Which European student visas are handled in Dhaka, and which need a trip to New Delhi — the full map for 2026

In short: Most of Europe's student visas for Bangladeshi applicants are now handled from Dhaka. Finland and Bulgaria still require you to travel to New Delhi in person. Greece sits in between — lodged at a Dhaka centre, decided in Delhi, no travel — Cyprus runs on a different track entirely, with your university filing for an entry permit in Nicosia, and Bulgaria looks handled from Dhaka but is not yet — its Dhaka centre lists type D without running it. Knowing which route your country uses before you build a timeline saves weeks, money and one very common last-minute panic.

The question that gets left out of most application plans is disarmingly simple: where will I actually hand in my visa file? Not every European country has a resident embassy in Bangladesh, and the ones that do not usually route Bangladeshi applicants through New Delhi. Here is the current map, country by country.

Handled from Dhaka

Each country name opens that country's own route page — the office, the fee, the documents and who takes the decision.

The hybrid: Greece

Greece has no resident embassy in Bangladesh and is formally the responsibility of its mission in New Delhi. It does not, however, make you go there. Since February 2026 Greece has had a visa application centre in Dhaka, so you submit and give biometrics there; the decision is taken by the embassy in New Delhi and the file travels by courier. The timeline therefore runs longer than a resident embassy's — budget four to eight weeks with a buffer.

Bulgaria: the Dhaka listing that is not yet a service

Bulgaria's foreign ministry states plainly that it has no active embassy in Bangladesh and that New Delhi is responsible. A Bulgaria visa application centre does operate in Dhaka, and its own list of visa categories includes "Long Term Visa (Type D)" — exactly what a student needs. That listing is why this route keeps getting reported as settled, including by us in an earlier version of this page.

It is not settled, and we went and checked rather than reasoning from the menu. We telephoned the Dhaka centre on 9 September 2026 and asked the direct question: can a student lodge a complete type D file here? The answer was no. The category is not yet operating from Bangladesh; the centre said the service has been announced but that work on it has not started. Until it does, a Bulgarian student visa is applied for and interviewed for in person at the Bulgarian Embassy in New Delhi.

That also explains the gap that made us suspicious in the first place: the centre publishes fees and document lists only for the short-stay categories — transit, tourist, business, medical — and nothing at all under type D. A category can appear in a dropdown before anyone is staffed to process it.

So budget the Indian visa, the flights and the days. The type D line is worth watching, because the day it opens Bulgaria becomes one of the easiest of the nine to apply for rather than the hardest. But a listed category is not a working counter, and you cannot build an intake on one. ⚠️ Confirmed by telephone with the Dhaka centre on 9 September 2026 — an arrangement like this changes without an announcement, so ask again before you book anything.

Requires a trip to New Delhi

Cyprus is on its own track

Cyprus is neither a Dhaka route nor a Delhi trip. Its foreign ministry states that there is no resident Cypriot mission in Bangladesh and that the High Commission in New Delhi is responsible; the honorary consulate in Dhaka is not a visa office and cannot take an application or biometrics. The student process also runs in the opposite order from everywhere else — your university files for an entry permit with the Civil Registry and Migration Department in Nicosia, and the visa step comes after that approval. We could not confirm from any official Cypriot or service-provider page that a Cyprus visa application centre operates in Dhaka, so treat any agency that claims one as unverified until they show you the mission's own page.

The most important caveat: representation and visa routes change — some countries have at times processed certain Bangladeshi cases from Delhi, and centres open and close. Before booking any appointment or ticket, confirm the current rule on the mission's official page or the VFS page. This map is the general picture, not the final word.

Planning a Delhi trip

• Indian visa — allow two to four weeks; it is the step people forget
• Book the biometrics or interview appointment first, the ticket second
• Every original document in hand luggage — the aim is one trip
• Budget roughly BDT 40,000–60,000 for travel and a short stay
• For Bulgaria, confirm how the passport comes back — courier or a second visit

Why this belongs at the start of the timeline

For the Delhi-route countries you are adding a second visa process (India's) and a journey to an already tight calendar. Build it into the intake plan from the first day and it is an errand; discover it in July and it can cost the semester. The country guides for Finland and Bulgaria walk through the Delhi step in detail, and the Greece guide covers the Dhaka–Delhi hybrid.