Netherlands visas are being refused; reasons for refusal and how to avoid them

It’s fascinating to know that visa applicants only seek for professional advice after their visa applications have been refused. A good number of people who have been denied visas contact me daily for advice on the to do next. Few things cut across all the refused Netherlands visa applications. All the applicants who applied without Invitation Letters from the Netherlands had almost the same reasons for their visa denial.

The reasons for visa refusal for those travelling to stay in a hotel are either two or more of the following:

1. Sufficient justification for the purpose and circumstances of the intended stay was not provided. You were unable to provide plausible, verifiable information about the purpose and circumstances of your stay. Consequently, it cannot be determined with sufficient certainty that all the conditions for the issue of a visa have been met.

2. Your hotel reservation has lapsed, and no other reservation has been made in its place. As a result, the purpose of your journey cannot be confirmed.

3. Your intention to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa could not be ascertained. Since it has not been demonstrated or established to a reasonable degree of credibility that you have a regular and substantial income in your country of origin/habitual residence to support yourself, it is not felt to be sufficiently probable that you will return to your country of origin promptly.

4. You have failed to demonstrate that you have significant social and/or economic ties to your country of origin or country of habitual residence. As a result, your prompt return following the conclusion of your intended stay cannot be ensured. In this connection, it should be noted that one of the basic criteria for the issue of visas is the prevention of illegal migration. In determining whether there is a risk of illegal migration, immigration authorities examine the local and general situation in an applicant’s country of origin/long-term residence and his/her specific personal situation.

5. Sufficient justification for the purpose and circumstances of the intended stay was not provided. Although you have stated that the primary place of residence during your trip is in the member state of destination you indicated, this is not supported by the documents submitted.

Causes of Netherlands visa application refusal

The requirements for a Netherlands visa include a plausible travel itinerary. The keyword here is “Plausible”, which means “probable”. What this means is that applicants are to tell the Consular how they intend to spend their days in the Netherlands in the form of a written itinerary detailing a “possible” plan. Though resources are available on the internet to help travellers plan their trip, someone who has never visited the country is likely to make some errors unless maybe an assistance was sought. Such errors are expected to be overlooked, but in recent refusal notices issued to visa applicants, the Embassy instead requests for a “verifiable information about the purpose and circumstances of your stay”. If an applicant intends to visit the Red Light District, how is this information expected to be verifiable? Red Light District is not an attraction where you can book for entry tickets. It’s accessed for free, so one may wonder how the Consular expects to verify this information.

A critical look at the above reasons show that the Embassy expect applicants to confirm their travels contrary to the advice that visa applicants should not confirm any aspect of their travels unless the visa is issued. For reasons yet to be known, hotels request for applicants to pay for their stay in advance despite the hotel agreeing at the time of booking that applicants would pay when checking in. It has not yet been established if the Embassy requests the hotel to confirm if truly the applicant has secured the room and would be staying there during his/her vacation in the country. Applicants who are not sure of getting visas ignore the hotel’s request for advance payment.

Once you fall into the hotel and itinerary issues, other reasons are added to you as bonus LOL. The problem of not having enough funds, substantial income, economic and social ties come in. When a visa applicant is not able to prove his/her travel intentions, it is then assumed that the applicant may not leave the country before the expiry of the visa.

How to avoid refusal of Netherlands Visa application

The key to a successful visa application is making your intentions clear and supporting it with enough evidence. Genuine travellers mostly do not have issues with their finances but get their visas refused because they failed or did not provide enough documents to support their purpose of travel.

Holidaymakers suffer the most when it comes providing enough documents to support their purpose of travel. A mere hotel booking and plausible itinerary have lately proven not sufficient in telling a Consular that applicant is genuinely travelling for tourism purposes. These requirements are usually ‘waived’ for applicants with travel experiences.

The only way an applicant can make his/her case stronger in confirming the purpose or intention is to buy a tour package. A package that includes accommodation, local transport and a professional guide that will take the tourist to all the places mentioned in the plausible travel itinerary. In this case, it’s no more PLAUSIBLE, but CONFIRMED itinerary. This single document will do away with the issues of lapsed hotel reservation and the inability to verify information about the purpose of your travel. The other reasons come up when the applicant fails to meet these two.

When buying tour packages, take note of the refund policies so that you don’t lose much should the embassy find other reasons to deny you the visa. With a confirmed tour package, applicants have had their entire stay in the Netherlands paid in advance, and the likelihood of getting a visa refused is very minimal if enough documents about the applicant’s personal circumstances in the country of residence are included.