Who would need the Schengen area and rules explained? Until a few months ago, we did not really care about the Schengen rules. Travelling only for a maximum of 2 weeks at a time to Europe and all our different nationalities allowing for visa free entry, we simply did not need to know the ins and outs.
This changed when we decided to quit our jobs, sell our house and set off on a journey of open-ended travel. How long can we stay in Europe? Who counts as family member? (Oh the joys of complicated documents in a patchwork family!) Can we apply for residency even if we travel constantly?
This page is the summary of our extensive research and will help you save time and energy. In one jargon free as possible post you will find answers to all your questions around the Schengen area, ETIAS, visa and more. It might just save you from getting caught out, fined for overstaying or worse.
What exactly is Schengen?
When people say “Schengen”, they don’t think of the small village in Luxembourg where the Schengen agreement was signed back in 1985. Travellers referring to ‘Schengen” have the Schengen Area on mind, the European border control-free travel area.
Where is the Schengen Area?
While the Schengen Area is inside Europe, it is not exactly the same as EU, something that can be quite confusing for travellers. The map below will show you the differences between EU and Schengen memberships of the European countries.
Bulgaria and Romania have applied to join the Schengen Area so do keep an eye on this especially if you plan travelling there to reset your rolling timeframe.
European Union (EU) outermost regions “ORs“
There are nine so called outermost regions, which are geographically very distant from the European continent, but belonging to the EU, some of them are part of the Schengen Area.
- French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Saint-Martin (France) – all not part of the Schengen Zone
- Azores, Madeira (Portugal) – all part of the Schengen Zone
- The Canary Islands (Spain) – part of the Schengen Zone
Importance of the Schengen Zone for European Citizens
The Schengen area allows more than 400 million people to travel freely between member countries without going through border controls.
Every day around 3.5 million people cross internal borders for work or study or to visit families and friends, and almost 1.7 million people reside in one Schengen country while working in another.
Europeans make an estimated 1.25 billion journeys within the Schengen area every year, which also greatly benefits the tourism and cultural sector. Cited from Consilium
This freedom of movement and the ability to work in other countries was something I benefitted from in the past but now that we are travelling through Europe as a family with an eclectic mix of passports (from Germany, New Zealand, Taiwan and the UK) it can actually be quite troublesome.
Relevance of the Schengen Zone for travellers
Travelling Europe on an EU passport
Even European Citizens have limits on how long they can visit another country. Legally speaking, after 90 days in another country than the home country or if they start working, they must report their presence and register residence as per rules of the specific EU country. If you are homeschooling/ worldschooling do keep this on mind as in theory you are then also subject to local education laws after 90 days in a country.
Some countries need you to report your presence earlier than that, even for short stays. For all info on this please check here.
Travelling the Schengen area as a family member of an EU citizen
Applying for a visa to enter the Schengen Zone
If you want to enter the Schengen area to travel with your EU family member, but your nationality usually requires a visa, you still need to apply for a visa. When applying ensure you tick the box for “core family member”. This not only means you will not have to pay for the visa (yep, it is free) but the wait time for approval should not exceed 15 days. Such a visa is usually only denied if you can not prove the relationship or in case of criminal backgrounds.
Travelling to other Schengen states while living in one
If you travel with your EU national family member or can prove that you are going to join them and are in possession of a Residence card for a family member, then your own nationality will not matter and a visa won’t be necessary. The card will not actually give the right to reside but is merely proof of it and you have the right to receive it within at most 6 months after application. During that period you can remain in the country of residence but not travel to other countries inside Schengen. Once you obtained this document you can freely travel within Schengen on your own.
The above only apply to all Schengen countries which are not the country of origin of your family member. If you were to visit that country national immigration laws apply instead of the EU freedom of movement. An extended read with further links and info can be found on Your Europe’s website.
All our family members can travel across the Schengen area without having to apply for any Visa, but there is a limit of 90 days for the male half of the family. The Residence card is a way around this limitation of 90 days, but it would involve to apply for residency somewhere which we, as constantly travelling family can’t really do.
Read below on how to obtain free further advice for your personal situation.
Travelling the Schengen area on a non EU passport explained
This blog can not cover all countries of origin and the different types of visa needed. Some travellers will be able to enter the zone without a visa (find the full list here) , others will have to apply. What they all have in common is that typically the 90/ 180 days rule applies and the permission to enter one country typically covers all countries inside the zone as they all adhere to the same visa policy.
Border controls within the Schengen zone explained
Other than temporary ad-hoc police checks (and during the pandemic), there are no land border controls. In fact you usually only notice that you are leaving one and entering the next country by the signs of the road welcoming you and indicating the speed you are allowed to drive at. That means there are no hold-ups or delays which is really convenient but you still need to have a valid travel document on you at all times. This even applies to countries that are not in the EU but de facto part of Schengen, such as Monaco or San Marino.
