Hundreds of thousands of Moroccans hoping to travel to Europe applied for a Schengen visa in 2025, keeping Morocco among the biggest sources of visa requests in the world.
According to the latest figures from the European Commission, Morocco recorded 619,827 Schengen visa applications last year, making it the fifth-largest applicant country globally behind China, Turkey, India and Russia.
European consulates in Morocco approved 480,354 visas. However, 114,320 applications were rejected, giving Morocco a refusal rate of 19.2%, higher than the global average of 14.8%.
More than half of the visas granted to Moroccans were multiple-entry visas. A total of 265,244 travellers received permits allowing them to enter and leave the Schengen area several times without having to apply for a new visa for each trip.
The figures also show Morocco remains the largest source of Schengen visa applications in the Maghreb, highlighting the strong family, business and travel links between the kingdom and Europe.
Across the Schengen area, countries received around 11.93 million short-stay visa applications in 2025, up 1.8% from the previous year. Even so, demand has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, when applications topped 17 million in 2019.
China remained the biggest source of applications, with more than 1.8 million requests. France was the most popular destination, with its consulates around the world handling more than 3.1 million applications.
The European Union is meanwhile preparing to introduce a digital Schengen visa system, which will gradually replace visa stickers in passports with electronic permits linked to QR codes.
