Customs/Immigration between EU Airports, Arrival and Departure

Hi - going from Sweden into the UK you will have to go through immigration, because Sweden is a Schengen member state, and the UK is not. So allow more time.

I'm not going to hazard a guess on what time to be at a UK airport for a flight to Ireland -- one of our UK posters will be better informed on that, but if you could advise them of which airport in the UK you're actually departing from, they can better answer your question. The answer would be different for Manchester or Glasgow compared to Heathrow!

Europe is divided into Schengen countries and non Schengen countries such as the UK. You will need to go through immigration when passing between these two sectors. There are no borders within Schengen.

Even if your flight is on time, you will rarely get through a London airport in much less than an hour, even with just hand luggage. Landing at 12.10 means you aren't likely to be off the plane before 12.25/12.30 unless you are travelling first class.

Security is now tighter at airports at present, so you need to allow longer to get through. For EU flights, assuming you have checked in online, if you have check in bags, allow the best part of 2 hours. If you have hand luggage only, allow 1.25 to 1.5 hours. Being there a few minutes early is better than the stress of rushing and fearing you will miss your flight due to long queues.

For intra European flights the standard advice is to be at your UK airport two hours before departure. So for a 4.30pm flight to Ireland 2.30 would be OK.

How long it will take you to get there is difficult to say as you don't mention which airports. Also, as this reads like two unconnected flight, what's your plan if your first flight is late causing you to miss your second flight?

We flew LHR to Dublin this month. There was no immigration check between the two. Just the normal security line, which was minuscule, and we had much time to kill. We even COULD have waited until 9:30 to tap in on the Tube at Westminster for our 12:00 flight and avoided the rush hour fare, but we figure the one time we don't leave 2+ hours will be the one time the airport is backed up
As for coming in to UK, we spent over an hour from cabin door open until we passed immigration as this was in LHR T3 and there were only two lines open for non-UK, with one of them going on break. As I wrote elsewhere regarding this, you have no control over how they are staffed.

The UK and Ireland are both outside Schengen, but they have some special arrangement WRT to customs. For instance, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is open and you cross with no checks at all.

Please do not confuse customs and immigration. They are two totally different things.

• Customs = checks on your property (luggage) and possibly charging you customs duty. The EU is a customs union. There is no customs restrictions between EU countries.
• Immigration = passport control = checks on people and whether they are allowed into a country, and for how long. The Schengen Area is passport union, there are no immigration (passport) controls between Schengen countries.

EU and Schengen countries are nearly the same, but not quite. If you are travelling between two countries both of which are in the EU and Schengen, then there are no border controls at all. If the two countries are members of one but not the other, you could have immigration but not customs (Sweden to UK), or vice-versa (France to Switzerland).
Plus, there are other customs unions other than the EU (Switzerland + Liechenstein), and other passport unions other than Schengen (UK + Ireland).

The sequence when you land at at an airport is: (1) immigration, (2) luggage re-claim, (3) customs.

Thanks everyone for all of the quick and great responses! I realize that there were a ton of variables that I left out, but all of your information is so valuable!

To be more specific, I will be flying from Arlanda to Gatwick, Stansted to EDI, EDI to Dublin, and Dublin to Oslo. I won't have any checked bags; just a carry-on backpack which meets the airline size requirements.

What I gleaned from your responses is that I should probably allow for additional time from Arlanda to Gatwick, for immigration check, and from Dublin to Oslo? Otherwise Stansted to EDI, and EDI to Dublin probably shouldn't be much of a problem (other than security and lines)?

Thanks again for all of your help, this is my first time posting in this forum and it definitely won't be my last!

When you fly from Dublin to Oslo, you are leaving the EU, but entering the Schengen zone again as Norway has some type of association agreement. That could confuse anyone. But it seems fair to assume that you will need to go through customs and immigration again.