How long can I stay without a visa in the Schengen area?
You can stay 90 days in any 180-day period within the Schengen area.
When applying this rule, the following aspects should be taken into account:
The date of entry is considered as the first day of stay in the Schengen territory;
The date of exit is considered as the last day of stay in the Schengen territory;
Stays in these states are not calculated in the overall period of stay for the Schengen area. Instead the 90-day limit is calculated individually for each of these states. For instance, after a 90-day stay in the Schengen area, the person can immediately travel to Croatia and stay for another 90 days there.
How it works
The 180-day reference period is not fixed. It is a moving window, based on the approach of looking backwards at each day of the stay (be it at the moment of entry or at the day of an actual check, such as inland police control or border check upon departure);
Absence for an uninterrupted period of 90 days allows for a new stay for up to 90 days.
It should be noted that periods of previous stay authorised under a residence permit or a long-stay visa are not takeninto account in the calculation of the duration of visa-free stay. Residence permits and long-stay visas are subject to different rules and the above explanations and calculations do not apply to them.
Can I enter the Schengen area more than one time during that period?
Yes, you can. However you must carefully calculate your days of stay as the overall period of stay
must not exceed the overall total of 90 (ninety) days of stay within any 180-days period.
What travel documents are needed in order to enjoy visa-free travel to the Schengen area?
A passport issued within the previous 10 years and valid for at least three months after the intended
date of departure from the Schengen area.
Does the visa waiver give you the right to enter the territory of the Schengen States?
The visa waiver does not give an unconditional right of entry and stay. The Member States have the
right to refuse entry and stay in their territories if one or more of the entry conditions are not met.
For stays not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day period, the entry conditions for third-country
nationals are the following:
(a) possession of a valid travel document or documents authorising them to
cross the border;
(b) justifying the purpose and conditions of the intended stay, having sufficient means of
subsistence, both for the duration of the intended stay and for the return;
(c) not to be a person for whom an alert has been issued in the Schengen Information System
(SIS) for the purposes of refusing entry;
(d) not to be considered to be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the
international relations of any of the Member States, in particular where no alert has been
issued in Member States’ national data bases for the purposes of refusing entry on the same
grounds.
43 comments
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Richard PearsonNo. I don't.
Charles Dalrymple-ChumleyLike opium trade to China?
o bAnd bankrupt the Scotch whisky industry ? Never !
o bAnd of course, you never fly using Ryanair or Easyjet, instead using State run airlines at three times the cost.
o bHere ? Which implies that neither you or any of your family have ever purchased anything on Amazon, which is probably the most cut throat and ruthless retailer out there.
o bDefine competitive and best, in your view. The standard definition for winning in commerce is delivering good quality at a competitive price.
Charles Dalrymple-ChumleyIf a competition in which the most competitive wins (not the best one necessarily) is a cut throat contest, then thanks, but no thanks. Don 't want that particularly Thatcherite characteristic of ruthlessness here.
Richard PearsonRichard, Stay away fom the hard stuff.
o bBrexit changed everything. A colossal mistake. I'm told by senior politicians that it has been revealed that people running export businesses to the EU pre-referendum voted to leave the EU. Now many of these same businesses cannot sell their goods to the EU or deliver them owing to restrictions. Especially perishable products. Thatcher's economic paradigm was for open and free markets, competitions in which the best man wins. That's commerce.
o bUpset that she got a State Funeral and Blair definitely won’t ? Diddums