Russia remains the world leader in the number of issued Schengen visas
Despite the pandemic and the closure of borders, Russia holds the world championship in the number of Schengen visas issued in 2020.
In 2020, Russians submitted almost 654,000 visa applications to embassies and consulates of Schengen countries. Due to the closure of borders and the suspension of the visa process, compared to 2019, the number of Russian applications fell by 84%. In the pre-pandemic year, our compatriots applied for visas more than 4.13 million times.
Coronavirus restrictions affected the aggregate visa statistics of all countries whose citizens need a Schengen visa: in 2019, almost 17 million people from third countries received a visa, and in 2020 this number was no more than 3 million people.
Russia remains the international leader in the number of applications for Schengen. If in 2019, about a quarter of all applications (24.3%) for a Schengen visa were filed in Russia, in 2020 this figure was 22.3%.
The world TOP-3 in terms of the number of submitted applications for Schengen includes Turkey and China, with indicators: 229,000 and 207,000, respectively.
In which countries and consulates Russians most often applied for a Schengen visa. According to SchengenVisaInfo, the Consulate of Finland in St. Petersburg remained the busiest consulate in the Schengen area, the institution processed the largest number of applications in the world last year.
The second busiest diplomatic mission in Russia in 2020 is the Italian Consulate in Moscow, where almost 85 thousand visa applications were submitted, the third place is at the Consulate of France in Moscow (73.5 thousand applications).
TOP-10 of 2020 by the number of processed applications: Consulates of Spain (55.5 thousand), Germany (48 thousand), Greece (41 thousand), the Czech Republic (40 thousand), the Netherlands (14.4 thousand), as well as the Consulate of Poland in Kaliningrad (almost 14 thousand) and the Consulate of Estonia in St. Petersburg (13.4 thousand).
Source: atorus