Kuwaiti and Qatari nationals were approved most visas per capita in 2022

With 3203 issued visas per 100,000 inhabitants, Kuwait has the highest number of approved visa applicants for 2022, with the visa approval rate being 93.4 per cent, while 3.2 per cent of the population obtained a Schengen Visa in 2022. Schengen Statistics reveals that approximately every 31st applicant from Kuwait received a positive answer for their application, while every 39th applicant from Qataris, which is the second nationality for the highest number of approved applications last year. More specifically, 2,556 positive applications per 100,000 people were recorded in Qatar, indicating that 2.56 per cent of the population has received a positive answer for their visa application, while the visa approval rate reached 86.95 per cent, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports. The third nationality with the highest rate of visa approval per 100,000 people was Surinamese, with 2,145 issued visas. This means that every 46th Surinamese applicant was issued a visa, taking the visa approval rate to 78.7 per cent, and the share of people with approved visa applications was 2.15 per cent.

The three following nationalities with the largest number of issued visas per 100,000 were Cape Verdeans, Armenians and Emiratis, with 2,097, 1,933 and 1,489 visas issued per capita, respectively. While the share of the population with approved visa applications is 2.1 per cent for Cape Verdeans, 1.93 per cent of all population in Armenia has received a positive answer on their application in 2022. In addition, 1.49 per cent of Emiratis were issued a Schengen visa last year.

This means that the visa approval rate for Emiratis was 75.7 per cent, while Cape Verdeans and Armenians had 71.45 and 86.61 per cent of their applications approved. Every 47th Cape Verdean national was issued a visa, compared to every 51th Armenian national and every 67th Emirati.

Lebanese, Belarusian and Bahraini are the seventh, eighth and ninth nationalities with the highest number of visa applications approved for the year. In total, 1,456 visa applications were approved for Lebanese nationals for every 100,000 people, followed by Belarusians (1,247) and Bahrainis (1,217).

By the end of 2022, 1.46 per cent of the population in Lebanon had received an approved visa application in comparison to 1.25 per cent of the Belarus population and 1.22 per cent of the Bahrain nationals. This indicates that every 68th Lebanese, 80th Belarus and 82nd Bahrain applicant was issued a visa. These findings take the visa approval rate for each of these nationalities to 78.57 per cent (Lebanese), 98.04 per cent (Belarus) and 93.12 per cent (Bahrain), respectively.

The list of top ten nationals with the most visas approved by the Schengen consulates is concluded with Tunisian nationals, who had 112,411 approved visas out of 168,346 applications. The share of the population with approved visa applications in Tunisia was 0.90 per cent, while the approval rate totalled 66.77 per cent. In detail, 902 visas were issued per 100,000 individuals, indicating that every 110th Tunisian was a successful visa applicant.