A recent report by the Schengen Visa Statistics 2022 showed France as the most popular destination for Indian travellers among Schengen states. On the contrary, the report also mentioned that France also had the largest visa rejections in 2022.
France was among the five most popular Schengen destinations for Indians, which saw 1.38 lakh visa applications the previous year. France was followed by Switzerland at 1.06 lakh applications, Spain at 80,098 applications, Germany at 76,352 applications and the Netherlands at 52, 616 applications.
But France has a visa rejection rate of 20.12 per cent, which means that it saw the largest number of visas rejected at 27,691 applications. Spain was at the second spot in this category with 18.5 per cent, which are 14,852 visa applications.
Though Switzerland’s rate of rejection was as low as 13.2 per cent because the volume of applications received was high, it amounted to a total of 13,984 visas being denied.
What is a Schengen visa?
Schengen refers to the EU passport-free zone that covers most European countries. It is the largest free travel area in the world. A Schengen visa is a short-stay visa that allows a person to travel to any country of the Schengen area. A person with a Schengen visa can stay up to 90 days for tourism or business purposes in the Schengen area.
It is one of the most common visas for travelling in Europe. It allows its holder to enter, freely travel and leave the Schengen zone from any of the Schengen member countries. There are no border controls within the Schengen Zone.
Schengen Visa Statistics 2022
As per the report, Germany saw the lowest rate of visa rejection in 2022 which is 11.33 per cent with 8,615 visas being rejected.
The report further shows that other countries saw the lowest visa rejection rate because the applications for the visa were also low. Iceland saw 1,861 applications wherein 5.5 per cent of visas were rejected, Hungary with 9,046 applications saw 12.1 per cent rejections, Belgium saw 4,824 visa applications with 12.2 rejections while Norway saw 18,016 applications but the rejection rate was 14.5 per cent.
There are currently 27 European countries in the Schengen Area, 22 of which are member states of the European Union, which include Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Croatia.
Schengen Visa appointment in India
Schengen embassies/consulates in India typically require you to schedule an appointment for your visa application 4-6 weeks in advance. So it is advised to start the application process ahead of your upcoming trip, considering it will take another two weeks for the embassy to reach a decision.
Meanwhile, recently, the ambassadors of European Union member states gave a green signal to negotiate a proposal around digitalizing the visa application process. In case the negotiations come through, the travellers will be able to apply for the Schengen visa online and the current ‘Schengen’ sticker will also get replaced with a digital bar code.
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