The European Union (EU) has revealed that it will raise the Schengen visa fee to €90 starting Tuesday, June 11, 2024. According to Schengen visa statistics released on Saturday, Africans seeking visas to the European Union are expected to spend more than in prior years. The report stated that African nationals would pay €90 instead of €80 for a Schengen visa application.
Furthermore, the report revealed that the EU had earned a total of €3.4m from rejected Schengen visa applications submitted by Nigerian citizens.
The data obtained in 2023 revealed that African nationals received 704,000 negative responses for their visa requests. Approximately €56.3m went up in smoke due to the non-refundable visa application fees.
However, many rejected visa applications have caused African nationals to enrich EU countries annually through ‘reverse remittances’ fees.
“African nationals spent €56.3m in visa application fees in 2023, representing 43 per cent of all expenses; rejection rates in 2023 were especially high for African and Asian countries, which bear 90 per cent. Expenditures are to increase by 12.5 per cent starting next week as the EU raises visa fees for adults from €80 to €90 on June 11, following a recent decision by the EU Commission,”
Statistics stated Algeria had the most rejected applications in 2023, with 23.5 percent of the total amount spent on rejected applications. It also ranks second in the total number of rejected applications, with 42.3 per cent of all rejected requests. This means 289,000 out of 704,000 Algeria visa applications were denied in 2023.
Those expenses heavily impacted Africans, considering that the majority of African countries have some of the lowest wages in the world.
The founder of LAGO Collective, Marta Foresti, said, “Visa inequality has very tangible consequences and the world’s poorest pay the price. You can think of the costs of rejected visas as ‘reverse remittances’, money flowing from poor to rich countries. We never hear about these costs when discussing aid or migration; it is time to change that.”
So far, Schengen visa rejections generated an amount of €130m in 2023, a way higher amount than €105m in past years.
