Number of Finnish visas reaches record high

Press release 2/2012
3 January 2012

Finland’s missions abroad processed a total of 1,258,999 visa applications in 2011, which is an all-time record high. The figure was up by 23 per cent on the year before. In the past five years the number of visa applications submitted to Finnish missions has more than doubled: in 2006 the number of applications processed totalled 585,181.

Almost 95 per cent of all visa applications were processed by Finland’s four diplomatic missions in Russia. As in previous years the single biggest recipient of visa applications was the Finnish Consulate General in St.Petersburg, which processed 936,620 applications, up 26% from the figure of 743,485 applications in 2010. Five years earlier, in 2006, the Consulate General in St.Petersburg processed 323,489 visa applications, just one-third of last year’s figure.

Visa application figures were also up sharply up in the Consulate General’s branch offices in Petrozavodsk and Murmansk, which processed 73,833 and 46,364 applications, respectively (up from 59,157 and 29,451 the year before). The Moscow Embassy processed a total of 134,631 applications in 2011, six per cent more than in 2010 (126,963).

Other Finnish missions that received more than 5,000 visa applications in 2011 were the embassies in Kiev (12,932), Bangkok (6,950), Beijing (6,854) and New Delhi (6,414) and the Consulate General in Shanghai (6,748).

The number of visa applications rejected by Finnish missions in 2011 totalled 12,078, around one per cent of the total number of applications received. The rejection rate varies widely from country to country. The Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria posted the highest figure last year at 50.4%. The lowest rejection rate at less than half a per cent was recorded among others in Petrozavodsk.

Further information: Counsellor Vesa Häkkinen, Unit for Passports and Visas, tel. +358 9 1605 5219 or +358 40 726 1379