Top 10 Easiest Countries to Get a Schengen Visa for Summer 2023
With many tourists already having started their summer vacations in the blue European beaches that stretch throughout the pristine coastline of the continent, it is not yet too late for others, to book their trips for the upcoming summer months.
While there’s a general belief that the best months to vacay in Europe are July and August, in fact, summer starts early in the continent, and in many countries, the beaches are open and sunny from the beginning of May to the end of September.
Many beaches are open even in April and October, for those who don’t mind the chilly waters, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Planning a trip to Europe at this point might be a bit more problematic for travellers who need a Schengen visa, that enables one to enter over 30 European countries, including here the 27 Schengen Area countries, which are the only ones eligible to issue such a visa.
Yet, even those needing a Schengen visa, still have time to obtain one. A factor that makes many people to spend their vacations in one particular place, is having a bigger chance of getting a visa to visit that Schengen country.
This, however, does not mean that travellers should attempt to obtain a Schengen visa from one country, and instead plan to travel to another, as this is called “visa shopping” and it is greatly condemned by the Schengen countries.
Recent data on Schengen visas issued in 2022, show that the ten countries with the lowest rejection rate in the same year are as follows, for highest to lowest:
- Italy – 12.7 per cent
- Greece – 12.5 per cent
- Switzerland – 12 per cent
- Poland – 11.6 per cent
- Luxembourg – 10.5 per cent
- Finland – 9.7 per cent
- Slovakia – 9.7 per cent
- Latvia – 9.5 per cent
- Lithuania – 7.8 per cent
- Iceland – only 1.9 per cent
The countries with the highest rejection rates, on the other hand, are Malta, Sweden, Belgium and France. While Malta tops the table with a rejection rate of 36.4 per cent, the second is listed Sweden, with 29 per cent of applications rejected, Belgium third with 28.4 applications rejected, followed by France, with 22.2 per cent.
Rejection rate aside, France is the Schengen country with the highest number of rejected visas, as the French authorities abroad turned down a total of 408,876 applications last year, out of the almost two million applications.