How the number of Russian tourists in EU is growing and what is driving it

Russians are increasingly returning to Europe for holidays, even as the EU has some of the world’s toughest sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

Schengen visa issuance to Russian nationals rose in 2025, exposing a gap between Europe’s political rhetoric on isolating the Kremlin and the continued appetite for Russian tourism across parts of the bloc.

At the same time, a clear geographical divide is visible.

Read more in the article by Euractiv, European Pravda's partner in Brussels: Schengen does not punish for war: Russians are receiving more visas than before.

According to the figures, Russian nationals submitted more than 670,000 Schengen visa applications in 2025, a nearly 8% increase from 2024. EU countries issued more than 620,000 visas, up 10.2%.

More than 477,000 tourist visas were granted to Russian nationals, accounting for roughly 77% of all visas issued to Russians in 2025, an increase of 8.4% compared to 2024. Visits to family and friends represented the second-largest category, followed by business travel.

France, Italy, and Spain accounted for nearly three-quarters of all visa applications submitted by Russian nationals.

Paris has received the highest number of applications, with a 23% increase in 2025 compared to the year before.

The EU also fully suspended its visa facilitation agreement with Moscow after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Commission maintains that, as a result, Schengen visas issued to Russian nationals "went down significantly, compared to before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine".

However, the annual statistics do not reflect such a decline. On the contrary, both in 2024 (575,000 visas) and in 2025 (632,000 visas), the figures were noticeably higher than in pre-war 2021 (fewer than 520,000).

Although, according to Euractiv’s data, the rejection rate has indeed increased.

At the centre of the row is the little-known 'Schengen Barometer', an internal Commission monitoring tool circulated among EU countries to track Europe's border-free area.

The document also contains figures of how many Schengen visas EU countries are issuing to Russian nationals while Moscow continues its war against Ukraine.

According to several diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions, some capitals objected strongly when data on Russian visa issuance appeared in the barometer.

France was particularly uneasy about the figures appearing in the document, three diplomats said.

Baltic and Nordic countries have long argued that Russians should not be able to enjoy leisure travel in Europe while Moscow continues its war against Ukraine.

The disagreement became visible earlier this year when diplomats noticed that Russian visa data had disappeared entirely from a newer edition of the statistics.

Several diplomats told Euractiv they were surprised that one of the document’s most politically sensitive sections had simply been removed, and pointed it out during the discussions.

After suspending the data, the figures were returned this month in a separate technical document circulated alongside the original barometer, three diplomats said, after eight EU countries raised the issue.