Every international journey begins with a passport, but crossing borders often requires a ‘visa’. While a passport establishes identity and nationality, a visa allows its holder to seek entry into another country. The visa process enables the destination State to assess whether the applicant meets its entry requirements and poses any security risk.
Visa adjudication policy therefore serves twin objectives, namely: (a) it regulates and promotes travel, trade and tourism (3Ts); and (b) it protects the State’s security through a pre-entry filtering system.1 The decision to grant a visa is therefore a core sovereign function, and it stays, and rightly so, with the State or its Consulate, which acts as a regional office of a foreign Government in another country.
The facilitation/administrative work around the visa decision is altogether different. Receipt of applications, scrutiny of details contained in the application and the attached documents for completeness, booking appointments, collecting fees, capturing fingerprints/biometrics, returning passports and other add-on services involve no ‘judgement’ on whether a person may or may not enter. The EU Visa Code reserves the examination of the application, any interview and the decision to the Consulate, and it allows a private provider to carry out the remaining tasks. The Turkish Competition Board has described this work as administrative and involving no evaluation.2
In India, Parliament has exclusive power to make laws on entry into and expulsion from India, including matters relating to passports and visas. Indian courts have also made clear that not every activity connected or ancillary to a sovereign subject is itself sovereign. Indian courts have held that only functions which are inherently sovereign in nature, and which the State cannot delegate to private parties, qualify as sovereign functions. An activity that can be performed by a private person would not ordinarily be considered sovereign merely because the State requires it to be performed. Visa facilitation is precisely such a function. It is a facilitating service, not a sovereign one, and it may therefore be amenable to competition-law scrutiny.3
II. How Visa Facilitation Works Around the World
There is no single model for visa facilitation. Practices vary across countries and, in some cases, between locations within the same country. These practices can be broadly classified into the following categories:
(a) Consulate-only – Some countries continue to process applications only through their own Consulates. Mexico and Argentina, for example, accept visa applications in India only at their own embassies and consulates.
(b) Provider-only – Many countries hand all in-person intake to private providers, while their consulates keep the decision. The United Kingdom’s Visa Application Centres abroad are operated by commercial partners on behalf of UK Visas and Immigration.
(c) Hybrid – Some countries outsource only part of the process. The United States receives applications and interviews applicants at its own embassies and consulates. In some countries, however, it collects fingerprints and photographs at separate Visa Application Centres beforehand. Brazil processes applications itself in India, yet since April 2025 has required citizens of the United States, Canada and Australia to apply for an electronic visa through a single private provider.4
III. The Case for Service Delivery Reforms
A consulate can receive applicants only where it has an office, while providers can open centres in many more cities. Spain, for example, had only two consulates in Russia, but applications could be lodged at 22 additional provider centres. This is why the EU allowed outsourcing in the first place: to help consulates cope with rising volumes and extend their coverage, so that applicants need not travel long distances to a consulate in the capital.5
These benefits extend beyond applicant convenience to reducing administrative burdens and supporting broader economic objectives. In visa outsourcing models, providers are generally paid by applicants, limiting the direct cost to government budgets. The G20, OECD, UNWTO and WTTC have highlighted how visa facilitation can support tourism and travel demand.6
India’s Passport Seva Project offers a useful, though not identical, parallel. While passports and visas serve different purposes, the project separated front-end service delivery from the Government’s sovereign functions. Before 2010, passport services were handled departmentally through around 350 public-dealing counters. Under the public-private partnership model, TCS provides technology and service support, while the Government retains sovereign and security-related functions. By February 2014, the number of public-dealing counters had increased to 1,610, and public-dealing hours had risen from four to seven hours a day. These changes expanded service capacity and were intended to improve access and convenience.7
Despite its endorsement by the global forums, no global treaty governs outsourcing. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations treats issuing visas as a consular function but says nothing about outsourcing. The EU Visa Code provides a detailed framework under which Consulates retain responsibility for examining visa applications, conducting interviews and making decisions, while private providers handle other tasks. Providers may also offer optional services, such as premium lounges and courier delivery. Most nations are gradually migrating to outsourced Visa Application Centres (VACs), but the pace of adoption needs to accelerate.
