Schengen Statistics, however, show that countries like Spain and Finland, which always review bigger quantities of applications, have the lowest percentage of Russian citizen visa applications that are denied.
In contrast to Hungary, which accepted 90.9% of the 27,595 applications submitted by Russian citizens, Spain had a recognition percentage of 92.5%. More specifically, according to EU Helpers, Spanish consulates will grant 154,450 of the 166,893 Russian passport holders who applied for Schengen visas in 2022.
Similar to Finland, 105,323 out of 112,737 applications submitted by Russians were approved, or 93.4% of them. Due to the increased number of applications submitted by Russians, the rejection rates from the consulates of Spain and Finland are higher than those of other nations (8,333 and 4,722, respectively).
It is clear that Poland tops the list with a recognition rate of 98.4% and only 25 refused visa applications when classifying the nations that denied the fewest applications submitted by Russian citizens and so had the greatest recognition rates. However, there are fewer applications made to this nation than to others—2,208 as opposed to more than 112,000 and 166,000 made to the consulates of Finland and Spain, respectively.
Other nations with greater recognition rates in terms of accepted visa applications include Lithuania, which came in second with a recognition rate of 96.1%, followed by the Netherlands with a recognition rate of 94% and Latvia with a recognition rate of 93.3%. In comparison to nations that received more applicants, such as Spain and Finland, Hungary would rank third in terms of simplest country to issue visas and ninth in terms of recognition rates for Russian visa applicants.
In an effort to halt military aggression and as a show of support for Ukraine, the European nations have imposed sanctions against Russia. Russian passport holders consequently have a very limited number of free travel options in Europe compared to before the sanctions were put in place.In a recent announcement, the Finnish Foreign Ministry stated that effective August 1, 2023, it would no longer accept visa and resident permit applications submitted by Russian citizens in Saint Petersburg.
From August 1, 2023, the Visa Center VFS (Visa Facilitation Services Global) office in St. Petersburg will no longer accept applications for visas and residence permits to Finland, according to a statement from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On the other hand, out of a total of 4.1 million applications submitted by Russians in the same year, Spain has emerged as a popular destination for citizens of that country. In 2019, more than 500,000 Schengen visa applications were submitted to the Spanish authorities in Russia.