Schengen visa statistics, year by year
Official European Commission figures for every year on record — applications, visas issued and refusal rates. Pick a year for the full breakdown, or see the multi-year trends.
The latest full year of official Schengen visa statistics.
Bulgaria and Romania joined Schengen for air and sea borders, expanding the issuing states.
Croatia joined the Schengen Area and began issuing uniform Schengen visas.
Recovery began in earnest as pandemic restrictions lifted across the Schengen Area.
A second pandemic year — demand stayed far below pre-COVID levels amid travel restrictions.
The COVID-19 pandemic collapsed applications to a fraction of 2019 as borders closed.
A strong pre-pandemic year, the high-water mark before COVID-19 struck.
Sustained growth — the last full year of the pre-pandemic cycle.
A rebound year as travel demand recovered across most third countries.
Applications softened to the lowest point of the mid-2010s.
Demand began to ease as Russian applications fell sharply amid the rouble crisis.
Applications stayed near record highs, driven by strong demand from Russia, China and the eastern neighbourhood.
The all-time peak — Schengen visa applications reached their highest level on record.
Applications approached 15 million, driven by surging demand from Russia and China.
Schengen visa demand climbed steadily through the early 2010s.
The EU Visa Code took effect, harmonising short-stay visa procedures across the Schengen Area.
The earliest year on record, compiled before the 2010 Visa Code standardised Schengen visa rules.
Source: European Commission, DG Migration and Home Affairs. Each year's data is released the following spring. Croatia (2023) and Bulgaria & Romania (2024) appear from the year they began issuing Schengen visas. Figures before 2013 are drawn from the European Commission's pre-Visa-Code compilations. They cover the comparable C (uniform short-stay) visas, but were reported on a different basis and aggregated from consulate-level data, so they are indicative rather than directly comparable with later years.