The Federal Foreign Office has decided to abolish remonstration procedures against visa rejections as of 1 July 2025. A remonstration is an appeal against the rejection of a visa application, a legal remedy voluntarily granted by the Federal Foreign Office that is not required by law. The Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA) welcomes the decision of the federal authorities, as it will reduce waiting times. The elimination of this procedure not only eliminates additional processing steps, but also frees up personnel resources in the German visa offices - capacities that are now available for processing visa applications. A pilot project in China, Morocco and Turkey, where the remonstration procedure was already suspended in 2023, has shown that this reduction in workload can actually lead to faster processing times.
The visa centres will issue revised rejection notices once the remonstration procedure has been abolished. Compared to before, these contain a more detailed description of the reasons for rejection. The legally guaranteed legal protection remains in full force and effect, as judicial review will still be possible in the future. In addition, all applicants are of course free to submit a new visa application in the event of a rejection. There will be no re-examination of the already submitted application by the respective visa centre.
Long waiting times for visas to be issued are a particular problem when travelling to trade fairs, as the entire trade fair participation depends on the visa being issued on time. Last year, a total of almost 30,000 exhibiting companies and over 220,000 visitors travelled to national and international trade fairs in Germany from the visa-requiring countries of China, India and Turkey alone. Important business potential for the German economy remains untapped if exhibiting and visiting companies are unable to send their employees to the trade fair on time due to long visa waiting times. One of AUMA's seven demands to the German government is therefore to ensure that visas are issued efficiently for trade fair participants. To this end, the federal government must facilitate and accelerate the issuing of visas for trade fair participants through rapid digitisation of the process and enable the faster issuing of multi-year visas for returning trade fair participants.
The abolition of the remonstration procedure is a first step in the right direction.
