LTV visas for Russians: Schengen by territory and why residence beats a visa

In short

• On 14 October 2026 the Council Visa Working Party will discuss issuing LTV visas to Russians for non-essential travel, above all tourism. It is an exchange of views, not a decision.
• An LTV visa is valid only in the states written on it. A connection, a coach tour or a three-country trip does not work with it.
• In 2025 consulates in Russia issued almost 12,000 such visas. Russians received 477,878 ordinary Schengen tourist visas.
• Germany opposes a full ban; Finland wants a full ban and accepts LTV visas only as an interim measure. The Commission promises Visa Code amendments in January 2027.
• A Schengen residence permit is not a visa. It gives movement across the whole area for 90 days in any 180 and stays valid in every scenario.

A visa that ends at the border

A standard Schengen visa is like a ticket to the whole amusement park. Bought at the Italian gate, it lets you ride in France or Austria too. An LTV visa is a wristband for one ride. It says plainly: valid for Italy. Or for Italy and Greece. The other 27 states are closed to you, and so is a connection in Munich, because even the walk between a non-Schengen and a Schengen flight passes through passport control.

LTV was not invented for Russians. The EU Visa Code allows such a visa in exceptional cases: on humanitarian grounds, in a state's national interest or because of international obligations. Another case concerns a passport that not all Schengen states recognise. Many Russians have already met this mechanism without noticing: holders of five-year passports that some states do not accept received visas listing only the states that recognise them. I wrote about this in the piece on five-year passports.

The numbers show how quietly the tool is growing. In 2022 consulates in Russia issued 971 LTV visas. In 2023, 10,300. In 2025, almost 12,000. For comparison, ordinary tourist visas that year numbered 477,878. For now LTV is a fraction of a percent. The question on 14 October is whether the fraction becomes the rule.

What this means for you. The LTV visa does not need inventing. The mechanism has been in EU law for decades. Politicians only have to decide to whom and how often to apply it.

What will be discussed on 14 October

The agenda is public. The Visa Working Party meets as a mixed committee: besides the EU states, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein sit at the table, as they belong to Schengen without EU membership. Item two is called plainly: visa policy towards Russia.

1. LTV visas. An exchange of views on a Presidency paper. Ireland holds the Council presidency in the second half of 2026. The paper is titled "The issuance of limited territorial validity visas for Russian nationals in case of non-essential travel". The text is restricted.
2. Germany's proposal. A non-paper on a unified restrictive approach to visas for Russians. The idea is that all states issue visas by the same rules, with no loopholes.
3. Visa provisions of the 21st sanctions package. The Commission will update states on what was agreed in the summer, including the entry ban for combatants.

There will be no decision on 14 October. The working party prepares the ground: states say what they can accept and what they cannot. The real changes are expected in January 2027, when the Commission promises a package of Visa Code amendments. Issuing LTV visas en masse on the basis of nationality is hard without such amendments: the code describes LTV as an exception, and an exception for everyone stops being one.

What this means for you. The news of 14 October will not cancel your trip by itself. It shows the direction Europe will take throughout 2027.

Why politicians like LTV

Europe has long been split into two camps on this. The first wants a full ban on tourist visas for Russians. Finland introduced one nationally in 2022. On 12 October 2026 its foreign minister sent partners a letter with five demands: stop tourist visas across the EU, ban visas for the Kremlin's inner circle and sanctioned persons, restrict athletes tied to the state, fully implement the ban on combatants and rewrite the Visa Code so that the EU can quickly impose binding restrictions on any country whose relations with it sharply deteriorate.

The second camp opposes a full ban. France, Italy and Spain receive hundreds of thousands of Russian tourists every year and do not want to lose them. On 9 October Germany, through a diplomatic source, said there would be no full ban but every applicant would be checked more strictly. Since 2025 applicants in Russia have as a rule received single-entry visas from German consulates.

Now look at LTV through an official's eyes. The Italian consulate keeps issuing visas, hotels in Rome keep checking guests in. Finland and the Baltic states get a guarantee that those guests will not come to them, even in transit. Everyone saves face. Finland wrote exactly that in its letter: it would support the German proposal for LTV visas, but only as an interim step towards a full ban.

What this means for you. LTV reached the table as a compromise between those who want to close Europe and those who want to earn from tourism. Compromises in the EU live long.

What changes for travellers

The worst thing about LTV is not a refusal but having a visa and still not being able to make the trip work. Here is how it looks in practice.

Connections. There have been no direct flights from Russia to the EU since 2022, so everyone flies via Istanbul, Dubai, Belgrade or Yerevan. As long as the next flight goes straight to the visa country, all is well. But an Istanbul - Munich - Florence ticket with an Italian LTV no longer works: in Munich you are on German territory.

Tours. Coach tours of five capitals in a week, river cruises on the Danube and sea cruises calling at three ports become nearly impossible. To sell them, a tour operator needs a visa covering every country on the itinerary, while each consulate issues a visa only for its own state.

Driving. Finland has closed its land border, and since 2022 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have refused Russian tourists even with a Schengen visa issued by another state. With an LTV for Hungary you cannot drive through Austria, and with a visa for Greece you cannot take the ferry to Italy.

What this means for you. If you visit one country once a year, LTV visas will change almost nothing. If your life, business or family is linked to several European countries, it is a serious restriction.

Where LTV does not apply at all

This is the main point of the article. Everything discussed in Brussels concerns visas. Visas are issued to tourists, guests and conference participants. A residence permit is not a visa. A person with Greek, Hungarian, Spanish or Portuguese residence may move across the whole Schengen area for 90 days in any 180 on their card, without a visa and without a consulate. No LTV applies to them.

The second route does not depend on Schengen at all. If you hold the citizenship of a country with visa-free access to the EU, you enter as a citizen of that country. An example from recent news: an Argentine passport gives visa-free Schengen for 90 days in 180. We wrote separately about the terms and risks of that programme; the link is below.

There is a third, combined route, and I consider it the most practical for families from Russia. A Vanuatu passport is issued within a few months and opens the door to Greek residence, which is harder to obtain on a Russian passport today. The family then lives on the Greek card and Schengen works as before. I explained how this works in "A Vanuatu passport and Greek residence".

A visa regime can be changed by a Council decision within a few months. A residence permit is changed by the law of a specific state, and cards already issued usually remain valid until expiry. The difference in stability is huge, and it is worth weighing before the new rules come out.

Anna KovalevskayaHead of Legal, BRIDGES

What this means for you. LTV visas, a tourist visa ban, any new restrictions concern visas. If your Europe rests on a residence permit or a second passport, this news need not worry you.

My forecast for 2027

I see three scenarios. So that a decision does not depend on the headline of the day, I lay them out side by side.

The first scenario is already under way: visas are issued, but less often, for shorter stays and with more questions. A full ban, the third scenario, is not what I expect for 2027. It needs unanimity, and France, Italy and Spain will not give it. I consider the second scenario in a soft form the most likely: states will gain the right to issue LTV visas to Russians, some will start doing so by default, and the Commission's January package will enshrine this in the code.

I would like to be wrong. But over four years every new restriction on Russians in Europe was first called unlikely, then discussed, then introduced. I have never seen a restriction, once introduced, lifted.

What this means for you. Plan not for the best scenario but for the middle one. And the middle scenario for 2027 is LTV visas for tourists.

When there is no need to panic

Let me talk you out of unnecessary spending. Not everyone reading this needs a residence permit.

• You visit one country once a year on holiday. An LTV visa for that country does the job. Change nothing.
• You hold a valid multiple-entry visa. It stays valid until expiry. The new rules concern new visas.
• You need Europe only for tourism. Buying residence for the sake of holidays is expensive. Work out what several years of trips on single-entry visas would cost and compare.

Those for whom waiting is dangerous are different: people whose children study in Europe, whose business runs there, whose parents live there. People planning to move in 2027-2028. People who need Europe not for holidays but for life. For them LTV is not an inconvenience but a risk of being cut off from half of their affairs.

Common mistakes

1. Buying a ticket with a connection in a third Schengen state. With an LTV visa you will be turned back at the first border. Check which airport you fly through.
2. Waiting for the January package before starting. Residence permits and second passports take months. When the rules come out, the queue will be long.
3. Confusing a visa with a residence permit. They are different documents with different fates. Visa news does not apply to permit holders.
4. Putting all eggs in one country. Residence in one Schengen state and a passport of a country with visa-free EU access insure each other. One without the other is weaker.

What to do now

My conclusion

LTV visas are neither a catastrophe nor a ban. They are a fine instrument that turns Schengen for Russians from a single area into a set of separate countries. While it is being discussed, you have time. Those who use these months to move their Europe from a visa to a residence permit or a second passport will read the January 2027 news calmly. The rest will read it with a calculator.

Sources

Agenda of the Council Visa Working Party and Mixed Committee of 14 October 2026. European Commission visa statistics for 2022-2025. Joint statement of EU ministers on tourist visas for Russians, June 2026. Statement of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs of 12 October 2026. Germany's position of 9 October 2026. The EU Visa Code, article on limited territorial validity visas. Author: Sergey Evdokimov, Managing Partner of BRIDGES. Facts checked on 13 October 2026.

Related: Schengen for Russians in 2027, Greek residence, Hungarian residence, Argentine citizenship.