Last year, the Spanish consulates rejected a total of 134,394 Schengen visa applications, which was 70% higher compared to rejected visas at the Portuguese embassies, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Both Spain and Portugal attract a large number of visitors coming from all over the world every year. Altogether, their embassies shared almost 12% of the total Schengen visa applications load recorded worldwide in 2017.
Clearly, Spain stood well above Portugal for the number of visa applications received. The Spanish embassies collected exactly 1,624,276 uniform visa applications as opposed to 263,502 uniform visa applications submitted at Portugal’s embassies.
The nationality of largest groups of applicants has changed changed a lot. Russians and Chinese maintained the majority of applicants at the Spanish embassies, while Angolans were the largest group of applicants at Portugal’s embassies.
Last year, 466,959 Russians were seeking to get a Schengen visa at Spain’s consulates. In turn, 460,244 of them was issued a uniform Schengen visa. The majority (90.9%) of them was granted a MEV visa.
The table below shows top five nationalities that issued most Schengen visa applications at the Spanish embassies.
On the other hand, Angolans submitted 92,815 uniform visa applications at Portugal’s embassies, more than any other nationality. Though they were listed at the top for the number of visa applications, they also enjoyed a higher rate of visa denials. Out of the total Angolans applicants 16,065 of them got rejected.
A similar trait of consulates of both countries was the rate of visa denials which was higher compared to the majority of Schengen embassies.
The Spanish embassies rejected 134,394 applications, sharing this way a portion of 10% of worldwide Schengen visa denials in 2017 all alone. Meanwhile, in correlation to the total applications at their embassies, the number of rejected visas shared 14.9% of the total applications load filed at the Spanish embassies during the past year.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese consulates were much less restrictive. A portion of 8.3% of uniform visa applications at their embassies was denied a visa. In absolute numbers, 39,141 applicants got rejected at these consulates, 70% fewer compared to the Spanish embassies.
On a wide scale perspective, we noted that the African applicants were mostly subject to visa denials. For example, over a quarter (26.3%) of Algerians that applied for a Schengen visa in the Spanish consulate located in the capital last year were rejected. The other Spanish consulate located in the city of Oran rejected a portion of 33.2% applications. Meanwhile, almost 7,000 applicants were rejected at Spanish consulates in Morocco in 2017.
Similarly, Portuguese embassies in Africa rejected a huge amount of visa applications in 2017. For example, though Angolans submitted most applications (92,815) a number of 16,065 of them got rejected. The rate of visa denials was even higher at other consulates. In Nigeria, 76.2% of the applicants were denied a visa, whereas slightly above half (51.8%) of the applicants at Portuguese embassy in Senegal were rejected.
The reasoning behind this occurrence can be the immigration crisis that the region has experienced in recent years. Probably their stringent Schengen visa restrictions for African applicants are an indication of with their efforts to deter the increased flux of illegal immigration.
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Information by kind permission of SchengenVisaInfo.com
