Indian holiday-makers and conference delegates heading to Greece can finally breathe easier. Visa service company Global Visa Center World confirmed on 12 February that all nine Greek visa application centres across India—New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Kochi and Kolkata—have resumed full operations after a two-month closure sparked by a subcontractor cyber-incident.
During the outage, only emergency diplomatic visas were processed, forcing tour operators to reroute groups and corporates to cancel site visits. Standard processing times have now reverted to 15 calendar days, with a limited priority channel promising five-day turnarounds. Fees remain €80 plus a ₹1,299 service charge; early evidence suggests prime morning appointments for the rest of February are already 70 percent booked as pent-up demand floods the system.
If you would rather avoid the scramble for scarce slots, VisaHQ’s India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) can manage the entire Schengen filing on your behalf—pre-screening paperwork, booking appointments at any of the nine centres and updating you on every status change—so you spend less time refreshing pages and more time planning your trip.
The restart comes just six weeks before Europe’s spring trade-fair season. Indian firms planning to post technicians under the EU Posted-Workers Directive are reminded that a Schengen C-visa does **not** replace the separate Greek work authorisation—non-compliance attracts fines of up to ₹82,000 per worker and potential project shutdowns.
Cyber-attacks on outsourced visa providers are becoming a systemic risk: VFS Global suffered a similar breach affecting UK visas in 2024. Mobility teams should build contingency lead-time into Schengen travel and keep digital copies of appointment confirmations in case systems go down again.
Travellers are advised to assemble six-month bank statements, IT returns and employer letters **before** locking in appointment slots—applications missing core documents are refused entry to the centre and must re-book from scratch.