VFS Global site - no appointments available (July 2022)

StanzaStark, (Cool alias BTW),
Unfortunately Portugal is way behind other EU countries in visa applications. There are reasons for it, (SEF disruption being one), however this is NO excuse and government should be ashamed of this situation.

My GV application biometrics appointment in Lisbon is now nearly 2 years overdue (19 months to be precise) with the same excuse, "there are no available appointments"!

VFS in another part of the world (Dubai) has exactly the same issue as London, with appointments available as of yesterday for: Denmark (28 days), Holland (14 days), Spain (21 days) and Portugal (98 days).  Here I am talking about normal tourist visa applications, not even residency visas, which are even worse.

However I will add that VFS themselves are also not well organised and being commercially driven seem to manipulate their availability of resources based on the fees they can charge, an issue when a country delegates its responsibilities to contractors.

One thing you may try is to call VFS directly, be prepared to pay "VIP fees" and for "Full service options" and then miraculously this changes: certainly the case in Dubai.

Sorry could not be more positive, or helpful, but I wish you luck in any case.
T   

You can send an email to the Embassy, sometimes they help you in getting an appointment.

Try Scott’s travel in London they got us an appointment and we’re very good in getting us through all the paperwork

Perhaps it works differently in the UK.  We lived in Florida and the Washington D.C. VFS processed our docs and sent them to the Portugal Embassy. We received our D7 visas about one month after the docs were received at the embassy.

We sent VfS an email requesting the FedEx labels and went from there.  No interviews.

Keep checking every day.   When we were at VFS in London we were talking to a guy who said that agencies block  book appointments with fictitious names. They advertise on the internet then charge for the appointment changing the fictitious name they booked the appointment for with yours. However when they are unable to "sell" the appointments they're put back into the VFS system. This can be at short notice so check in a daily basis. We got our appointments with a week's notice having been trying for several weeks.  ( Or you could get one of the agency appointments and pay them ££)

ok dear thank you for the information.