{"id":1013430,"date":"2026-06-08T15:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1013430\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T15:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:36:21","slug":"eu-states-cash-in-e157m-in-fees-for-rejected-visas-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1013430\/","title":{"rendered":"EU states cash in \u20ac157m in fees for rejected visas \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EU countries raked in\u00a0\u20ac157.1m\u00a0last year\u00a0in\u00a0application fees for visitor visas that were ultimately rejected, according to new data published on Monday (8 June).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The findings released by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lagocollective.org\/material\/f\/visas\/rejected-by-gdp\/#schengen-visa-rejection-rate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LAGO Collective<\/a>, an NGO, are based on\u00a0European Commission data\u00a0from across the EU-27\u00a0in 2025.\u00a0Rejected short stay visitor visa applications amounted to \u20ac157.1m, up from \u20ac145.1m in 2024 and \u20ac130m\u00a0in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The highest rejection rates\u00a0are from\u00a0Bangladesh (54.5\u00a0percent), Senegal (51.9\u00a0percent), Nigeria (47.8\u00a0percent), Pakistan\u00a0(46\u00a0percent)\u00a0and Angola at 45.4\u00a0percent<\/p>\n<p>Angola\u2019s rejection costs rose 177\u00a0percent, from \u20ac1m\u00a0in 2024\u00a0to \u20ac2.9 million, the\u00a0steepest increase\u00a0of any country in the dataset.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Marta Foresti, the founder of LAGO Collective, described the Schengen application process as a \u201cvisa regime that functions as a tax on tourism, business,\u00a0trade\u00a0and\u00a0aspirations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Reverse remittances\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0practice, which has been\u00a0dubbed \u201creverse remittances\u201d,\u00a0is a source of anger across many developing countries, particularly in Africa, which accounted for\u00a042 percent of the lost application fees despite the continent\u00a0being responsible for\u00a024 percent of applicants.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The EU Commission\u00a0now charges\u00a0\u20ac90\u00a0visa application\u00a0fee\u00a0for adults to travel to the EU, up from \u20ac80 in 2024. The fees are non-refundable, regardless of the outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU countries raked in\u00a0\u20ac157.1m\u00a0last year\u00a0in\u00a0application fees for visitor visas that were ultimately rejected, according to new data published&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1013431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,219419,221891,221889,219417,221890,219418],"class_list":["post-1013430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier23","tag-identifier26","tag-nameafrica","tag-namemigration","tag-termcodeafrica","tag-termcodemigration"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116715230787075723","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1013431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}