Headquartered in Zurich and Dubai, VFS Global dominates the international visa outsourcing market.
“When it comes to outsourcing of visa processing, this is a global phenomenon,” said Federica Infantino, a researcher at the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. “VFS Global is the most important actor in this business. It’s the largest company providing services to governments.”
For Oleksandr Baranov and his wife Inna, who spent a month getting a visa for Inna’s 84-year-old mother to come to Canada after she fled the war in Ukraine, being forced to deal with a private company at a time of crisis was a source of anger and frustration. Eventually, the Baranovs received a tracking number that allowed them to monitor the application, but it wasn’t until a lawyer in Canada contacted the Canadian embassy in Warsaw on their behalf that a visa was issued.Oleksandr’s mother-in-law Lidiia Kuryliak, 84, on her way from the Polish border city of Przemysl to Warsaw, April 12, 2022.
People waiting outside Canada’s visa application centre in Berlin, Germany during the week of March 21, 2022.The government insists it’s doing everything it can to speed up the visa application process for people fleeing the war in Ukraine. Russia-Ukraine conflict: Ottawa will ‘accelerate’ visa applications, extensions for Ukrainians in Canada, Trudeau says – Feb 24, 2022In a written statement, the company said that it plays no role in deciding who gets a visa and that it has no control over how long it takes for a visa to be issued once a passport is sent to the government for processing.
That all changed in 2001 when Indian entrepreneur Zubin Karkaria persuaded the U.S. government to let him run a pilot project handling the administrative side of visa processing at its Mumbai consulate. “My impression was that this was a cost-cutting exercise,” said Victor Satzewich, an expert in Canadian visa policy and a sociology professor at McMaster University.
By 2018, Canada had signed contracts worth $185 million with VFS Global and TT Services, a subsidiary of VFS Global, to run all of its visa centres around the world for the next five years. This includes things such as text-message updates and access to one of VFS Global’s “premium lounges.” The company describes its lounges as “modern-day, smooth and seamless,” and as a place where would-be travellers receive personalized care, dedicated customer support and faster submission of their visa applications.
Sánchez-Barrueco spent five years studying visa outsourcing and the relationship between VFS Global and the Spanish government. Her research was primarily completed in Ecuador and included conversations with people who wanted a visa to travel to Spain.was the idea that “commodification of short-term migration” led to an exponential increase in the privatization of visa processing.
The company also said it handles “non-judgmental and administrative” tasks, meaning it’s not involved in deciding who gets a visa, and that its employees aren’t aware of the outcome of the cases they work on.Concerns have also emerged about visa outsourcing and the possible exploitation of vulnerable migrants.found the U.K. Home Office, which is responsible for immigration, made £1.6 billion in profits from visa applicants during the five-year period after it signed a deal with VFS Global.