South Africans spent €13.2 million in Schengen visa application fees last year, as 165,893 people paid a €80 fee to apply for the permit.
According to Schengen Statistics, the 12th most applicant nationality group for the year had a rejection rate of 5.30 per cent, which translates to 8,644 visa applications being denied – almost the lowest among applicant countries.
South Africans spent the highest amounts on visa applications to Germany – 26,735 applications or €2.1 million in expenditure, followed closely by Italy, with only €400 less spent on fees.
The German consulate in Pretoria received the highest amount of applications – 16,735 and €1.3 million in expenses, followed by one of three Italian consulates located in South Africa, in Johannesburg, more specifically, which received 15,925 applications (€1.2 million).
Additionally, a little more than €2 million were spent on Schengen visa application fees to French consulates and another €1.5 million in Spanish consulate fees, while the Dutch consulates located in Cape Town and Pretoria generated €1.5 million in 2022.
In general, the list of countries that received the most visa applications in 2022 is topped with France, which received 1.9 million applications and generated €153.4 million, followed by Italy, with 1.1 million applications and €95.7 million in expenses.
In addition, €83.4 and €58.1 million were spent by nationals from third countries applying for Schengen visas at German and Italian consulates, respectively.
Similarly, France issued the most uniform visas in 2021 – a total of 1.4 million of those, followed by Spain (912,325), Germany (817,307), Italy (629,223) and Greece (386,371).
The expenditure of third-country nationals for visa applications to Schengen countries can be relatively high, especially for nationals of some countries with low income.
SchengenVisaInfo previously reported that almost one-third of the €300 average wage in Algeria goes for applying for a visa, which is considerably expensive, especially considering that Algeria is the fifth largest nationality group to apply for Schengen visas in 2022.
That isn’t the case for South Africans, as the average income stands at €1,500, but the demand for visa applications isn’t particularly high in this country, as it is ranked 12th in the list of nationalities with the highest application rates.
On the other hand, Indians filed 671,928 applications for visas in 2022, ranking the country third on an international level, falling behind Schengen visa applicants from Russia and Türkiye. Indian nationals’ expenses for Schengen visa applications totalled €53.7 million last year, up from €10.4 million spent on 130,427 visa applications filed in 2021.
