Schengen states have rejected a total of 1.6 million visas in 2023, resulting in €130 million generated funds.
While some countries of origin received more rejected visas due to their high volume of applications, which is the case with Türkiye, some other countries had higher rejection rates in proportion to their applications, Schengen.News reports.
Comoros is one of the countries that had a larger share of visas that received a negative response than those that were approved. The majority of nationalities found in this list will be Africans and Asians, considering they are most affected by higher rejection rates.
5 Nationalities With Most Rejected Visas in 2023
The cost of a Schengen visa application up until the beginning of June was €80. While some applicants get to obtain a Schengen visa and go ahead with their travel plans, some others end up paying for the application and other fees but getting nothing in return. This could be concluded as “wasted money”.
In terms of rejected visa applications, these are the nationalities that lost the most money:
- Turks – €13.5 million spent
- Algerians – €13.3 million
- Indians – €12.1 million
- Moroccans – €10.9 million
- Chinese – €4.8 million
These nationalities were denied most Schengen visas in 2023. Schengen states issued negative decisions for 169,514 visas filed by Turkish nationals, while Algerian applicants were denied 169,514 requests.
A total of 151,752 visa requests filed in India were rejected, followed by Moroccans out of 591,000 visas, 136,367 were denied. In addition, China was the fifth country for most visas rejected in 2023, having 60,554 refused visas. Despite that, China had one of the highest approval rates for the year.
5 Nationalities With Highest Rejection Rates in 2023
Rejection rates represent the share of visas rejected in proportion to the total number of visa applications.
The top five nationalities that had the highest rejection rates in 2023 are as follows:
- Comoroians, who had 57.7 per cent of their visas rejected
- Pakistanis – 48.2 per cent
- Bissau-Guineans – 47.9 per cent
- Ghanaians – 46.7 per cent
- Malis – 46.4 per cent
As per the money wasted on denied visas, Comoroians spent €173,920, with 2,174 rejected visas. Pakistanis spent the highest amount out of all (€3.3 million) while spending for Bissau-Guineans was €210,720.
Ghanaians also had expenditure levels of €1.6 million, while Malians wasted €770,960 on visa applications that, in the end, were rejected
