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My Schengen visa was refused with following reasons:

  • Justification for purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not provided
  • You have not provided proof of sufficient means of subsistence.
  • You have not provided proof that you are in position to lawfully acquire means of subsistence.
  • The information regarding justification for purpose and condition of intended stay was not reliable.
  • Visa Shopping suspicion

I am not sure what has happened here. Based on rejection details given, I believe they suspect I didn't provide enough evidence of subsistence which led to other conclusions. My trip is self sponsored with all confirmed bookings, and I have provided income tax returns and salary slips along with a bank statements (not with big balance but showing cashflows), which should have been sufficient along with a good travel history (same has worked on previous occasions). I can easily provide more details on this.

My concern here is that it impacts my future prospects of Visas. I dont want to reapply a fresh application or change itinerary because I did everything correctly and it feels something has been misinterpreted.

Should I appeal against this decision? Is appealing against decision a bad thing and can make things worse?

EDIT:

Just to add, on my travel bookings part. I had provided all confirmed air tickets and train bookings. Only in one case where i had to catch a bus, i simply mentioned without any booked ticket. Is this not right way to show bookings?

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    How many Schengen visas have you had previously, and when? Which country refused you and what was your planned itinerary? Did your financial documents show you met the relevant minimum subsistence level(s) home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-07/…?
    – Traveller
    May 25 at 9:31
  • I had 2 Schengen visas in past, last one was almost 5 years back and i am well travelled across many countries. This time Hungary consulate refused my visa. My itinerary was like 5 days in country 1 , 2 country 2 and then 6 days in Hungary, so I applied for Hungary. I attached Bank statement of one account which had cashflows and not necessarily deposited funds. All these are more than sufficient for trip. I feel i should have attached any other sources like credit cards however my impression was that income tax statement/salary slips will be fine.
    – Travelling Juggernaut
    May 25 at 9:40
  • Which countries are 1 & 2? Hungary has been shown in the past to be one of the easier issuers of a Schengen visa statistics.schengenvisainfo.com perhaps your reasons for including it in your itinerary were viewed as weak.
    – Traveller
    May 25 at 9:56
  • 1 is Germany and 2 is Slovakia. My purpose of travel is tourism and may be to catch up with few friends, so i don't understand why a destination would be weak.
    – Travelling Juggernaut
    May 25 at 10:23
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    Ask a friend to review your previous application. Possibly you are assuming things that immigration officers doesn't know. Consider also language issue (on both sides).
    – Giacomo Catenazzi
    May 25 at 10:29

1 Answer 1

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Should I appeal against this decision? Is appealing against decision a bad thing and can make things worse?

You can appeal or lodge a fresh application, but only if you think there is something you could add to satisfy all the refusal reasons. See eg Schengen Visa Refusal: Does it make sense to appeal?

Pretty much all of the refusal reasons are covered here Schengen Visa Refusal: Justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not provided and here Schengen Visa Refusal: Justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not reliable

You have not provided proof of sufficient means of subsistence.

In a comment you say that your itinerary was Germany > Slovakia > Hungary, and that you submitted “Bank statement of one account which had cashflows and not necessarily deposited funds”. IMHO it’s (highly) likely that the latter wasn’t deemed sufficient to prove that you meet the required subsistence level for each country in your itinerary. https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-07/handbook-annex_25_en_0.pdf. Ideally you should submit statements that show a credible sustained surplus of income over expenditure and demonstrate that your intended spend on the trip is consistent with your financial means. I’m not sure if credit card statements would help much here; better to submit savings statements or similar if you have them.

Visa Shopping suspicion

You don’t mention your citizenship, but you can see visa refusal rates by country here https://statistics.schengenvisainfo.com/

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  • Thanks for detailed answer. My approach was that my salary slips/IT returns are much stronger indication of financial status and i added bank statement from salary account. Not sure how visa officer interpreted this. In your view do you see any drawbacks in appealing? Can it have further negative impact if appeal fails for some reason.
    – Travelling Juggernaut
    May 25 at 11:28
  • @TravellingJuggernaut Salary slips/IT returns only demonstrate income, in themselves they do not show that you have sufficient funds available to you to meet the costs of your trip. I don’t know for sure but I do not think that a rejected appeal has any further negative consequences. However, they’ve given five refusal reasons, I don’t recall any questions on TSE with a similar tally. An appeal has to convince them their decision on your application was incorrect. If I were you I’d wait awhile then reapply, making sure to submit paperwork to strengthen your case and address each reason.
    – Traveller
    May 25 at 12:13
  • It is the number of reasons itself which make me feel that something basic like finance has been misinterpreted or they didn't felt enough evidence was there. I am already with worst case scenario, so not much to loose. Thank you for all your inputs
    – Travelling Juggernaut
    May 25 at 12:46

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