Passport stamps for travel in the Schengen area explained
Since there are no border checkpoints within Schengen, a globe trotter won’t have any proof of how much time they spent in a specific country. This is not just relevant for those who love to collect passport stamps. It is indeed important to keep on mind if you want to make use of the bilateral agreement “hack” to extend your stay within Schengen beyond the 90 days, (blog on this to follow early September) .
You get stamped for entering and leaving the zone on any non EU passport. These display where (country and city), when (date) and how you entered (by land, air or sea) and left the zone.
Currently this is all done via the stamps in the passports. Stories that certain countries more than just occasionally don’t provide an entry stamp make this even more difficult than a paper trail already is. I am looking at you, France!
The EU has been working on an automated Entry/ Exit System (EES). Several technical issues have delayed the roll-out and even affected ETIAS. There is currently no fixed date scheduled when it goes in force but travellers should be aware that it will come and the leniency of specific countries on overstays or the lack of stamps can no longer be relied upon to extend your stay “under the radar”.
Details on how EES will affect legal long-term stays under bilateral visa waiver agreements will be addressed in our related post here: legal ways to travel Europe long-term.
How to calculate the days spent inside Schengen
The Schengen Area 90 days within 180 days rule explained (90/180)
The common visa policy enables non-EU visitors to make transit or short stays to the Schengen area. A short-stay visa issued by one of the Schengen countries generally entitles them to travel through all Schengen countries for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. This seemingly easy rule is often misinterpreted though, so let’s look at the components:
90 days – the total amount of days you are allowed to stay in the Schengen Territory – this includes your travel days. The date of entry is considered the first and the day of exit the last day.
180 days – This is not a fixed period, but a moving window and based on looking back exactly 180 days at any given point in time. This can be on the point of entry to the first country or indeed a police check later on.
If in doubt: leaving the Schengen area for an uninterrupted period of 90 days will reset the timer and hence you are able to stay another 90 days.
90/180 days – Schengen days calculations explained:
Scenario1:
Maria entered the Schengen Area on August 1st 2023, landing in France. Her 180 day window hence dates back to the 3rd of February 2023. This is her first stay ever in Europe so she only has to worry about the 90 days. In order to not overstay, she must leave on or before October 29th.
Scenario2:
Gabriel has an Interrail ticket for the summer. He arrived in Denmark, also on August 1st 2023, will then travel via Germany, France and Spain where he plans to take the ferry to Morocco to visit friends on August 27th. He will fly back into Rome, where he will land on October 7th. To make it even more complicated, he had a one week skiing holiday in Austria in March. Over New Years he spent 5 days in Lisbon, which was his first ever stay in the EU. He is confused and does not know how long he can stay.
Here is how his 90/180 looked like over time:
| Date | What happened | x/180 (how many days used) | dates for the 180 day period | last day of permitted stay inside Schengen area if the stay would be continuous |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28.12.2022 | arrival in Lisbon | 1/180, no previous stay | July 1st – Dec 28th | March 27th 2023 |
| 01.01.2023 | departure from Lisbon | 5/180 | July 5th – Jan 1st | March 27th 2023 |
| 08.03.2023 | arrival in Innsbruck | 6/180 (5 from previous period and current date) | Sept 10th – March 8th | May 31st 2023 |
| 15.03.2023 | departure from Innsbruck | 13/180 | Sept 16th – March 15th | May 31st 2023 |
| 01.08.2023 | arrival in Copenhagen | 9/180 (8 days in the 180 day period, the New Year stay in Lisbon no longer counts + current date) | Feb 3rd – August 1st | October 29th 2023 |
| 27.08.2023 | departure from Tarifa | 35/180 | Feb 28th – Aug 27th | October 29th 2023 |
| 07.10.2023 | arrival in Rome | 28/180 (only the 27 days from August and current date count towards the 180 days) | April 10th – Oct 7th | December 8th 2023 |
Schengen Calculator
There are multiple tools online to calculate the amount of days you have used/ left in your 90/180 days. You can find a clumsy version from the EU here , but I recommend a more user friendly version here . You can of course create your own spreadsheet…
Common errors made when planning a trip in the Schengen Area:
- Not counting the combined days of stay in all countries. Many globe trotters erroneously count on a per country basis (the 90/180 rule applies across the whole Schengen Area)
- Assuming that everything must be used in blocks. You can definitely stay 23 days then leave Schengen and return after x days to then stay another 67 days or less
- Not counting arrival/ departure days (midnight is the cut-off. If your flight lands at 23:55 , you just spent your day 1 inside the area)
- Counting the 90days as 3 months. Nope, they are exactly that: days.
