Kasba, which carries the postcode 700039 rather than Rene Tower’s 700107. Both are in Kasba, yet they are separate buildings, so check which one your appointment letter names.

Spain is handled by BLS International at S-201, South Block, Second Floor, Ideal Plaza, 11/1 Sarat Bose Road, Kolkata 700020. Spanish files from West Bengal are decided by the Embassy in New Delhi, not by the Mumbai consulate that covers the western and southern states.

US visa interviews take place at the Consulate General, 5/1 Ho Chi Minh Sarani, Kolkata 700071. The separate US biometrics centre could not be confirmed for this page, and a 2024 report said it had moved, so addresses in older guides may be out of date. Go by the location printed on your own appointment confirmation.

Who applies in Kolkata, and which consulate decides

Kolkata’s centres draw applicants from far beyond the city, and the consular districts explain why. France’s consulate in Kolkata covers West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan. Italy’s consulate here covers the same twelve states plus the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Nepal, and it goes by where you have lived for the past six months. An islander from Port Blair therefore applies to Italy through Kolkata, while France places the Andamans under its Pondichéry consulate.

Japan’s Kolkata consulate has a narrower district: West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. Residents of Assam or another North-Eastern state should confirm which Japanese mission covers their address before booking. Residents of Bhutan fall under the French consulate in Kolkata, and Germany lists a visa centre of its own in Thimphu.

Several other countries decide East India files in New Delhi. Spain, Belgium and Hungary place Kolkata in their embassy districts, and Switzerland and the Netherlands process Indian applications in New Delhi, while every German Schengen file goes to the consulate in Mumbai, wherever it was handed in.

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

In October 2026 several destinations have no working route through Kolkata. Sort these out before you book travel to the city.

• South Africa: VFS suspended all short-term visa applications from 20 October 2026 “until further notice” in Delhi, Gurugram, Jaipur and Kolkata. The 6th-floor centre is still listed. Ask VFS whether an East India resident may submit at another South Africa centre before travelling to one.
• New Zealand: the Kolkata centre is temporarily closed. The open New Zealand centres in India are New Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh.
• Singapore: West Bengal is one of the 17 northern and eastern states and territories handled by the High Commission in New Delhi, with applications taken at VFS in Chandigarh.
• South Korea: no Kolkata centre appears on the Mumbai consulate’s VFS list or on the Korea Visa Application Center’s list, which has only Chennai and Bengaluru. Ask the Korean mission which route applies to your address.
• Australia: Home Affairs lists no biometrics collection centre anywhere in India, so there is nothing to book in Kolkata.

Timing your flight reservation and hotel booking for a Kolkata appointment

Applicants often travel in for a Rene Tower slot, by train from Patna, Ranchi or Bhubaneswar or on a flight into CCU from Guwahati, Imphal or Agartala. A reservation ordered before that journey can lapse before you reach the counter, because the airline alone decides how long an unpaid hold survives and can cancel it at any time.

So order it once you are in Kolkata: for the day of the slot, or the evening before if your appointment is early. Read every name on it the moment it arrives, then print it with the rest of the file. A flight reservation is not a paid ticket, and a PDF edited to look like a booking is document fraud.

Schengen checklists ask for proof of accommodation, and a confirmed hotel booking shows the property, dates and guest names that item asks for; the desk’s fee does not pay for the stay. Keep the hotel nights, the flight dates and the dates on your form identical.

Rules that differ for Kolkata applicants

A few country rules are specific to the East India posts, or easy to miss here.

• Italy: the Kolkata page asks remote workers employed outside the East jurisdiction for an HR letter, and it allows a minimum of 15 working days for processing.
• Spain: you must have lived in the jurisdiction for at least six months, and a file lodged less than 15 days before travel needs a signed “Declaration – Short Processing Time”.
• Greece: GVCW, not VFS, runs the Greek centre and its booking portal. Its news page carries a payment notice for every Indian centre except Kolkata, so check how the Kolkata desk takes payment.
• Germany: Schengen appointments can be booked at any VFS centre in India regardless of where you live; national D visas are not covered by that rule.
• UK: UKVI decides, and any centre in India can be used, so a UK applicant from the North-East is not tied to Kolkata.
• UAE: VFS’s UAE desk handles Dubai tourist and transit visas only, and the traveller must enter and leave through Dubai airport.

Visa centres in Kolkata

Kolkata questions, answered