An absolute minimum number of tourists from Russia currently receive multiple-entry Schengen visas, and more often this applies to business trips, experts from the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUT) said.

Earlier on Friday, the European Commission announced restrictions on the issuance of multiple-entry Schengen visas to Russian citizens.

“According to experts from the Russian Union of Travel Industry, the minimum number of people traveling from Russia to Europe currently receive multiple-entry visas, and more often they are business tourists,” the RUT said.

As Dmitry Arutyunov, co-head of the RUT Committee on outbound tourism and CEO of Art-Tour, explained, consulates of European countries practically do not issue multivisas to Russians. “The French used to provide tourists with multivisas, but this is rather an exception to the rule. Now multiple-entry visas are more likely to be granted for business trips, but we don’t face this situation very often either,” he said.

According to the information provided by the RUT, last year Russians received almost 550,000 Schengen visas, of which 41% were multiple-entry.

In September 2022, the EU completely suspended the simplified visa regime with Russia. This meant an increase in consular fees for issuing visas and an increase in the processing time for applications.