EU travel question

[SnugglyJumpersMakeItBetter]

So you're not allowed to stay in an EU country for longer than 90 days in 180, but does that apply to just ONE country or are they seen as collective? So If I spend October/November/December in Spain can I then spend January/February/March in Germany or is that off the table?

No its the time spent in the eu altogether

Yes 90 days in the entire Schengen zone in total.

Strictly speaking it is time spent in the Schengen countries, not the EU, and it is 90 days in 180 calculated on a rolling basis. If the OP were to spend 90 days in October, November and December in Spain, they could not re-enter the Schengen area until around 1st April the following year (unless they had a visa or residency permit). Note that the limit is 90 days, not 3 months - staying for the whole of Oct, Nov and Dec would be 92 days and therefore be over the limit.

The 29 Schengen countries are Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Switzerland, Iceland and Norway are not in the EU but are in Schengen.

Ireland and Cyprus are in the EU but are not in Schengen.

Thank you! So if I were to come home for a week in October that would mean I wouldn't need to return until a week later than I would otherwise? Or does the clock on the 90 days start ticking when you first arrive, with no pause button for popping home?

If you have a work visa for Germany can you come and go from there to Spain as much as you like, does the 90 days rule apply to Spain then, or is there some third law just to confuse everybody?

Cyprus not in the Schengen zone you say ? So I could spend as long as I like there ?

It is broken down into days. So when you land in a country. Then when you leave the country. The exact number of days.

Look it all up online.

@AnyFucker 90 days there too, Cyprus rules. Although you can apply to their high commission to extend.

The rule is that you are allowed 90 days out of an ever-rolling 180. If you use all 90 then it's easy, you can't come back for another 90. But if you use, say, 60, you can leave for a week and then come back for another 30. You just can't come back for another 37.

Imagine a garden with 90 flowers in it. That's your starting allowance. Every day you spend in the Schengen area (which, these days, means pretty much the whole of Europe apart from Cyprus and Ireland) you have to pick a flower. If you run out of flowers you have to leave. Each flower grows back 180 days after it was picked.

Alternatively, you have to do this. Every day you wake up, you calculate "Was I in the Schengen area on 90 of the last 180 days?". If so, then if you are in the Schengen area you must leave that day, and if you are not in the Schengen area you can't enter it. Of course, you can plan this ahead, but you have to be able to say "I was not in Schengen for more than 90 of the last 180 days" every single day of your trip.

There is quite a good explanation in this video. Ignore the bit about "How to spend more than 90 days" and concentrate on the bit where she explains how the days work starting at around 02:30. (Also ignore the bit where she tries to say the UK was in Schengen pre-Brexit; it wasn't, but the 90-in-180 does not apply to EU citizens, including citizens of EU-non-Schengen countries (like the UK was and Ireland still is).

Regarding visas, you are still limited to 90-in-180 in "(all of the Schengen countries except that one that you have a visa for)". So for someone with a passport from a visa-waiver country this doesn't gain you very much. But for, say, an Indian person it means that on top of the German work visa they in effect get a Schengen tourist visa as well. Enforcement of the 90-in-180 in these situations is complex as your flight/train trip from Germany to Spain is across intra-Schengen borders and so nobody is keeping track of your days in each country, but if you were arrested for something substantial and they couldn't get anything else to stick, they miiiiiiight decide to throw "overstaying in Spain" at you if they could see that you had filled up your car with petrol at the same pump in Granada every week for the last 20. But in practice this never happens.

No, because like any other country Cyprus issues tourist visas/visa waivers for a limited amount of time, in this case 90 days.

What you could do it to spend 90 days in the Schengen countries, then 90 in Cyprus, and then your 90 Schengen days would have regenerated. Going to exactly 90 isn't recommended as it's easy to overstay if a plane in late, so maybe 85 in Schengen, 85 in Cyprus, and 15 in Ireland (or the UK or the US...) would be a safer strategy.

There is quite a good explanation in this video.

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No, you can't do as you ask in your first post ( unless you are the spouse of an EU citizen, in which case the 90 days at a stretch in one EU country is still valid, but the rules overall are less tight).

There's websites and likely apps that works all this out for you if you put the dates in.

I don't know if time in a country for which you have a visa counts towards the 90 days or not.

You should read the official rules or at least a more reliable website than here where people will make things up so you'll likely get a load of conflicting answers.

OP, what are you actually trying to do?

Regarding those with a visa or residence permit for a specific EU country - the rule is that they are allowed unlimited days in that specific country, but are limited to "90 in180" days for the rest of Schengen.