IV. Why a Single Provider Is a Problem
The core issue is not necessarily the reluctance of States to outsource visa-processing services, but how outsourcing is structured. States generally invite bids from interested service providers through a tender process, thereby creating competition for the market. However, awarding the contract to a single provider often gives it exclusive control over service delivery for the duration of the contract. This limits applicant choice, restricts opportunities for other providers to enter the market, and may lead to reduced competitive pressure, inefficiencies and poorer service quality. Thus, while competitive bidding can help select a service provider, awarding exclusive contracts may undermine competition in the downstream market for visa-processing services. The resulting risks are similar to those associated with monopoly or market dominance, including limited choice and weaker incentives to improve service delivery.
The scale of concentration is evident from experience. Between 2011 and 2015, a single provider operated in approximately 86% of the cities where Schengen States maintained a consular presence. Spain relied on the same provider for visa processing in 50 countries during this period. More recently, the Turkish Competition Board recorded that, in 2025, one provider served 28 of the 37 countries in which visa applications were accepted through visa application centres in Türkiye.8
Competition law starts by defining the ‘relevant market’: the set of products or services that buyers treat as substitutes for one another. For example, an applicant who must apply to France cannot take her file to the Centre serving another country. Because visa applications are destination-specific, a centre appointed by one mission may not be a substitute for the centre appointed by another. This may support a mission-specific market definition, although the relevant market must ultimately be assessed by reference to the applicable competition-law framework and evidence of substitutability.9 This market structure gives rise to five key competition concerns:
(a) The payer is not the chooser – Competition works because a dissatisfied customer can go elsewhere. Here, the mission chooses the provider, but the applicant pays. Interestingly, the applicant, who pays for all of this, has no voice in the system. After the award, the applicant cannot switch at all as the provider is the only agency to render those services. In competition terms, this dependence gives the provider market power that neither a rival nor a buyer keeps in check. Research on Schengen visa processing found, for instance, that providers charged applicants for calling their helplines, which applicants often needed to book an appointment. One applicant estimated that a single minute of such a call costs about 10% of the local daily wage. Basic information and help with booking an appointment are part of the core service and, in our view, should not be charged separately. Even where a charge is allowed, it should be modest, not a price that only a customer with no alternative would pay. Charges of this kind, imposed on applicants who cannot go elsewhere, may amount to the imposition of unfair prices or unfair conditions for availing services.10
(b) Competition for the market, not in it – In most markets, firms compete every day, and an unhappy customer can switch. This is the general rule, but visa application processing markets are an exception to this general rule. In visa facilitation services, firms compete only once, to win a tender. The winner then becomes the sole provider until the contract ends. Competition exists till the day of award and disappears once the contract is awarded. Ideally, States should appoint multiple service providers. Where only one provider is appointed, the risks can be reduced through regular performance reviews and shorter contract periods. However, competition may still be limited at the bidding stage. Firms that already operate centres for multiple missions may enjoy cost advantages that new entrants cannot match, while stringent eligibility criteria may prevent potential providers from bidding altogether. Tender conditions must therefore be designed to encourage genuine competition. These barriers to entry narrow the pool of viable competitors and may also make collusion easier, which is itself an anti-competitive practice.11
(c) The appointment slot is the bottleneck – The mission sets the number of daily slots, but the provider controls their release. Where the provider’s group-controlled entities also run a visa consultancy, it has an incentive to keep the best slots for its own business. In Türkiye, two slots a day were reserved for an agency in the provider’s group, and the Board assessed that rival agencies were likely to find it harder to obtain appointments for their customers. Such self-preferential treatment creates an uncompetitive slot allocation market, which is an integral part of the visa application processing service market. Such conduct may amount to discrimination qua rival agencies, denial of market access, or the use of power in one market to gain an advantage in another market.12
(d) Revenue shifts to add-ons – Where the service fee is capped, a monopolist can recover its profit from uncapped extras sold to a captive buyer/applicant. The EU Visa Code requires providers to tell the public clearly that other charges are for optional services. Yet the Dutch foreign ministry reported concerns that applicants who made a small booking error were told they could proceed only by paying for a premium lounge, and EU inspection reports on visa centres in India found that applicants were not clearly told that such services were optional. In competition terms, making access to the service an applicant needs depend on buying one she does not want is a form of ‘tying’.13
(e) Weaker incentive to improve – A provider with a secure monopoly faces little pressure to improve quality. In India, Luxembourg Embassy inspection reports identified compact discs containing applicant data more than 18 months old. Separately, a 2025 report by the Hungarian consulate, referring to a 2021 on-site inspection of a facilitation centre in New Delhi, found that applicant data more than one month old remained accessible in the system. The report noted that the issue was subsequently resolved with assistance from Hungary’s IT team.14
These concerns highlight that the effects of outsourcing extend beyond the tender process to the actual delivery of services. The experience of other jurisdictions provides useful insight into how these concerns have been recognised and addressed in practice.
