Schengen visa insurance: is EUR 30,000 or EUR 50,000 mandatory?

Article 15 of the EU Visa Code requires at least EUR 30,000 of cover, valid in all Schengen states for the whole stay, for medical repatriation, urgent care, emergency hospital treatment and death. EUR 50,000 appears nowhere (checked 2026-08-31).

The governing text is Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 — the Visa Code — consolidated as CELEX 02009R0810, version of 11 June 2024. Every quote on this page comes from that text and was re-checked on 31 August 2026. The Official Journal writes the amount with a space: "EUR 30 000".

Where does the EUR 50,000 claim come from?

Not from the regulation. The Visa Code contains one insurance amount, in Article 15(3): "The minimum coverage shall be EUR 30 000." That is a floor. Nothing in the article invites a consulate to raise it, and no EU rule we can cite sets EUR 50,000 — a rule that cannot be cited is not a rule.

The EUR 50,000 figure circulates on advice sites. In search results logged on 31 August 2026, several pages assert that consulates "expect" at least EUR 50,000; the assertions we saw carried no article number. Buying more cover than EUR 30,000 is allowed. It is not required by EU law, and a policy at exactly EUR 30,000 meets Article 15(3) as written.

What a consulate does control is practice: which documents it accepts as proof. German missions in India, in a note that cites Article 15, accept Indian travel policies only when issued by companies on an approved list (india.diplo.de, read 2026-08-31). Conditions like that stand in the checklist of the consulate where you apply, per country of application. We compile those acceptance lists country by country as we verify them; until a country page is live, the consulate's own checklist is the document to read.

Does Article 15 allow a policy with a deductible?

Article 15 does not mention deductibles. Neither "deductible" nor "excess" occurs anywhere in the article (full text checked 2026-08-31). The text gives consulates two instruments instead: the insurance must be "adequate" (Art. 15(1)), and consulates "shall ascertain whether claims against the insurance company would be recoverable in a Member State" (Art. 15(5)).

The German mission pages for India and Malaysia, both read on 31 August 2026, state no deductible condition either. If a consulate does impose one, that is consular practice — written, if anywhere, in its own checklist — and we record it only with the mission's page as source. We did not check every consulate, and local checklists change without notice.

Is "medical evacuation" the same thing as repatriation?

Not in this regulation: the word "evacuation" does not appear in it (Article 15 checked 2026-08-31; the rest of the consolidated text read 2026-08-30). What Article 15(1) names is "repatriation for medical reasons". "Emergency medical evacuation" is insurance-industry wording the regulation never uses; whether an evacuation clause also states repatriation is a question the policy document answers, clause by clause.

A certificate that repeats the regulation's own words is the easy case. For any other wording, the clause has to be compared against the six lines above — that comparison, per policy and per document version, is what the checker on our homepage does.

Do multiple-entry visas follow a different rule?

Only on the period. Article 15(2) requires "adequate and valid travel medical insurance covering the period of their first intended visit", plus a signed statement in the application form "declaring that they are aware of the need to be in possession of travel medical insurance for subsequent stays". The cover requirements themselves do not change. Paragraph 2 is also the only part of Article 15 amended since 2009 — substituted by Regulation (EU) 2019/1155 (checked 2026-08-31).

Which countries count as "the territory of the Member States"?

All Schengen states — 29 of them as of 30 August 2026, with Cyprus in the final stage of accession. One exception is written into Article 15(3): a visa with limited territorial validity needs cover "at least in the Member States concerned". The dated list of states, and what that exception means in practice, are on the Schengen states page.

What else stands in Article 15 that rarely gets quoted?

Three paragraphs almost never make it into summaries. Article 15(4): applicants "shall, in principle, take out insurance in their country of residence" — the legal anchor for buying where you live. Article 15(6): the insurance requirement may be presumed met from the applicant's professional situation; seafarers are the regulation's own example. Article 15(7): "Holders of diplomatic passports shall be exempt from the requirement to hold travel medical insurance."

That is the whole rule: six requirements, one amount, three side paragraphs. To see whether a specific policy document states all six — with document version, page and check date per requirement — run it through the checker, or read how we verify first.