So a British citizen legally working or living in Germany is still limited with regard to travel in the rest of the Schengen area. They can take a two-week holiday in Spain, and a weekend or two in Paris or Copenhagen, but these visits cannot exceed 90 days in 180. The days spent in Germany do not count towards the 90 days. What they cannot do is take a 90 day holiday in Spain and then spend a weekend or two somewhere else in the Schengen area within the same 180-day period.

As for how this is enforced, there is the issue that passports are not usually checked or stamped when travelling within the Schengen area so on the face of it, there is no way of checking how long someone has been "elsewhere" in the Schengen area. However, under the law in Europe it is up to the traveller to prove that they have not exceeded the limits, so people are advised to keep a diary, keep travel receipts and boarding cards etc. If they so wished, the authorities could demand to see bank statements, credit card statements etc (e.g. to see if someone has been shopping/eating/drinking in Spain every day for 3 months) or trace someone's travels using historical mobile phone location data (which has been know to happen).

Regarding the impact of delays on the 90-day limit - if, for example, the plane is cancelled, or the traveller has an accident on holiday and cannot travel, the authorities can use their discretion as to whether or not to issue a fine or ban.

As for how this is enforced, there is the issue that passports are not usually checked or stamped when travelling within the Schengen area so on the face of it, there is no way of checking how long someone has been "elsewhere" in the Schengen area.

All my recent holidays to Spain passports have been stamped on arrival and on leaving the country. This has been the case now for a few years.

I have a Uk passport but DH and the DC have both a Uk one and an EU one. When we travel in The EU they use the EU ones so we can avoid queues and I usually go with them. My passport is always stamped both in and out, although as the spous eof an EU citizen I think I am subject to slightly different rules.
We aren't bothered now but when we retire in a few years we will have to be sure as we hope to spend 90% of our time outside The UK

friendlycat - was that from/to the UK? If so, that is because the UK has never been part of the Schengen area.

Just to add, it applies to UK passports.

That's because the UK is not in Schengen and never has been, and after Brexit UK passport holders have become third-country citizens and have their passports stamped when they enter and leave the Schengen area.

If a British passport holder flies into Barcelona from the UK, their passport is stamped on arrival into Spain, as this is where they arrive into the Schengen area. If that person then takes the train to Paris, their passport is not stamped when they cross from Spain into France - because the traveller has remained within Schengen and usually there are no passport controls. When they fly or take the Eurostar from Paris back to the UK, their passport is stamped with an exit stamp as they are leaving the Schengen area. [This will change when the EES and ETIAS systems are introduced later this year and in 2025, when entry and exit will be recorded electronically and there will be no passport stamps required]

You probably qualify for a visa as the spouse of an EU citizen, whether this is a visa for travelling (together) in and out of the EU for an unlimited number of days (you might not actually even need a visa for this - check the EU official website) or a residence permit should you decide to take up residency in an EU country.

Sorry to the people above. I misread what you were talking about of moving within the Schengen area. In that case passports would not be stamped in and out.

I actually hadn't considered about flying into a country and then arriving in another by train etc.

You probably qualify for a visa as the spouse of an EU citizen

She won't need a visa.

As the spouse of an EU citizen she can move to any EU country except the country of DH's nationality under the provisions of Directive 2004/38/EC, which — give or take a bit of paperwork — is basically automatic. It's a right of the EU citizen that can't be denied and no conditions have to be met, beyond the frankly rather easy income and medical insurance requirements imposed by Article 7 of that directive, aka the "Polish Plumber Clauses".

If she wants to move to the country of DH's nationality (e.g., if DH is Spanish, then Spain), then local (e.g., here, Spanish) immigration laws apply instead of 2004/38/EC, because guess what, despite being under the jackboot of the EuSSR 🙄, Spain has sOvRiNtEe and its family reunification laws for immigration trump EU laws when one partner is one of its own citizens. But even then this won't be a visa process.

In most countries the deal for these two cases is quite similar. However, some EU countries give their own citizens (who want to bring in their spouses) a deal that is not as good as 2004/38/EC. The Netherlands and Sweden spring to mind. The absolute champion at this was the UK pre-Brexit, which applied rather draconian rules about minimum family income when a UK citizen wanted to bring their (say) Algerian spouse to live with them, but had to suck it up under 2004/38/EC when a French or German citizen wanted to bring their Algerian spouse.

There's a Schengen calculator here:

https://ec.europa.eu/assets/home/visa-calculator/calculator.htm?lang=en

There are also apps to help with calculating if you'd rather use those.

If anyone has questions, particularly more complex issues, this is a brilliant - official - resource, advice from experts and they answer specific questions:

https://europa.eu/youreurope/advice/index_en.htm

Quick to come back to you and very clear advice; they've been really helpful to me several times.

I thought it didn't apply at all if you are travelling with your EU spouse?

Cross posted with samarrange - thank you!