V. What International Decisions Advocate
Competition authorities in several jurisdictions have examined concerns arising from visa-processing arrangements, with their decisions highlighting different aspects of competition in this market.
(a) Türkiye – Acting on a complaint by the national association of travel agencies, the Turkish Competition Board opened a preliminary inquiry and inspected the visa centre operator, its subcontractor and a travel agency in the subcontractor’s group. The Board assessed that the main contractor, which served 28 of the 37 countries using visa centres, had significant market power.
The affiliated agency received preferential treatment. It was given a fixed number of appointment slots each day, appointments were booked whenever it asked, and its customers were served ahead of others waiting at the visa centre. Staff also tried to hide this from rival agencies. The Board found that the main contractor and its subcontractor had acted together in this, so it treated the conduct as an anti-competitive agreement inter se.
The subcontractor and the travel agency then offered ‘commitments’. Turkish law, in line with the global trend (including a similar provision in the Indian Competition Act, 2002), allows this at the preliminary inquiry stage for abuse of dominance and anti-competitive agreements, other than clear and serious infringements such as cartels. A commitment is a binding promise by a firm to cease or modify the alleged conduct in future. If the authority accepts it, the case closes without any finding of infringement or penalty, but the firm must keep its promise.
In February 2026, the Turkish Competition Board accepted the commitments. The parties were bound by their undertakings, and any breach may lead to the reopening of the closed inquiry.15
(b) South Africa – In 2014, a smaller South African visa services firm complained that exclusive contracts between the lead service provider and a growing number of foreign missions were threatening independent service providers. The complainant also alleged excessive fees, hidden charges and poor service, and hoped the complaint would lead missions to allow other qualified firms to assist applicants. The Competition Commission investigated the allegations but ultimately did not refer the complaint to the Competition Tribunal. Contemporary reporting indicated that the Commission had concerns about the competition-restricting effects of exclusive agreements but chose to pursue competition advocacy with foreign missions, citing precedents and limits on its powers in relation to governments and organs of state.16
(c) European Union – The Visa Code preserves EU procurement and competition rules when a provider is appointed, requires a conflict-of-interest check at selection, caps the service fee and requires close monitoring. In January 2026, the European Commission committed to a comprehensive study of outsourcing practices and announced a revision of the Visa Code during 2026.17 None of these measures, however, yet addresses exclusivity itself. The planned revision offers an opportunity to do so.
Taken together, these decisions point the same way. The core problem is exclusivity, which gives one provider a monopoly, and a dominant position, in each mission’s market. The question, then, is how best to address the competition concerns arising from such arrangements.
While enforcement is one possible response, it has two important limitations. First, in countries where the visa decision and associated administrative services are rendered by the State itself, the antitrust laws are generally not applicable to sovereign functions. Second, enforcement is ex post, which means that remedial action can be taken only after the harm has been caused. Preventive measures are therefore preferable, making competition advocacy a more prudent approach than relying solely on enforcement.
VI. Steps to Infuse Competition
If exclusivity is the problem, the primary remedy lies in awarding contracts to more than one provider so that each competes on the merits, i.e., in terms of price, quality and choice of service.
