Croatia is joining the Schengen area in January: Will travel on your Indian passport be easier now?

Croatia is about to join one of the world's largest visa programmes, which includes 26 European countries.

Starting January 1, 2023, Croatia will enter the Schengen zone.

Even though it became a part of the European Union in 2013, the Council of the European Union only recently granted approval for Croatia to become a member of the Schengen Zone now. 

Croatia will become the 27th member of the continent's borderless travel programme. The decision comes following a vote made by the European Union member states, in which they unanimously voted for Croatia inside their Schengen cell on December 8, 2022. 

However, two other countries, Bulgaria and Romania (which are both part of EU) were rejected from being part of Schengen, by a veto vote by Austria on the same day.

But what is a Schengen visa? European Union defines a Schengen visa as a short-stay visa allowing its holder to travel around in the Schengen area. 

• The Schengen area covers 26 countries ("Schengen states") without border controls between them.
• With Croatia, the Schengen states have now gone up to 27.

Here's the list of Schengen states: 

Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

However, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein are associate members of the Schengen Area and are not members of the European Union. 
 

How does Schengen visa help?

• The unrestricted Schengen Area ensures free movement for more than 400 million EU citizens, as well as non-EU nationals residing in the EU or visiting the EU as tourists, exchange students, or for business (anyone legally present in the EU).
• The freedom of movement of people allows any EU citizen to travel, work, and live in any EU country without having to go through any additional procedures.
• Schengen underpins this freedom by allowing citizens to roam freely inside the Schengen Area without having to pass through border inspections.

So, basically, now, if you hold a valid Schengen visa, you can travel to all these 27 countries including Croatia.  

Good news for Indian passport holders: At the moment, to travel to Croatia, Indian citizens are required to apply for a Croatia visa via VFS. The processing time is around 15 days and it cost 715 kunas (Rs 7,928). 

Starting January 1, 2023 - 11 days from now, that is; if you are travelling from India to any Schengen country, including Croatia, you must follow the same procedures as before. With Croatia also being allowed to issue Schengen visas, the load on other countries might ease a little. (After all, we all know the insane amount of wait-times that a Schengen visa took this year.)

By the way: The rejection rate of a tourist visa by any Schengen country has been at an all-time high in the last three years, with a 13.4% rejection rate in 2021. This too might get a little better, now that another country is issuing Schengen visas.

Fun fact: Croatia has been a favourite with filmmakers, from both Bollywood and abroad. Shah Rukh Khan's Fan, for example was shot in Dubrovnik.

Those famous orange roofs that you see in Game of Thrones as King's Landing, are also in Dubrovnik.

World Cup fame: Croatia is also a country which benefited from its football form at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Croatia lost the final to France, but gained many tourists in the process.

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