What's changed

The Commission's Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs released its annual Schengen statistics dossier on May 28, 2026, covering visas processed by the 29 Schengen member states during calendar year 2025. Applications received reached nearly 12 million — a 1.8% increase on 2024's 11.7 million and a 15.5% rise on the 10.3 million logged in 2023.

Visas actually issued climbed faster: just over 10 million were granted in 2025, up 3% from 9.7 million in 2024. The global refusal rate held steady at 14.8%, identical to 2024.

Multiple-entry visa share declined slightly: 51.2% of issued visas (approximately 5.1 million) permitted multiple entries into the Schengen area in 2025, down from 52.2% in 2024.

Who's affected

The five highest-volume applicant nationalities accounted for the bulk of the 2025 caseload: Chinese nationals submitted 1.8 million applications, Turkish nationals 1.25 million, Indian nationals 1.15 million, Russian nationals 679,000, and Moroccan nationals 620,000.

Country-level refusal rates diverged sharply at the extremes. Russian applicants saw the lowest 2025 rate at 6.4%, down from 7.5% in 2024. Burundian applicants faced the highest rate at 53.4%, up from 40% the prior year — a 13.4 percentage-point increase year on year.

Where the data stands

The 2025 figures place Schengen short-stay volume at roughly 70.6% of the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline of 17 million applications. The pace of recovery has decelerated: 2024 represented 68.8% of the 2019 baseline, meaning 2025 added 1.8 percentage points of recovery versus the 5.1-point gain logged between 2023 and 2024.

The Commission published the full country-by-country breakdown alongside the statistical summary.