Where a mission prefers one provider in each location, it should divide the tender into smaller contracts, or ‘lots’, and allow no bidder to win more than a set number of them. A foreign mission in India, for example, could replace one national contract with four lots: Delhi and North India, Mumbai and West India, Chennai and Bengaluru, and Kolkata and East India. If no firm may win more than two lots, at least two providers will serve the country, even though each city still has only one. EU procurement law encourages this. It requires public buyers to explain why they have not divided a contract into lots, allows them to cap the number of lots one bidder can win, and prohibits designing a tender so as to narrow competition artificially. The OECD and the Competition Commission of India give similar advice, while cautioning that lots should be drawn so as not to make collusion easier.18
Lastly, contracts should be shorter. When a contract ends, the mission should float a new tender, not simply renew the old one. These contracts usually last three to seven years. The shorter the contract is, the sooner rivals get another chance. Shorter contracts should, however, come with safeguards, since frequent and predictable tenders can make it easier for bidders to share contracts. Staggering end dates across missions and keeping eligibility rules proportionate may reduce that risk.19
VII. Conclusion
The evidence supports outsourcing visa services, and this is in sync with the principle of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’.20 Outsourcing must, however, come with safeguards: more than one authorised provider in each jurisdiction, capped and transparent fees, add-ons that are genuinely optional and require the applicant to opt in, audited data security, and greater use of digital processes. Without these checks, a State that outsources is simply replacing a slow public queue with an expensive private monopoly.
The State may keep with itself the key to visa decisions. For administrative and facilitation work, however, States ought not to allow the ‘reforms rabbit to become a turtle’ and should embrace outsourcing. They must nonetheless avoid handing the gate to a single gatekeeper. Appointing multiple service providers is essential to preserve competition, expand applicant choice and improve service delivery, creating a win-win for applicants, governments and service providers alike.
Footnotes
1 European Parliamentary Research Service, Revision of the Visa Code (Regulation 810/2009) and Visa Information System (Regulation 767/2008), Implementation Appraisal, PE 615.646 (March 2018) (‘EPRS Appraisal’), pp. 1–3.
2 Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (‘Visa Code’), Article 43(4)–(6); Turkish Competition Board, Decision No. 26-07/216-77, 26 February 2026 (‘Turkish Decision’), paras 19 and 22.
3 Constitution of India, Seventh Schedule, List I, Entry 19; Union of India v. Competition Commission of India, W.P.(C) No. 993/2012, Delhi High Court, judgment dated 23 February 2012, paras 23–25 (approving the CCI’s order dated 3 May 2011 in Arshiya Rail Infrastructure Ltd. v. Ministry of Railways, Case No. 64/2010, and referring to Agricultural Produce Market Committee v. Ashok Harikuni, (2000) 8 SCC 61); Coal India Ltd. v. Competition Commission of India, [2023] 7 S.C.R. 827, paras 80–81.
4 Embassy of Mexico in India, ‘Visas’; Consulate of Mexico in Mumbai, ‘Visas’; Embassy of the Argentine Republic in India, ‘Consular Services’; UK Visas and Immigration, ‘Changes to the Commercial Partner Visa Application Services’ (GOV.UK, updated 20 November 2024); Turkish Decision, supra note 2, para. 20; U.S. Department of State, Consulate General Mumbai, ‘Immigrant Visa Interview Instructions’ (29 September 2023); Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, ‘Electronic Visitor Visa (e-Visa)’ (updated 12 December 2025); VFS Global, ‘Brazil e-Visa portal’.
5 M.-L. Sánchez-Barrueco, ‘Business as usual? Mapping outsourcing practices in Schengen visa processing’ (2018) 44(3) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 382–400, p. 392; EPRS Appraisal, supra note 1, p. 4.
6 Sánchez-Barrueco, supra note 5; OECD, Safe and Seamless Travel and Improved Traveller Experience: OECD Report to G20 Tourism Working Group, OECD Tourism Papers No. 2020/02 (OECD Publishing, 2020); World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), The Impact of Visa Facilitation on Job Creation in the G20 Economies (2012); UNWTO, ‘Visa facilitation can create five million additional jobs in G20 economies’, press release, 17 May 2012; UNWTO, ‘Asia and the Pacific and the Americas the most “open” regions for travellers in terms of Visas’, press release PR13005, 28 January 2013; UNWTO, ‘T.20.
