I want to share my experience of applying for Schengen visa on Indian passport from the US. I hope this information helps some of you

This is specifically for Indian nationals living outside of India.

I planned for a 12 days trip to Italy and French. 3 days in Paris and rest in Italy.

My POE would be Rome, Italy. Flying off from Paris.

Although my brother lives there and this would be a family trip I did not show invite etc. I had conflicting information that I need to show his documents in real (not scanned copy) hence did not take a risk.

Documents I showed:

1. Flight booking with return tickets.

2. Fully paid but refundable hotel booking

3. Internal commute (flight bus train tickets)

4. NOC from my employer with details on my job title, salary and approved period of leaves. You may carry your appointment letter if all those info is not provided in the leave application.

5. My husband had yt agreed some money to my account so they asked for marriage certificate to establish relationship.

6. Bank statement where I receive salary

7. They took my detailed itinerary

8. Application letter that I had received from the consulate itself

9. Prepaid trackable USPS envelope

10. Money order of 88 usd (this amount changes every quarter and can be found from the consulate online)

11. Got the money order from USPS

12. 2 photo 3.5/4.5 that J got from Walgreens

13. Salary slip for past 6 months

14. Approved i757 showing my visa validity in the US

15. Passport

16. Visa copy

I am traveling alone. Husband is not traveling (mentioning this because I am on a dependent visa).

I carried my booking for different tours they did not ask for it. I showed USD 14k on my checkin account. But USD 200 for each day of stay is good too. This is just for the visa you don’t have to spend this money.

I applied at the NYC consulate which caters to certain areas of NJ state and most of NY STATE. Please check which county you fall under before applying for the visa.

The process took me 3 hours including 2.5 hrs of wait time. Internet did not last for more than 10 minutes they just wanna see the documents and enough funds.

I booked in March of 23 and secured a date in July 10. Right now I found no more dates available at the NYC consulate. Received stamped visa within 14 days. They stamped me for the exact duration of the stay (first Schengen trip).

Happy to answer any of your question.