The short answer
Each country publishes its own visitor pages, and the first one to open is the official visa-check tool. It tells you what applies to your passport and the purpose of your visit. StudentFlow does not decide this for you, and nobody can promise whether an application will be approved. This guide is a map: where the official pages are, and what each is for.
Key terms in plain English
- Visa-check tool: the government’s own questionnaire about your passport and your reason for travelling.
- Visitor visa: the permission, where one is needed, to visit for a limited purpose such as seeing family.
- Sponsor: the person in the destination country whom some routes ask to take part in an application.
The United Kingdom
- Check if you need a UK visa is the official tool.
- Visit the UK as a Standard Visitor describes what a visit can include and what you cannot do.
- How to apply for a visa to come to the UK explains the application steps.
Canada
- Check if you need a visa or eTA is the official questionnaire.
- How to apply for a visitor visa covers the steps.
- Super visa for parents and grandparents is a separate page for a longer visit.
Australia
- Visa Finder is the department’s own tool.
- Visitor visa (subclass 600) lists its streams, including Sponsored Family.
- Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 870) is a separate page for parents.
Germany
- Visa Navigator is the Federal Foreign Office’s tool.
- Visas for Germany covers who needs a visa, the types and the procedure.
- German missions in India: services explains how appointments and applications are handled.
Checklist
- To do: Open the official tool for the country your family is in
- To do: Note the date you used it, and what it said
- To do: Read the visitor page for your kind of visit, to the end
- To do: Read the page for longer stays if you might stay longer
- To do: Check every passport that will travel
- To do: Write down questions for the official website or a licensed adviser
- To do: Keep bookings changeable until your paperwork is clear
Common mistakes
- Relying on a friend’s experience. Rules depend on passport and purpose, and change.
- Skipping the page about what you cannot do. Read it as carefully as the rest.
- Assuming a visit and a longer stay follow the same page. They often do not.
- Booking first. Non-refundable bookings and uncertain paperwork do not mix.
- Paying an agent who promises a result. Nobody can.
Things that change
Visitor routes open, pause and change names, and tools move. If a link here stops working, search the official site for the page title instead of using a copy somewhere else.
Verify before you act
The pages above are the source. If you want help with an application, choose an adviser registered with the official regulator, such as through Find an immigration adviser (GOV.UK), IRCC’s authorised representatives page or the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority, and check their registration yourself.