Germany completely abolishes right to appeal visa refusals

The German Foreign Ministry has decided to permanently abolish the right to appeal (remonstration) against visa refusals worldwide as of July 1, 2025. This has made the practice, which was previously limited to a few countries as a pilot project until June 30, 2025, permanent. According to the new regulation, people whose visa applications have been rejected by Germany will no longer be able to appeal this decision.

It was frozen until June 30

According to the news in DW Turkish, Germany temporarily suspended appeals against visa rejections from some countries such as Turkey, China, India, Russia, Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Ghana and Vietnam as part of the pilot application it launched in June 2023. It was decided that this practice would continue until June 30, 2025. As a result of the evaluations made during this process, it was determined that the examination of appeal petitions further increased the workload in visa units. It was revealed that the cancellation of the right to appeal allowed more capacity to be allocated to new applications.

The German Foreign Ministry emphasized that visa demand has increased rapidly worldwide in recent years and that visa departments have not been able to respond to this increase to the same extent. It was announced that approximately 2 million visa applications will be evaluated as of 2024, and the demand for long-term (national) visas in particular has increased by 26 percent compared to the pre-pandemic period.

The Ministry stated that in response to this increasing demand, it has been carrying out a comprehensive reform process to modernize, digitalize and centralize visa processes since 2022. It was emphasized that the transfer of personnel capacity gained by removing the reforms directly to application processes shortens the processing time and increases the number of applications that can be reviewed.

What will happen in the new era?

With the new regulation that will come into force on July 1, 2025, Germany 's foreign missions will not accept any objections to the rejection decisions given to visa applications. Thus, those who receive a rejection decision will only be able to take legal action. The statement from the ministry indicated that the removal of the right to object does not cover the legal objection process. The statement also emphasized that there is no obstacle for those whose visa applications are rejected to re-apply.

The German Foreign Ministry also emphasized that remonstrance is not a legal obligation, but a right provided voluntarily by the administration.