Are the terms "visa denial", "visa refusal", and "visa rejection" used in the same standardized way in countries that use English?
Recently I've learned that at least in the UK there is what seems to be an official distinction between two of these terms (though I can never remember which). Apparently one means you did something wrong and goes on your permanent record while the other just means you have to resubmit your paperwork.
But is the same terminology used everywhere or might I get caught out by expecting one term I encounter in some other jurisdiction has the one meaning when they actually intended the other meaning?
For all I know in some countries they might not distinguish such cases at all or some countries might make more than two distinctions. How can I know?
For instance just looking up questions about visa rejection in the .gov.uk domain it looks to me like most people are using the terms to mean their paperwork was accepted but they were not granted visas.
Best Answer
Schengen regulations consistently use “refusal” when an application has been examined and a negative decision has been reached, as shown by the form reproduced in Gayot Fow's answer and by the Schengen Visa Code, e.g. article 32:
Refusal of a visa
- Without prejudice to Article 25(1), a visa shall be refused: […]
- A decision on refusal and the reasons on which it is based shall be notified to the applicant by means of the standard form set out in Annex VI.
- Applicants who have been refused a visa shall have the right to appeal. […]
- […]
- Information on a refused visa shall be entered into the VIS in accordance with Article 12 of the VIS Regulation.
A refusal implies a specific stamp and an entry in a database. The person who applied for the visa should be provided with a standard form mentioning a specific reason (from a list) and explaining how they can appeal the decision. The application fee is not refunded.
On the other hand, there is no specific term for “denial” or “rejection” (the words do not appear in the regulation). There is an article about consular competence (article 18) and another one about admissibility (article 19).
Here are the relevant bits of article 18:
If the consulate is not competent, it shall, without delay, return the application form and any documents submitted by the applicant, reimburse the visa fee, and indicate which consulate is competent.
And that comes from article 19:
Where the competent consulate finds that the conditions referred to in paragraph 1 have not been fulfilled, the application shall be inadmissible
If a consulate isn't competent or an application isn't admissible (say it was lodged too far in advance), then the consulate obviously won't issue a visa but the difference with an outright refusal is that the applicant should get their money back, there is no database entry or refusal stamp and any biometric data collected should be destroyed.
So the terminology might not be completely obvious but the difference between those outcomes is quite important for the people concerned.
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