The consulates of the common travel area of Schengen located abroad have received over 16 million Schengen visa applications for the second year in a row. Despite that there was a decrease of under 1%, compared to 2017, this is the second highest number of applications that the Schengen consulates have received in the recent years.
16,007,785 applications for a Schengen visa were lodged in 2018, 9.6% of which were turned down. This is the highest rate of Schengen visa rejection since 2010.
France remains the top favorite destination country for Schengen visa applications, with 4,010,604 received in 2018. Yet, the country has one of the highest rejection rates, which is 15.7% or 629,997 applications.
Germany is still listed second, since 2016 when it kicked Italy to the third spot. Its consulates abroad received 2,056,296. The landlocked country has a lower rate compared to its neighbor in the first spot, of 9.1%.
Listed next in the list are:
- Italy with 1,844,140 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 7.4%
- Spain with 1,701,379 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 9.3%
- Greece with 855,285 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 4.9%
On the other hand, the Schengen Member States with the least Schengen Visa applications received in 2018 are:
- Malta with 32,331 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 20.4%, which makes it the Schengen country with the highest visa rejection rate.
- Slovakia with 26,797 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 4.2%.
- Slovenia with 26,403 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 10.0%.
- Luxembourg with 10,876 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 3.7%.
- Iceland with 9,334 visa applications received, and a rejection rate of 1.7%.
Another 66 Thousand Uniform Visas Issued at Schengen External Borders
Aside from the Schengen Visas issued at consulates, a total of 65,859 Schengen visas were issued at the Border Crossing Points, with the Netherlands topping the table. 14,088 Schengen visas were issued by Dutch authorities at their BCPs.
Spain issued another 10,484 visas and Germany 8,953. Landlocked countries as Slovenia, Czech Republic, and Hungary had a lower rate of BCP Schengen Visa issuance.