Visa Help & Support
Italian Visa (click here)
First Steps:
Call the service below about carrying your visa application to the Italian Consulate in Chicago.
Marco Pavoloni - Honorary Consul in Minnesota
Citizenship Consulting - Visas Info - Certified Translation Services
Tel: (651) 699-8442
Email: <italconsminnesota@hotmail.com>
If Italian Consular in MN recommends it, make an appointment here for as soon as you will have all the necessary documents
Spanish Visa (click here)
Hello colleagues,
I am writing with some helpful updates about BLS that can provide clarityto you and your students if you are currently navigating the Spanish student visa process for the fall term. (For context, BLS is a third-party visa processor that has recently been contracted by the Spanish government to process student visas in the United States. Currently, only the Chicago and DC offices are using BLS. For the remaining consulates, please refer to their individual websites.)
*Washington, DC*
Starting June 20, 2023, applications for student visas (type D, stays for more than 90 days: NALCAP visa, Au-pair visa, General student visa, including student relative visa and visa for minor students) must be submitted by regular mail to the BLS Visa Service for Spain. Please find requirements and information in the link:
https://usa.blsspainvisa.com/washington/
BLS Spain Visa Application Center
650 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 600
Washington, D.C., 20001
E-mail: info.wases@blsinternational.net
Phone number: 516-888-1169 (BLS call-center for USA)
In order to apply for a student visa in the BLS Spain Visa Application Center in Washington you must study in a center in our jurisdiction *or* be a resident in our jurisdiction: Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia or North Carolina. Please send your visa applications in advance. It is possible to apply for a student visa from 6 months before the beginning of the study. The collection of the visa must be in person.
The ONLY applications that will be accepted directly at the consulate are for students with a Fulbright award.
Processing time for DC applicants currently sits at about 4-5 weeks.
*Chicago*
I recently interviewed one of my students who went through her BLS appointment and gained some valuable insight that you may wish to share with your students. I was also able to make contact with a BLS officer to answer a few questions our CAL team has been receiving repeatedly.
*Location*
The BLS appointments are located in the AON Building (200 E Randolph St, Chicago) on the 51st floor. Students should arrive promptly but if they arrive too early they will need to wait until a few minutes before theirappointment to be admitted. Reception on the entry floor will print them a barcode ticket which will allow them to scan up to the BLS offices in the elevators. The student noted there were plenty of friendly staff pointing her in the right direction. Students should take care to enter the correct elevator bank, as some elevators only access odd or even floors or certain subsets of floors.
Once she arrived at the BLS office, the reception employees directed her to a waiting room and a BLS employee came around and did a document pre-check before she was called to her interview room. The interview took about 25 minutes and included a full document review and some verification questions. The interviewer did ask her to make a couple of small updates to her materials to make sure everything went smoothly at the consulate.
*Documents and Application Materials*
All the materials listed by the consulate's website are necessary, with one exception, it seems.
BLS does not use USPS, so even though the consulate website for Chicago instructs students to bring a prepaid self-addressed USPS envelope in order to have their materials returned, this will not be accepted by BLS. Instead, students should plan to purchase the courier envelope provided by BLS if they would like their visa materials returned via mail. This costs $40 ($35 for the envelope itself and $5 for the required SMS tracking). The student confirmed the SMS tracking system does work and had already received a couple of updates on her application by the time we debriefed a few days after her BLS appointment. Students also receive a tracking number that can be entered on BLS' website.
*Payment*
BLS confirmed they accept cash, money order, debit card, and credit card. At their appointment, students should expect to pay the $20 processing fee to BLS, the $40 courier shipping fees (if getting their materials returned via mail), and submit their money order for $160 (for US passport holders) made out to "Consulate of Spain" along with the rest of their materials.
*Process*
Students submit everything to BLS during their scheduled appointment. BLS takes the materials to the Chicago consulate for processing. Once finished, BLS picks up the materials from the consulate and returns them to the student (via mail or the student may opt to pick them up). Currently, the consulate is operating at about 5 weeks processing time. If students wish to expedite the processing occurring through BLS, they should discuss this with their interviewer at the time of the appointment. My student was told it is free and just requires an email to your BLS interviewer to make the request.
*Appointment Availability*
BLS understands that appointments are very limited. They are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. For students who are still in need of a visa appointment, they may opt to choose the Prime Time visa appointment at an additional $70 cost. It allows them to be seen as early as 8:00am, and paying the fee gives them access to being seen first and potentially snag an appointment. If you have students desperate for an appointment, I encourage them to consider this option if possible.
Thank you to those of you who have been reaching out through the NAFSA IssueNet's EA Visa Help page. Please continue to send us your inquiries as we navigate these BLS transitions, and our CAL team will do our best to continue to support you and your students.
Kind regards,
Katie
ISEP Study Abroad (kwiggins@isep.org)
NAFSA Country Coordinator for Spain & Consular Affairs Liaison for the
Chicago Consulate of Spain and the Detroit Consulate of Italy;
Education Abroad Regulatory Practice Committee