- Counting the 180 days as 6 months. Nope, they are exactly that: days. (although the fines might be not too bad if you overstay for just a couple of days)
- Not counting stays on the Azores, Madeira or Canary Islands as they are not inside the European continent.
- Assuming that a bilateral agreement between your home country and say Spain grants freedom of movement. (see more details here)
- Overstaying your 90 days – the moment you enter any Schengen country, your 90day clock starts.
- Overstaying your 90 days because you don’t understand the rolling timeframe of 180 days. The 180 day window is constantly moving as each day you spend inside the Schengen area advances it.
- Not considering that sea days aboard a ship/ cruise do count towards the 90 days in many circumstances. Day trips and excursions should in theory get stamped if entering Schengen for the first time.
Further help and advice for EU citizens and their family members
Every family composition is unique, but what matters overall, is that if one family member holds a EU passport, their freedom of movement can not be limited. Not even by the passports of any family member or dependant (the definition of this varies by country though!). See above for more info.
The European Union has a wonderful service we can highly recommend. You can reach them on their official website for 100% free advice.
The more details your provide in the online form, the better of an answer you will get. I recommend to include not only your travel itinerary but also how you travel (which method of transport, and if you are together or separate). The type of travel documents you all use and which countries of origin are involved are equally important to receive adequate answers. Your Europe usually replies within a few days and includes all the relevant pdfs, legalese etc you will need to make informed decisions and plan accordingly.
Out of own experience we can say that no matter the personal research you have done, the response from Your Europe will still help (and is also a document you can use to explain to boarder guards).
ETIAS
Update October 2023: There is no official statement from the EU yet, but we are expecting this to come through soon. ETIAS is going to be delayed further due to the Paris Olympic and problems with the EES, which means that for any travel in 2024, you will not require to apply for ETIAS yet. We will update our article once the date is confirmed officially.
ETIAS is short for European Travel Information and Authorisation System. With quite some delay, the European Union will be rolling out ETIAS travel authorisation, a new system in force from 2024. It is an entry requirement for visa-exempt nationals travelling to 30 European member states.
ETIAS is hence not a Visa in itself nor does it replace one. It is also not a guarantee that your entry will be granted – that depends on your documents and border guards will decide.
EU member states requiring ETIAS
The following 30 European countries will require visa-exempt travellers to
have an ETIAS travel authorisation:
- AUSTRIA
- BELGIUM
- BULGARIA
- CROATIA
- CYPRUS
- CZECH REPUBLIC
- DENMARK
- ESTONIA
- FINLAND
- FRANCE
- GERMANY
- GREECE
- HUNGARY
- ICELAND
- ITALY
- LATVIA
- LIECHTENSTEIN
- LITHUANIA
- LUXEMBOURG
- MALTA
- NETHERLANDS
- NORWAY
- POLAND
- PORTUGAL
- ROMANIA
- SLOVAKIA
- SLOVENIA
- SPAIN
- SWEDEN
- SWITZERLAND
Which travellers need to apply for an ETIAS?
ETIAS in numbers (cost, wait time, validity)
The application fee for ETIAS will be 7 Euros. Once obtained, the authorisation will be valid for 3 years and is tied to your passport/ travel document. Should you renew your passport you will need a new ETIAS, even if the 3 years are not up yet.
Please do not fall for scams and pay horrendous amounts of money, always use the official sites of the European Union only. https://travel-europe.europa.eu/etias_en
ETIAS is currently (as of August 24th 2023) not yet in operation and you can also NOT apply for it yet. Any websites telling you differently just want to scam you! Once applications are possible, most ETIAS applicants will receive a decision within minutes, but after a maximum of 14 days.
Summary
Use the provided calculators to ensure that you do not overstay your 90/180. For free advice and to pay for visa, ETIAS etc stick to the official pages. Steer clear from the many fake websites which promise advice, visa etc for $$$$.
If you are a long-term or open ended traveller and are interested on how to extend your stay inside Schengen beyond 90 days you can catch up on our related blog here: Legal ways to travel Europe beyond the 90days.
Schengen Rules explained – Flowchart
The flowchart below helps you to decide which travel documents and other paperwork you will need before you travel to the Schengen area.
Once all these bits are sorted you can finally focus on deciding where to go. Enjoy your trip!
Disclaimer: Whilst we have created this page with a lot of care and attention please always refer to the official sites for final decisions before you travel – we have linked them all.
Let us know if there are any aspects you would like us to still cover about Schengen in the comments below.
Share your thoughts and feedback with us, we would love to hear from you!