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I'm an Indian passport holder traveling from US to India with transit stops in Heathrow and Frankfurt (my flight is ORD–LHR–FRA–BLR). I have a valid US H1 visa, and my transits in both London and Frankfurt are less than 3 hours in duration.

Based on the above description, do you know if I would need a transit visa in either London or Frankfurt?

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    Welcome to travel.SE. Your question is a combination of multiple questions already asked and answered here. For London: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/6541/…, For Frankfurt travel.stackexchange.com/questions/20889/…
    – Karlson
    Commented Jun 9, 2014 at 18:12
  • This question appears to be duplicate of combination of other questions.
    – Karlson
    Commented Jun 16, 2014 at 16:53
  • @Karlson I hope we will not discourage questions about specific itineraries even if there is a duplicate for each airport considered separately. There are too many cases of travelers with a domestic or intra-Schengen flight not realizing they need a visa. For example, there would be an entry into the Schengen zone, and some travelers would need a Schengen visa, if LHR were replaced with CDG.
    – Patricia Shanahan
    Commented Dec 19, 2019 at 15:13

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You can consider each stopover separately. As you would not need to leave the arrival lounge of the airport in either case, transit rules apply.

For London, you might be exempted based on your US visa if you entered the US less than six months ago. As long as it's part of the same journey/booking, additional layovers and even breaks are allowed.

For the Schengen area (including Frankfurt), you are in any case exempted from the airport transit visa requirement if you have a valid US visa or residence permit (but not an I-797). See also Transit visa travelling from Canada to India via Germany or Do I need a visa to transit (or layover) in the Schengen area?

In both cases, you need to make sure that the stopover is not too long and that your luggage is checked through to your final destination, otherwise it might not be possible to transit without a visa.

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  • Considering the stopovers separately is OK in some cases, including this one, but misleading in others. Consider ORD–CDG–FRA–BLR. An Indian citizen would need a Schengen visa to fly CDG-FRA, an intra-Schengen flight.
    – Patricia Shanahan
    Commented Dec 19, 2019 at 15:17
  • See No transit zone at Linate airport. Couldn't get on connecting flight. Whose responsibility is it? and its answers for what can happen to a traveler who looks at each stopover separately. Even after being sent back, the traveler still assumed the problem was with one airport, not the overall itinerary.
    – Patricia Shanahan
    Commented Dec 19, 2019 at 16:31
  • @PatriciaShanahan This is an answer to the question asked. It's precisely because you cannot always do it that it's worth writing that you can in fact do it in this case. I wrote countless other answers covering other scenarios and in fact provided a link to a generic Q&A covering the CDG-FRA case right here.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Dec 19, 2019 at 21:05

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