The Reciprocity Index: A Score Our Partners Don't Want You to See

Schengen visa costs €90. That is what governments cite. It is one of four real costs the applicant bears, and it accounts for roughly 16% of the actual burden. The rest is never mentioned on any official website.

This essay measures what the visa system actually costs, compares it in both directions, and puts a number on the asymmetry.

The system

Visa regimes are foreign policy tools. They extract time and money from the citizens of weaker countries, offer nothing in return, and operate without accountability. The waiting times, the fees, the rejection rates, the document requirements: none of this is an accident of bureaucracy. It is the architecture of a system designed by countries that never intended to submit to it themselves.

In 2024, 45 African countries collectively lost an estimated $68 million to non-refundable fees on rejected Schengen applications alone. Tunisia’s share: about $3.7 million. African applicants were roughly eight times more likely to be refused than Asian applicants. Six of the ten highest rejection rates worldwide belong to African nationalities.

The justification is overstay risk. Most irregular immigrants do not arrive through visa channels. They cross by boat, by land, through networks that have nothing to do with a Schengen application form.

Four costs

Official fee: €90 for a Schengen visa.

Processing time: Two weeks is the stated target. Eight to twelve weeks is the actual average for Tunisian and Congolese applicants.

Mandatory insurance: Travel insurance is required before the outcome is known. It is not refunded if the application is rejected. Cost: approximately €45.

Outsourcing and data extraction: Western governments have privatised the front end of their visa systems. The dominant firm is VFS Global, majority-owned by Blackstone. Its competitor TLScontact is owned by Teleperformance. These companies collect biometric data, complete financial histories, employment records, and family information. They do not review or decide anything. They are a paid checkpoint that in many countries cannot be bypassed. The outsourcing fee is €30–40. The value of the data extracted is conservatively another €100. Combined: roughly €130. This variable alone warrants a separate essay.

The score

We built a reciprocity index. It takes the four costs, normalizes each by the applicant’s GDP per capita in nominal terms, and compares the burden in both directions. 1 means perfect reciprocity. 0 means maximum asymmetry. The formula is symmetric. The full methodology is in the exhibit at the end.

Tunisia ↔ France: 0.046. Wait time accounts for 54% of the burden. Outsourcing and data extraction is 23%. The official fee is 16%. Tunisia imposes nothing on French citizens.

DRC ↔ Belgium: 0.018. Outsourcing and data extraction is the largest component at 39%. The visa fee Belgium quotes is €90. The real burden on a Congolese applicant, measured against income, is 296 times that number.

Japan scores 1.000 because it chose not to impose a barrier. Every Western country sits below 0.06.

What moves the score

Every variable moves the score.

Fees. A €100 fee on a French income of €3,510/month is negligible. But €90 on a Tunisian income of €340/month is 0.27× monthly earnings. The equivalent burden on a French applicant is roughly €950. A normalized fee moves the score.

Time. Eight weeks of processing applied to French applicants takes the Tunisia–France score from 0.046 to 0.834. Time does not scale with income. It is the one variable that equalises across any wage gap.

Insurance. €45 does not move the score on its own. But €45 on a Tunisian income is 13% of monthly earnings, paid upfront, non-refundable on rejection. Multiply that by the tens of thousands of rejected applicants per year and it stops being minor. Mandatory coverage from a Tunisian-approved provider, same terms applied in reverse, adds to the total burden.

Data. European personal data is worth more on the market than Tunisian data. Higher purchasing power, deeper digital footprints, more valuable advertising profiles. The outsourcing variable does not just match in reverse. It exceeds. A Tunisian company collecting biometrics and financial records from European applicants is sitting on a higher-value dataset than VFS Global collects from Tunisians. This is not a weakness in the model. It is the sharpest lever in it.

If Tunisia mirrors France’s full system, the score reaches 0.832. If France simultaneously goes digital (e-visa, two weeks, no outsourcing), both sides meet at 0.510. If both converge on a simple e-visa with no extras, the score is 0.384.

Recommendation

Nothing will change from the other side. The system works for them.

This essay is addressed to us. To Tunisia, to the DRC, to Senegal, to Nigeria, to every country whose citizens bear this burden.

The recommendation is one move. Create a Tunisian multinational company with the exclusive right to process visa applications from European citizens to African countries. Not one country. All participating states. The same model Teleperformance runs through TLScontact, reversed: a single African operator collecting biometrics, financial records, employment history, and family data from European applicants on behalf of African governments.

European personal data is more valuable than African personal data. Higher incomes, deeper digital footprints, richer advertising profiles. The company does not need inflated fees or artificial delays. The data alone makes it viable. One entity, operating across the continent, processing millions of European applications per year. That is a business.

It is also a negotiating position.

If the EU considers that arrangement unacceptable, the conversation is open. Remove VFS Global. Remove TLScontact. Bring processing to two weeks. Stop charging people for rejections. That is the alternative. If none of that changes, the instrument stands.

The Reciprocity Index, as of today:

Tunisia–France: 0.046. DRC–Belgium: 0.018. Tunisia–Japan/Brazil/South-Africa: 1.000.

If the burden is fair, accept it back.

Exhibit: Methodology

The Reciprocity Index is our construction. The formula, the variable selection, and the weighting are open for scrutiny, replication, and use by anyone.

Four variables, equally weighted:

v1 = official fee / monthly GDP per capita (nominal)

v2 = max(0, weeks − 2) × 0.15

v3 = mandatory insurance / monthly GDP per capita (nominal)

v4 = outsourcing + data extraction cost / monthly GDP per capita (nominal)

The normalizer is GDP per capita in nominal terms, not purchasing power parity, because the visa is priced in euros, not in local goods. Not minimum wage, because it is the middle class that travels. The World Bank publishes this figure for every country, updated annually.

The burden score for each direction is the mean of the four variables. The reciprocity score uses Normalized Least Squares Error:

burden = mean(v1, v2, v3, v4)

**residual = (burden_A − burden_B) / (max(

burden_A

,

burden_B

) + ε)**

Score = 1 − residual²

Tunisia ↔ France — France on Tunisians (GDP/cap €340/month):

Tunisia on French: 0, 0, 0, 0. Score: 0.046.

DRC ↔ Belgium — Belgium on Congolese (GDP/cap €50/month):

DRC on Belgians: €100 e-visa, 2 weeks, no extras. Mean burden: 0.006×. Score: 0.018.

What moves the score — Tunisia ↔ France:

It works for any two countries. For those across the Global South facing the same asymmetries: build your own instruments.