According to Schengen Statistics, until a visa facilitation agreement was implemented in 2013, inhabitants of Ukraine and Moldova had to pay considerable fees for visa applications.

According to the figures, 3.7 million visa applications cost Ukrainians a total of €285 million between 2009 and 2013, when the visa facilitation agreement was ratified. Moldovan nationals submitted 1.1 million applications throughout the course of the same four years, costing €89.8 million.

A visa facilitation agreement makes it easier for citizens of third countries to apply for visas by lowering the amount of paperwork needed, exempting some groups from visa application fees (such as diplomatic staff), and lowering visa application fees. After the visa facilitation agreement went into effect, applicants paid €35 as opposed to the prior €80.

During this time, Ukrainians spent over €71.4 million on average, while Moldovans spent roughly €22.4 million. Additionally, the average cost of unsuccessful visa applications for Ukrainians was €2.9 million and for Moldovans it was €1.1 million.

According to data from 2009 to 2013, there were approximately 892,000 Ukrainian applicants every year on average. There have been savings of almost €9 million as a result since the visa facilitation agreement was put into effect in 2013. Ukrainians were able to save roughly €9 million on travel costs to the borderless zone during the course of ten years of visa-free travel to the EU.

The founder of SchengenVisaInfo.com, Besart Bajrami, commented on the situation and noted that between 2009 and 2013, 36,605 visa applications were rejected, resulting in a loss of €2.9 million paid by Ukrainian applicants.

According to these calculations, Ukrainians have collectively saved €29.2 million between 2013 when the deal was signed until 2023, Bajrami highlighted.

Similarly, 290,000 applicants from Moldova applied for visas during the same time period, with the largest fee payment being €5.8 million. Since the visa facilitation agreement’s implementation in 2013, Moldovans have saved over €5.8 million, based on an average applicant count of 80,000.

Nevertheless, from 2009 and 2013, the average number of applications for Moldovans that were rejected was 5,500, resulting in a loss of €439,000 overall.

According to this figure, Moldovans have saved a total of €4.4 million over the ten years since the visa agreement was established in 2013,” explained Bajrami.

He added that since Moldova and the EU signed a visa waiver agreement in April 2016, its citizens have been able to save about €5.8 million yearly, amounting to a total of €34.9 million.

It is clear from a comparison of the data for Ukrainian nationals’ visa requests from 2009 to 2013 that the year with the highest number of requests was 2011, when 1.3 million Ukrainians requested visas. As a result, Ukrainians spent €105 million on visa applications in 2011 alone, each costing €80.

Despite having a lower population than Ukrainians (43.7 million to 3.4 million), fewer applications were submitted. The highest application rate occurred, however, in 2009, when 131,419 applications were made, as opposed to 51,787 the year after. This means that Moldovans spent the most on visa applications in 2009, totaling €10.5 million.