When stamp duty is no longer refunded after a refusal or discontinuation

From March 2026, in certain residence and visa matters, stamp duty is no longer refunded when the authority issues a refusal or discontinues the proceedings. This covers, among other things, refusals of residence permits, refusals to amend a temporary residence and work permit, refusals to extend a visa and some refusals concerning a Schengen visa issued at the border.

This may look like a technical legal amendment, but its practical effect is clear: a badly prepared application no longer means only lost time, but also a real cost that cannot later be recovered. For many foreigners and employers, this is a strong signal that the preparation stage must now be treated with far more care.

Until now, some applicants treated stamp duty as a procedural expense that might still come back if the case did not end positively. The new rules reduce that comfort and strengthen responsibility for the quality of the application itself, the completeness of the documents and the coherence of the legal basis.

In practice, this also increases the risk of filing documents without prior analysis. If the case is weak, incomplete or based on the wrong assumptions, the consequence may be not only a refusal but also a closed procedure with no return of the administrative fee.

The most sensible approach is to treat the fee as one part of a broader strategy, not as the final click before sending the form. The application should be filed only when it is clear that the selected route matches the applicant’s situation and the documents actually support it.

This matters especially in cases where the office closely compares the application with employment conditions, place of stay, source of income and the history of earlier permits. A well-prepared file lowers the risk of refusal and also limits unnecessary costs that, after the March 2026 change, may stay entirely on the applicant’s side.