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I have already travelled to schengen area once on a single entry Schengen visa. I am now trying to apply for a schengen visa with the intention of making several short trips to the schengen area.

My plan is to go to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Portugal in the next 6 months.

Which of the above embassies is most likely to provide a multiple entry visa? I can then tailor my plans and apply to that embassy to ensure I get a multiple-entry visa.

Relaxed
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rfsk2010
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    Out of multiple first hand experiences, I suggest going to the Greek embassy. I know it is not among the choices above but they do not ask for an itinerary in advance (at least where I live) and they always issue a multiple entry visa. – Nean Der Thal Apr 03 '14 at 13:14
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    Goto France and have a good deposit in your bank account. One of my friends had around £8k in his bank account and France issued him a year long Schengen visa, with multiple entries. – DumbCoder Apr 03 '14 at 17:03
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    The accepted answer below is out of date. It is unwise to treat it as correct. – Gayot Fow Jun 08 '16 at 13:52
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    Italy is the easiest. Germans are the strictest. –  Jun 27 '17 at 12:28

2 Answers2

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May be you will be interested in this data. It's old by still shows dynamic how easy is getting visa C in the Schengen countries. Portugal and Netherlands looks like the best choises. enter image description here

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Data from here: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/visa-policy/docs/overview_of_schengen_visa_statistics_en.pdf

Here is also file with statistic of 2010. You may see data of issued visas by you nationality. Make your own research to choose right country.

MikkaRin
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    I've compiled the following statistics by multiplying the multiple entry visa rate by the non-refusal rate to get the list of "optimal" Schengen embassies. It looks like Slovenia is your best bet. – JonathanReez Apr 03 '14 at 11:24
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    +1 for fascinating raw data, but the averages should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, Belgium's high rejection rate is almost entirely explained by the fact that its two busy embassies in its former colonies the Congos reject almost 50% of visa applications, whereas eg. the consulate in Mumbai only rejects 2%. – lambshaanxy Apr 03 '14 at 22:36
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    +1 for going beyond anecdotes. Still, interpretation is obviously contingent upon the refusal rate and on the type of application they get. Given their policy in other related areas (asylum, visas for family members, etc.) and their generally fastidious bureaucracy, I find it difficult to believe that the Netherlands is really a good place to apply. The last link might be particularly useful to try to sort this out. – Relaxed Apr 04 '14 at 05:32
  • NOTE: this answer is out-of-date. It should be updated to assure that the site provides current information. – Gayot Fow Jun 08 '16 at 13:51
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    @GayotFow what's the up-to-date answer? – JonathanReez Jun 09 '16 at 12:41
  • @JonathanReez, are you adding a new answer? this one is 3 years out-of-date but has been accepted already and more up-to-date info is being blocked. – Gayot Fow Jun 09 '16 at 12:53
  • @GayotFow please add your own answer and we'll upvote it to the top :) – JonathanReez Jun 09 '16 at 12:56
  • @lambshaanxy this makes me wonder how representation agreements are handled in the statistics. For example, the Belgian consulates in the DRC handle applications on Germany's behalf from applicants who wish to travel to Germany. Are these applications counted under Germany or Belgium? – phoog Nov 25 '22 at 10:08
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The current answers are outdated, so I took the latest Schengen visa statistics and compiled the following chart for the last 3 years:

Schengen State In 2021 In 2020 In 2019
Slovenia 97.07% 66.94% 78.36%
Germany 94.50% 90.38% 86.85%
Estonia 94.39% 94.37% 92.04%
Austria 92.79% 61.20% 49.28%
Latvia 89.77% 82.63% 78.98%
Greece 89.02% 81.46% 76.57%
Luxembourg 88.06% 84.95% 85.49%
Italy 87.27% 76.50% 73.57%
Lithuania 85.98% 89.65% 86.93%
Finland 83.81% 90.22% 90.25%
Switzerland 81.84% 72.24% 65.40%
Poland 81.28% 84.95% 76.45%
Netherlands 73.62% 65.32% 85.82%
Portugal 72.83% 52.25% 51.62%
Belgium 68.89% 58.61% 50.89%
Slovakia 68.32% 71.91% 60.64%
Malta 62.78% 44.56% 42.20%
Czech Republic 60.94% 39.59% 25.67%
Spain 59.00% 40.83% 44.36%
Norway 57.51% 48.67% 26.05%
Denmark 54.82% 54.98% 48.35%
France 53.34% 33.43% 29.78%
Sweden 50.42% 44.81% 26.89%
Hungary 46.26% 57.46% 45.48%
Iceland 18.19% 13.45% 8.80%
Median 73.62% 65.32% 60.64%

As we can see, median values seem to be improving year-over-year, but unfortunately multi-entry visas are still not the default. Note that these are aggregate statistics for every consulate in the world. When applying in a specific country you want to download the latest Schengen statistics file and find the consulate with the largest percentage of multi-entry visas. I.e. for India the top consulates are as follows (I've filtered the data to consulates that issued at least 100 visas):

Country Share of multi-entry visas in India
Germany 95.34%
Greece 91.02%
Switzerland 90.90%
Lithuania 87.25%
Austria 87.08%
Belgium 85.13%
Italy 84.77%
Denmark 78.51%
Luxembourg 74.62%
Netherlands 61.72%
Portugal 59.55%
Czech Republic 49.09%
Hungary 48.72%
Estonia 48.13%
Slovakia 43.40%
Finland 36.23%
France 27.87%
Poland 26.31%
Sweden 22.14%
Iceland 18.84%
Spain 14.19%
Norway 8.07%

So if I were applying for a Schengen visa in India, I'd definitely aim for Germany rather than France. Though of course another caveat is that we don't know if Germany is actually issuing 6+ months Schengen visas or just allows multiple entries on visas of short duration.

JonathanReez
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    That's a wrong answer. The 1st place on the list is Finland, but Finland complies to Schengen rules and always issues single-entry visas to travellers without a specific right to claim multiple-entry visas, except in their consulates in the North-Western Federal District of Russia, where they issue 'shopping' MEVs without even requiring any supporting documentation. As a consequence, the SPb consulate issues at least twice as much Schengen visas than any other Schengen country's consular post in the world. – ach Jul 03 '17 at 16:14
  • @ach that is true, but I certainly wouldn't apply for a French visa if I was hoping to get a multi-entry one for example – JonathanReez Aug 20 '18 at 07:04
  • Actually, France and Spain are widely believed to be the most probable places to get 'really ME' visas in Moscow consular areas. – ach Aug 20 '18 at 07:09
  • How are visa applications submitted under representation agreements handled in these statistics? For example, a resident of Algeria who needs a visa to visit Iceland must apply through the Norwegian embassy to Algeria. Is that application counted under "Iceland" or "Norway" in these statistics? – phoog Nov 25 '22 at 10:23
  • @phoog it will count as Norway. In the explanatory notes they mention: Liechtenstein is a Schengen associated country but does not process short stay visa applications but is represented by Switzerland for this purpose. I presume that the same logic applies to all other third-country representations. – JonathanReez Nov 25 '22 at 19:50
  • I wouldn't bank on it. The relationship between Switzerland and Liechtenstein is very much unlike the relationship between Iceland and Norway; that Liechtenstein is "Schengen associated" rather than a Schengen member state is only one difference. – phoog Nov 25 '22 at 21:44