EU reviews Schengen short-stay visa rules and fees

The European Commission published a call for evidence on 8 September 2026 to overhaul the Schengen short-stay Visa Code. It sets out the directions a revised code could take, including tougher visa measures for countries that do not cooperate with the EU, a possible new EU-level charge on top of the existing €90 visa fee, and easier procedures for trusted business travellers. The feedback period runs until 6 October 2026, and the Commission indicates a proposal in the first quarter of 2027.

If you hold a British, American, Canadian, Australian, Japanese or other visa-exempt passport, this reform has no direct bearing on your trips to Europe. You are not on the Schengen visa track. Your pre-travel requirement for Europe will be ETIAS, a separate system with its own fee (€20, set in EU law) and its own application process. The Visa Code reform and ETIAS run on parallel tracks and do not interact.

Who needs a Schengen short-stay visa?

The Schengen short-stay visa, known as the “C visa”, allows nationals from countries without visa-free access to the Schengen area to visit for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The list covers a large share of the world’s population, including nationals of India, China, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan and many others. The call for evidence says consulates received more than 11.7 million short-stay visa applications in 2024 and issued almost 10.3 million visas.

The current adult fee is €90, set in the EU Visa Code by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1415. Some categories pay less or nothing at all: children aged 6 to 11 pay €45, under-6s pay nothing, and students on study trips and researchers travelling for research are among the groups exempt.

What is the Commission proposing to change?

The September call for evidence sets out several directions the Commission intends to explore in draft legislation.

The biggest is a tougher set of visa tools. The Commission wants more flexible and faster restrictive visa measures for countries that do not cooperate on taking back their nationals, a new mechanism covering poor cooperation on border management, security and migrant smuggling, and a framework for targeted measures in response to hostile actions such as hybrid threats or the instrumentalisation of migration.

Next is a possible additional charge on top of the existing €90 fee. The Commission says it will explore, with member states, “the feasibility of introducing a harmonised additional charge levied at EU level on top of the Schengen visa fee”, with the revenue possibly used to support the common visa policy. No amount is given, and the proposal would need to go through the full EU legislative process before taking effect.

Then there are trusted business travellers. Some member states run their own facilitation schemes, but these do not apply Schengen-wide. The Commission will explore possible common lists of verified companies per country, whose employees could get fast-track processing, priority appointments or fewer supporting documents.

Finally, the revision would include limited technical clarifications linked to the digitalisation of visa procedures, and changes reflecting a possible future EU Visa Support Office within Frontex.

If I hold a UK, US or Australian passport, does this affect me?

Not directly. Nationals of the visa-exempt countries and territories (including the UK, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the rest) do not apply for Schengen visas. They travel under visa-free access arrangements and, once ETIAS is live, will apply for an ETIAS travel authorisation instead.

ETIAS is governed by a separate regulation and a separately set fee. The €20 fee is official EU law under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1411. The call for evidence does not touch it. Under-18s and over-70s pay nothing, though they still need an ETIAS once the system is live.

ETIAS is not live yet. Press reporting on EU planning points to 2027, but the EU has not announced an official date. No action is required yet. Applications are not open. The ETIAS status page carries the current official position.

Why is the EU reviewing this now?

The September call for evidence follows directly from the Commission’s first-ever EU visa strategy, adopted on 29 January 2026, which named the Visa Code recast as a key priority. The strategy also proposed a new framework for deciding which countries could be offered visa-free access, with benchmarks such as visa refusal rates, unfounded asylum applications, return rates and cooperation on return and readmission. The September step turns the Visa Code part of that plan into the outline of actual legislation.

EES matters here too. The Entry/Exit System went fully operational on 10 April 2026, registering facial images, fingerprints and travel-document data at Schengen external borders. The EU now has electronic entry and exit records for short-stay visitors, so it can see how long they stay and whether they leave on time, and overstays can be counted by nationality rather than estimated.

The broader picture is that the EU is building a layered entry infrastructure: EES logs the crossings of non-EU short-stay visitors, ETIAS will screen visa-exempt nationals before departure, and the revised Visa Code updates the rules for those who need a full short-stay visa. The IT systems behind them are run by the same EU agency, eu-LISA.

For travellers from visa-exempt countries, the Schengen visa track is not the relevant one. But understanding how the whole system fits together helps clarify why ETIAS exists: it extends pre-travel screening to nationalities that previously needed no paperwork at all, as part of the same wider push that is now tightening the visa track.