This is to help all the clueless Pakistani applicants like me out there. Here is my experience regarding submitting passports to VFS in Pakistan. This post contains procedure, timelines, restrictions and some personal experiences (Lahore office specific).
The submission process mentioned does not vary much from any other VFS office, so even if you are not from Pakistan, you will get an idea of what to do.
Please note that this is after you get a "Ready for Visa" letter (either as a message in your account or as an email. Sometimes you get both. Usually the account message is from your local visa office; Islamabad for me. The email is from the Ottawa office).
VFS Global (a third party organization) handles passport submissions in Pakistan (and in many other countries as well). In Pakistan, they operate out of Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. You can submit to any of their outlets in the above mentioned cities.
This is their website for Pakistan.
Office hours are Mon-Fri 9am - 1pm for all 3 branches.
Submission procedure
Choose a VFS outlet from the vfs website. No appointment is required, it's a walk-in for all the offices here in Pakistan.
Lahore specific info: The office is located opposite Ganga Ram Hospital. I suggest you park across the road inside the hospital paid parking, otherwise the traffic police have a lifter waiting to penalize any parking around the VFS office. The parking is congested but is right across from the office.
You need to take the following along with you:
- PPR email print out (with details filled in the given table regarding primary applicant, spouse and dependents; also be sure to print the full email. If you have more dependents in your application than the space given in the table, print the page with the table as many times you need and fill that in).
- Photographs according to the specifications mentioned in the PPR letter.
- Passports of everyone mentioned in the application. Passports need to be valid for at least 6 months with at least 2 blank pages. (Passports have to be ordinary ones, the visa cannot be placed in Diplomatic, Official or Military passports)
- PKR 1,332/- per passport (submission and transmission fee) + PKR 160 SMS tracking fee e.g. for 3 applicants this becomes (1332*3 + 160) = PKR 4156. Payment is in cash on the spot and take the collection receipt. (Disclaimer: These rates are applicable for the day I submitted my passports, check here for the latest rates). Any additional services (such as help filling in an application form, photocopies etc.) will be charged separately.
- Original CNIC of the one submitting the passports.
Restrictions
Mobile phones, laptops, USBs and any other electronic, media or storage devices will need to be checked in at the entrance. Bags (without the aforementioned items) are allowed.
At the office
Once you enter the hall that deals with Canadian applications, an officer will vet your documents to ensure that you all the required documents for submission (this is to save you the queue waiting time only to find out that you missed something). You will be assigned a queue number after the vetting process. Queue wait times vary, but the whole process took about 2 hours for me (check-in to check-out).
Keep the token with you till the time you check-out from the office.
Timeline
At the time this post is being written, they take approx. 2 weeks from the submission date. You can track your passports from their
tracking portal by providing the tracking ID of each submitted passport mentioned in the collection receipt. Passport collection is from the same outlet as the one they were submitted to. Passports will only be handed over upon presenting the collection receipt.
The process is pretty straightforward, but please let me know if there are any questions.
