As of February 2020, Uzbekistan citizens will need to pay a fee of €80 instead of €60 as they did so far, when applying for a Schengen Visa from Uzbekistan.
Children too, will have to pay €40 instead of €35, as it is currently.
Uzbeks will be subject to several changes in terms of visa application procedures, rules and benefits, starting from Monday, February 2, 2020.
Due to the implementation of the Updated Schengen Visa Code, adopted by the EU Council in June 2019, all representative missions of the Schengen Countries located abroad are obliged to apply the new rules, including the ones in Uzbekistan.
“Since Regulation (EU) 2019/1155 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 amending Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code) is binding in its entirety, and is directly applicable in all EU Member States in accordance with the Treaties, all Schengen countries, including Lithuania, will apply it from 2 February 2020,” an official from the Information Monitoring and Media Division of Lithuania explained for schengenvisainfo.com.
The new rules also permit Uzbeks to submit an application up to six months in advance of their trip, instead of three as it is now, and foresee a harmonized approach to the issuing of multiple entry visas with lengthier validity to regular travelers with a positive visa history.
According to SchengenVisaInfo.com, Member States that are not represented in Uzbekistan in terms of visa admission, are now obliged to cooperate with external service providers, in order to facilitate visa application for travelers.
The external service providers are allowed to charge a service fee, which cannot be higher than the visa fee. This means Uzbeks applying at an external visa service provider may have to pay up to €160 per visa application, if the external service providers set the maximum service fee permitted, which is €80.
In addition, the updated Visa Code introduces a mechanism that assesses whether the visa fees should change, every three years. Another mechanism that will use visa processing as leverage will be introduced, in a bid to improve cooperation with third countries on readmission.
The mechanism may also shorten visa validity, and introduce prolonged visa processing periods.
Statistics show that in 2018, Schengen embassies and consulates in Uzbekistan processed 30,798 visa applications, 4,067 of which were rejected at a rejection rate of 13.2%.
Germany was the top favorite country for visa submission, as 10,302 of the applications submitted in Uzbekistan were for Schengen visas to Germany, followed by France with 5,382 and Latvia with 4,946 applications.
In terms of expenditures, in 2018, Uzbeks spent €1,847,880 in visa applications to Europe, €244,020 of which money was spent by applicants who had their visas rejected.
