Overview
- Politico reports the EU plans to stop issuing most multiple‑entry Schengen visas to Russian citizens and could implement the rules as soon as this week.
- Russians would largely receive single‑entry permissions with narrow exceptions for humanitarian grounds and EU citizenship‑related cases.
- Visa decisions remain the responsibility of national authorities, and several countries have already sharply restricted Russian entry since 2022.
- European Commission data show Russians received just over 500,000 Schengen visas in 2024, far below the pre‑war total of more than 4 million in 2019, and a travel industry expert says the step mainly formalizes current practice.
- Germany will stop accepting non‑biometric Russian passports from 1 January, joining other Schengen states such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Iceland and the Baltic countries.