7 Ministry of External Affairs, ‘Statement by the Minister for External Affairs Shri Salman Khurshid in Lok Sabha Regarding Passport Seva Project’ (Press Information Bureau, 12 February 2014); Lok Sabha, ‘Question on the Passport Seva Project’, answered on 9 July 2014; Ministry of External Affairs, ‘Passport Seva Programme V2.0’, press release, 7 January 2022.
8 Sánchez-Barrueco, supra note 5, pp. 389 and 391; Turkish Decision, supra note 2, paras 92–93 and Table 4.
9 OECD, Competition for-the-Market: Advocacy & Enforcement in Concessions – Background Note by the Secretariat, DAF/COMP/GF(2019)7, 22 October 2019 (‘OECD Note’), paras 70–74.
10 Sánchez-Barrueco, supra note 5, p. 395; Competition Act, 2002, ss. 4(2)(a) and 19(4)(f); Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), Article 102(a).
11 Turkish Decision, supra note 2, para 23 and fn 7; OECD Note, supra note 9, paras 126–133; Competition Commission of India, Competition Advocacy (2026) (‘CCI Booklet’), p. 39; Competition Act, 2002, s. 3(3)(d); TFEU, Article 101(1).
12 Turkish Decision, supra note 2, paras 44, 90 and 99–106; Competition Act, 2002, ss. 4(2)(a)(i), 4(2)(c) and 4(2)(e); TFEU, Article 102(c) (to the extent the conduct involves dissimilar conditions for equivalent transactions).
13 Visa Code, supra note 2, Annex X; Turkish Decision, supra note 2, para. 55 (recording allegations that the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted were unverified); The Indian Express and Lighthouse Reports, ‘We serve 71 governments, subject to rigorous oversight: VFS Global’, 28 May 2026; The Indian Express and Lighthouse Reports, ‘EU reports flag gaps in VFS visa centres’, 28 May 2026; The Indian Express and Lighthouse Reports, ‘VFS Global visa operations: EU team in India flags problems, seeks remedies’, 28 May 2026; Lighthouse Reports, ‘The Visa Empire: Borders as a Business’, 28 May 2026; Competition Act, 2002, ss. 4(2)(a)(i) and 4(2)(d); Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, arts. 102(a) and 102(d).
14 The Indian Express and Lighthouse Reports, supra note 13; Moneylife and BusinessToday, reporting the same investigation, May 2026.
15 Turkish Decision, supra note 2, paras 2–7, 86, 90, 92–98, 104–106 and 115–124; Communiqué No. 2021/2 on the Commitments to be Submitted in Preliminary Inquiries and Investigations Concerning Agreements, Concerted Practices and Decisions Restricting Competition and Abuse of Dominant Position, Articles 2 and 4; Competition Act, 2002, s. 48B.
16 Mail & Guardian, ‘Visa Services Under Investigation’, 26 June 2014; Sowetan, ‘Visa Processor Won’t Be Probed’, 4 October 2014; Travel News Weekly, ‘Visa Prices Aren’t Excessive – Competition Commission’, 15 October 2014, p. 16; Parliament of South Africa, ‘Reply of the Minister of Economic Development to Question NW796’, 12 April 2016; Competition Commission of South Africa, ‘Statement on the Decisions of the Competition Commission’, 13 May 2016, p. 5.
17 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 24 April 1963, Article 5(d); Visa Code, supra note 2, Articles 17, 43(1), 43(4), 43(7), 43(11) and Annex X; European Commission, EU Visa Policy Strategy, COM(2026) 43 final, 29 January 2026.
18 Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement, Articles 18(1) and 46; OECD Note, supra note 9, paras 128–129; CCI Booklet, supra note 11, pp. 44–45.
19 Turkish Decision, supra note 2, para 97; CCI Booklet, supra note 11, pp. 39 and 43.
20 Prime Minister’s Office, ‘Full Text of PM’s Inaugural Address at Economic Times Global Business Summit’ (PM India, 16 January 2015).
