The UK made £44 million last year from visa application fees for applications that were subsequently rejected, mostly from low- and middle-income countries. The EU made €130 million in a similar way, a study by the LAGO Collective, a research group focused on arts and migration, revealed.
African visitors were disproportionately affected, with visa rejection rates ranging from 40% to 70%, according to the study. Through visa payments from Africans, Europe collected €54 million, or almost half of all payments.
“Visa inequality has very tangible consequences and the world’s poorest pay the price,” Marta Foresti, the founder of LAGO, was quoted as saying.
Moreover, the overall costs are projected to rise in 2024, as the standard application fee for a short-stay visitor visa in the UK increased from £100 (almost $127) to £115 (approx. $146) in October 2023, and the EU raised the cost of visas from €80 to €90 in June this year.
The analysis also showed that in the UK, Algeria has the highest visa rejection rate at 71%, followed by Bangladesh at 53%, with Ghana, Pakistan, and Nigeria experiencing rejection rates between 30% and 46%.
Last year, EU and Schengen countries received over 10.3 million applications for short-stay visas but only issued over 8.5 million visas, according to the European Commission data. Among residents of African countries who applied for visas, citizens of Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, and Mali received the most refusals: 51%, 47.5%, and 46.1%, respectively.
Margaret Monyani, a senior migration researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, explained to Sputnik Africa in early May that this trend highlights how patterns of exploitation and control from colonial times continue to influence diplomatic and economic relations between African and European countries, particularly in terms of their visa policies.