Indonesians to Pay More and Wait Longer for Schengen Visa After the New Year
Jakarta. Starting February next year, Indonesian citizens will have to fork out 80 euros for a Schengen visa, up from 60 euros per person previously. The fee for children's visa fee has also increased from 35 euros to 40 euros.
According to a statement on the Schengen Visa's website, a new regulation called the Schengen Visa Code, issued by the European Union (EU) Council in June, ordered a 33-percent increase in the Schengen visa application fee starting from Feb. 2, 2020.
Indonesians will now also have to submit their visa applications up to six months in advance of their trip to any EU country, double the three months previously.
Countries that do not provide their own visa admission services will have to do so through external service providers that may charge no higher than the original visa fee for their proxy services. This means Indonesians who apply for a Schengen visa at one of these external service providers could pay up to 160 euros.
Gent Ukëhajdaraj from schengenvisainfo.com said in a statement received by the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday the decision to increase the visa fee was taken to improve the level of cooperation of a "third country" with the EU.
"A visa fee of 120 euros or 160 euros will apply to non-cooperative third-countries, in cases when the EU Commission considers that action is needed to improve the level of cooperation of the third country concerned and the Union's overall relations with that third country," Ukëhajdaraj said.
He also said the new ruling could also shorten visa validity and prolong the visa process.
In 2018, 210,000 Indonesians applied for a Schengen visa to EU member countries, with a rejection rate of 1.8 percent. Indonesians spent 12.6 million euros on visa applications to Europe last year.
France was the most popular country to submit a Schengen visa application to last year with almost 56,000 applications, followed by the Netherlands (40,411), Germany (27,779), Italy (24,414) and Spain (16,126).
Tags: Keywords: