Short-term visas are most often denied at the embassies of the three member states of the Schengen Zone. To learn which countries these are, continue reading below.

Three countries reject Schengen applications most often — France, Spain, and Germany. These states accounted for 66.5% of short-term visas rejected in 2021. 

Some information on each nation. France leads in rejecting visa applications: out of 652,331 applicants worldwide, 128.672 (21% of all applications) were rejected. Next comes Spain, which received a total of 483,469 applications in 2021, of which 69,863, or 15.5%, were denied. And Germany rounds out the top three: that country’s embassies received 346,284 applications and rejected 53,987 of them. 

There is also another ranking. It refers to the countries that receive fewer applications than the countries listed above, but they refuse visas even more harshly (in percentage terms). Here are examples: 

  • 30.6% of applications were rejected by Sweden (out of 22,260 applications received).
  • 26.2% of the applications were denied by Norway (out of 9,895 applications received). 
  • 21.1% of applications were rejected by France (out of 652,331 applications received). 
  • 21.1% of applications were rejected by Denmark (out of 26,469). 
  • 20.4% of applications were rejected by Belgium (out of 50,796 applications received).

This means that it is most likely to be refused at the embassies of Sweden, Norway, France, Denmark, and Belgium.

By the way, we wrote here about the top 10 countries with a low refusal rate for Schengen visas.