Which Schengen Country is Easiest to Get a Visa From?

Every year a fresh set of "easiest Schengen country" articles makes the rounds, usually pointing at Lithuania or Iceland on the strength of low refusal rates. The data is real — refusal rates vary enormously across the 29 Schengen states — but the strategic advice that flows from it is usually wrong. You cannot simply pick the consulate with the highest approval rate. The jurisdiction rule overrides preference.

This guide walks through what the 2025 statistics actually say, and how to choose a consulate correctly.

Key takeaways

• 2025 refusal rates ranged from under 2% (Lithuania, Iceland) to over 25% (Malta, Sweden, Belgium for certain nationalities).
• You must apply at the consulate of your country of main destination — the country where you will spend the most nights.
• "Shopping" for an easier consulate by booking nights you do not plan to use is the fastest path to a refusal under Code 8 (unreliable information).
• A weak file gets refused everywhere. A strong file gets approved almost everywhere.

2025 refusal rates — the data

European Commission published statistics for 2025 (covering decisions made in calendar year 2024). The headline figures, rounded:

| Country | Approx. refusal rate | Notes | | ------- | -------------------- | ----- | | Iceland | 1.8% | Tiny applicant pool; Reykjavik consulates only | | Lithuania | 1.9% | Efficient, English-friendly processing | | Latvia | 2.4% | Similar profile to Lithuania | | Finland | 3.1% | Helpful for Baltic / Nordic itineraries | | Estonia | 3.6% | | | Greece | 4.8% | Higher tolerance for tourism-led profiles | | Czech Republic | 6.2% | | | Switzerland | 7.5% | (Schengen but not EU; consular treatment similar) | | Hungary | 8.1% | | | Italy | 9.4% | Variable by consulate; Rome stricter than smaller posts | | Spain | 10.1% | Generally efficient | | Germany | 11.6% | High volume; strict on "main destination" rule | | France | 13.2% | Largest applicant volume globally; documentation-strict | | Netherlands | 17.8% | Notably strict for first-time applicants | | Belgium | 21.4% | | | Sweden | 22.9% | | | Malta | 28.3% | High refusal rate, especially for South Asian applicants |

These are global averages. The rate for your nationality, at a specific consulate, can vary by a factor of three from the national average. The Commission publishes the nationality-level breakdown separately.

The jurisdiction rule

This is non-negotiable. You apply at the consulate of:

1. The country of your main destination — defined as the country where you will spend the most nights.
2. If nights are split equally between two or more countries, the country of first entry.

A French consulate will refuse a file that shows seven nights in Italy and three nights in France. Not because the file is weak — because the officer is not the right decision-maker.

Why "consulate shopping" backfires

The natural temptation, looking at the table above, is: I will say my main destination is Lithuania, apply through their consulate, and travel mostly elsewhere. This fails in two ways:

1. At decision time. Officers cross-check the cover letter, the itinerary, and the hotel bookings. A Vilnius consulate looking at a file with one night in Lithuania and ten nights in Italy refuses for jurisdiction.
2. At the border. Border officers do not check whether you actually went to the country that issued your visa, but they do check that your entry pattern matches what you said. Persistent mismatch is logged in EES and surfaces on the next application.

When the table actually matters

The data is useful in two genuine scenarios:

You have a real choice between two destinations. You are planning a Nordic trip and the itinerary could legitimately be weighted toward Finland or toward Sweden. Choosing the Finland-weighted version because Finnish refusal rates are a third of Swedish refusal rates is fair game — both versions of the trip are real.

You are planning a trip and have not picked a primary destination. If your wishlist includes "see the Alps, see somewhere Mediterranean, and a couple of historic cities," you have enormous flexibility in how you weight the nights. Tilt the itinerary toward consulates with better approval rates for your nationality.

A simple decision framework

1. Build the itinerary you actually want.
2. Count nights by country. Identify the country with the most.
3. Look up that country's refusal rate for your nationality (Commission data, available online).
4. If the rate is acceptable (under ~12% for most profiles), apply there.
5. If the rate is uncomfortably high, see whether the itinerary can legitimately be rebalanced — adding two nights to a different country, removing two from the current one — without forcing it.
6. Do not invent nights. Every booking has to be real, paid for, and matched in the itinerary, cover letter, and accommodation proof.

Profile beats consulate

We have seen identical files (same nationality, same profession, same trip dates) approved by Malta and refused by Finland — and the opposite. The single largest variable in approval is not consulate, it is file quality: consistent dates, credible income, demonstrated ties to home, clean itinerary, proper insurance.

Spend the energy you would put into shopping consulates on building a file that wins regardless of which consulate sees it. Our generator builds that file from a few inputs and keeps every dated document in sync — try it before your next application.