Provisional agreement reached on new visa-free suspension rules
On 17 June 2025, the European Parliament and the Council have reached an agreement on the Proposal for the revision of the visa suspension mechanisms. The new rules will allow the EU to suspend visa-free travels to citizens from third-countries who are exempt from applying for a visa when travelling to the Schengen area (61 countries in total). The aim is to limit irregular migration and to react against abuses of the visa-free travel.
The provisional agreement sets additional grounds for suspension to existing grounds:
- Lack of alignment of a third-country’s visa-free regime with EU’s visa policy in cases where, due to geographical proximity, may lead to increased non-authorised arrivals in the EU
- Operation of an investor citizenship scheme (‘golden passport) whereby citizenship is granted to people in exchange for payments or investments
- Threats and deficiencies in document security legislation and procedures
- Deterioration in the EU’s external relations, in particular when it comes to human rights and fundamental freedoms or serious breaches of the UN Charter. The update should make it quicker and easier to trigger the suspension mechanism with lower thresholds:
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- A threshold of 30% will quantify substantial increases of cases of refused entry and overstay, asylum applications and serious criminal offences
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- A threshold of 20% to assess a low asylum recognition rate.
Finally, the duration of the temporary suspension will increase from 9 to 12 months, with the possibility of being extended to 24 months. The EU can decide to permanently revoke the visa-free travel regime if the third-country does not address the issues that led to the suspension.
Next steps:
- The provisional agreement will now need to be confirmed by both institutions before it can be formally adopted
- The agreement’s text has yet to be published.
More information: