I have already travelled to schengen area once on a single entry Schengen visa. I am now trying to apply for a schengen visa with the intention of making several short trips to the schengen area.
My plan is to go to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Portugal in the next 6 months.
Which of the above embassies is most likely to provide a multiple entry visa? I can then tailor my plans and apply to that embassy to ensure I get a multiple-entry visa.
May be you will be interested in this data. It's old by still shows dynamic how easy is getting visa C in the Schengen countries. Portugal and Netherlands looks like the best choises.
Data from here: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/visa-policy/docs/overview_of_schengen_visa_statistics_en.pdf
Here is also file with statistic of 2010. You may see data of issued visas by you nationality. Make your own research to choose right country.
The current answers are outdated, so I took the 2022 Schengen visa statistics and crunched the numbers:
| Schengen State | Share of multi-entry visas |
|---|---|
| Germany | 90.58% |
| Slovenia | 81.63% |
| Estonia | 81.31% |
| Austria | 74.89% |
| Italy | 73.85% |
| Luxembourg | 72.80% |
| Finland | 72.35% |
| Greece | 71.77% |
| Lithuania | 71.68% |
| Latvia | 69.00% |
| Switzerland | 68.89% |
| Portugal | 57.96% |
| Poland | 57.93% |
| Slovakia | 56.67% |
| Belgium | 56.56% |
| Netherlands | 55.55% |
| Denmark | 49.30% |
| Czech Republic | 47.41% |
| Hungary | 46.06% |
| Malta | 43.49% |
| France | 40.25% |
| Spain | 39.34% |
| Norway | 33.65% |
| Sweden | 33.64% |
| Iceland | 5.79% |
Most Schengen visas are now multi-entry but sadly they're still not the default. Note that these are aggregate statistics for every consulate in the world. When applying in a specific country you want to download the latest Schengen statistics file and find the consulate with the largest percentage of multi-entry visas. I.e. for India the top consulates are as follows (I've filtered the data to consulates that issued at least 100 visas):
| Country | Share of multi-entry visas for Indians |
|---|---|
| Germany | 99.25% |
| Slovenia | 96.32% |
| Austria | 94.01% |
| Switzerland | 84.00% |
| Italy | 81.30% |
| Netherlands | 75.07% |
| Denmark | 71.52% |
| Lithuania | 67.19% |
| Belgium | 67.14% |
| Estonia | 54.88% |
| Luxembourg | 52.22% |
| Greece | 46.97% |
| Poland | 40.36% |
| Sweden | 40.03% |
| Slovakia | 38.66% |
| Hungary | 36.54% |
| Malta | 34.24% |
| Latvia | 33.11% |
| Finland | 24.11% |
| France | 20.90% |
| Czech Republic | 16.85% |
| Norway | 15.98% |
| Spain | 11.59% |
| Portugal | 10.58% |
| Iceland | 4.31% |
So if I were applying for a Schengen visa in India, I'd definitely aim for Germany rather than France. Though of course another caveat is that we don't know if Germany is actually issuing 6+ months Schengen visas or just allows multiple entries on visas of short duration.
