The Swedish authorities have disclosed that applications for tourist visas have had the highest rejection rate this year.
Speaking for SchengenVisaInfo, the Swedish Migration Agency said that from the beginning of the year until August 2023, Sweden has refused 31 per cent of tourist visa applications.
This means that around one in three people who applied for a Tourist Schengen Visa in one of the Swedish embassies by August received a negative decision on their application.
While the Swedish Migration Agency was unable to provide information on the most common reasons for the denials due to the large volume of cases that need to be gone through, it is believed that the majority of rejections are linked to uncompleted documents.
The Swedish Migration Agency further revealed for SchengenVisaInfo.com that visitor visa for the purpose of visiting relatives and friends in Sweden and business visa also make up the list of visa types with the highest rejection rate this year.
According to the Swedish Migration Agency, 27 per cent of the people who applied for a visa to visit relatives and friends and eight per cent of those who applied for a business visa had their application rejected this year.
There is another category, visa for medical treatment, which has a higher rejection rate, but here we only got 29 applications, which is why the reaction rate is higher, 76 per cent. Sports and culture are also around 20 per cent, but these are about 450 and roughly 200 applications, respectively.
Speaking on the country’s plans to streamline the Schengen visa application procedure, the Swedish Migration Agency said that the country needs to follow the Visa Code.
However, it stressed that the current rules are already generous, permitting travellers who follow the rules to obtain visas with a longer validity period.
The Visa Code itself is a generous and favourable regulatory framework where people who travel frequently and manage their visas (i.e. do not abuse them) have the opportunity to obtain long visas for multiple entries.
As for its plans to accelerate the visa processing time, Sweden said that the country continuously reviews and increases the number of staff during high season to be able to handle increased volumes of applications.
Sweden also previously assured all applicants that it does not use any secret algorithms to filter Schengen visa applicants.
The Swedish Migration Agency said that all applicants go through the same procedures, and the country does not discriminate against applicants or support such practices.
