EU visa-free travel monitoring: The Eighth Report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism, published by the European Commission in December 2025, assesses whether third countries benefiting from visa-free access to the EU continue to comply with the conditions underpinning visa liberalisation. Covering developments in 2024 and major trends in 2025, the report highlights a range of migration and security risks affecting the Schengen area.
Background information: The EU Visa Waiver (Visa-Free) Regime
The EU visa waiver program allows nationals of certain third countries to enter the Schengen area without a visa for short stays of up to 90 days within any 180-day period. Visa-free access is granted only after a country has successfully completed a visa liberalisation dialogue with the EU and committed to meeting strict benchmarks, including effective border management, document security, migration control, anti-corruption measures, and respect for fundamental rights. Importantly, visa-free travel does not grant a right to work or reside long-term in the EU and may be suspended if a country no longer complies with these conditions. For this reason, the EU closely monitors visa-free partners, particularly where citizenship by investment schemes could allow individuals to indirectly access the Schengen area without undergoing standard EU visa screening.
Key findings of the report
While visa liberalisation facilitates mobility and cooperation, the report confirms that visa-free travel can also generate significant challenges when benchmarks are not fully met. The assessment covers partners in the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership, as well as Latin America and the Eastern Caribbean, focusing on areas where specific concerns have been identified.
Key risks identified in the report include:
- Insufficient alignment with EU visa policy, particularly in neighbouring visa-free countries, where divergences in visa-required country lists and visa issuance procedures facilitate irregular entry into the Schengen area. The report highlights practices such as seasonal visa waivers, visa-free entry based on third-country residence permits, and the lack of biometric data collection as sources of increased migration and security risks.
- Irregular migration flows via the Western Balkans route, which, despite an overall decrease since 2023, remain a persistent challenge. The report notes continued migrant smuggling activities, increasing levels of violence linked to trafficking networks, and pressure on difficult-to-control land borders, notably along routes transiting Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- Unfounded asylum applications lodged by nationals of visa-free countries, which typically have very low recognition rates and place a significant burden on Member States’ asylum systems. The report recalls that a substantial share of asylum applications in the EU continues to originate from visa-exempt countries, despite information campaigns and preventive measures implemented by some partners.
- Vulnerabilities in document security and identity management, including the use of forged or fraudulently obtained passports and identity documents, as well as the possibility of repeated name changes in certain visa-free countries. These practices are identified as undermining border controls and facilitating the circumvention of entry bans or alerts in the Schengen Information System.
- Citizenship-related practices, including Citizenship by Investment (CIB) schemes and simplified naturalisation procedures, which may allow third-country nationals to bypass standard visa screening and security checks. The report underlines that such practices pose inherent security risks for the Schengen area and, under the revised Visa Suspension Mechanism, may in themselves constitute grounds for the suspension of visa-free travel.
Overall, the report reinforces that visa liberalisation is not a static achievement but a continuous policy process requiring sustained compliance and adaptation to evolving risks, within the framework of EU visa-free travel monitoring. It shows that shortcomings in visa policy alignment, migration management, asylum misuse, document integrity, readmission cooperation, and citizenship practices have direct and cumulative effects on the functioning of the Schengen area. The Commission therefore signals a more rigorous and systematic approach to follow-up under EU visa-free travel monitoring, combining enhanced monitoring, country-specific recommendations, and, where necessary, the use of the revised Visa Suspension Mechanism. In this framework, visa-free access is explicitly framed as conditional and reversible, with the protection of the Schengen area’s security, credibility, and mutual trust remaining the overriding policy objective.
Related articles and sources
- EU Migration: Key Findings from the First Annual Asylum and Migration Report
- Travel to Schengen with a Criminal Record
- Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: Eighth report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism
- Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 November 2018 listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement (codification)
