More shengen rule questions

"And there can be more than 180 day period going on at once." Not correct. If this were true, you could use 90 days, leave for a day, then return and start a new 180-day period. In effect, you'd have no restrictions. You can only have one 180-day period going on at a time.

Tom, Actually you could. Let's say for an entire year you spent one week in NYC, one week in Paris, one week in NYC, one week in Paris etc. You would actually have multiple overlapping 180 day periods in which each one you only spent 90 days in Paris.

"So, as soon as you come back with 20 days left, the 180 days starts again." That's not how I read it. If you arrive on Jan 1st, you have a 180 days in which you can stay for a max of 90 days, split up how you like. If you leave on Feb 1 and return on Mar 1, you are still within the 180 days that started Jan 1. Now, I would think that on day 181, then there is a new 180 day period starting Jan 2. But it could be that you have a completely new 180 day period, starting on day 181 of the old period.

It's 90 days in any 180 day period. And there can be more than 180 day period going on at once. So, as soon as you come back with 20 days left, the 180 days starts again. Let's say you enter on Jan 1 and stay for 70 days. Then come back June 10 and stay 20 days (all are approximate.) You first 180 day period is up. But, another 180 day started on June 10. You've used up 20 days so you only have 70 more days through Dec 10. Otherwise, your way, I could enter for 1 day then come back with 89 days left on that 180 and then stay another 90 making a total of 179 straight days. Not gonna happen.

Without a visa, you can stay in the Schengen zone a maximum of 90 days out of any 180 day period. You can break up the 90 days anyway you want (think of businessmen making frequent short trips). You can't add "unused" days from one period to another. It's 90 per 180, period. If you use up your 90 days, you have to wait til the end of your 180-day period before you can re-enter. Both the 90-day and the 180-day "clock" start running on day 1 of your initial entry. All that being said, I have no idea how they enforce this since (in my experience) many Schengen border agents don't scan or stamp your passport anymore when you enter.

"If you leave on Feb 1 and return on Mar 1, you are still within the 180 days that started Jan 1." Correct. "But it could be that you have a completely new 180 day period, starting on day 181 of the old period." Yes. The "old" period ended on day 180. After that, you start afresh. "You would actually have multiple overlapping 180 day periods in which each one you only spent 90 days in Paris." You can't have overlapping 180 day periods. If you could, that would defeat the law.

""But it could be that you have a completely new 180 day period, starting on day 181 of the old period."
Yes. The "old" period ended on day 180. After that, you start afresh." Wrong. Frank has it right. If the "old" period ended on day 180, you don't "start fresh" on day 181. Otherwise, you could reenter on day 170, use up your ten days and start another period of 180 days on day 181, having 100 consecutive days. You can't do that. Your new 180 days starts on the old day 170. By the end of the original day 180, you have used all of your days in the first period. You have ALSO used 10 of the days in the period starting old day 170 (new day 1). You can only stay 80 more days. The second entry, on old day 170, is the first entry of a new 180-day stretch.

No Tom, it doesn't defeat the law. With in any 180 day period you can only be there for 90 days. In my one week here one week there example assuming you started at the beginning of the year... In the Jan - June 180 days, you would be in Paris 90 days. In the Feb - July 180 days, you would be in Paris 90 days.
In the March - Aug 180 days, you would be in Paris 90 days. In any 180 day period you can only be in the area 90 of those days.

You can't (legally) "work the system" to get more than 3 months in the 6 months following the date of first entry. Here's the text of the Convention applying the Schengen Agreement: http://www.hri.org/docs/Schengen90/ The wording of Article 20 is: "...for a maximum period of three months during the six months following the date of first entry."

And because there are generally no border or entry/exit stamps between countries in Schengen, it's up to you to keep records (with things like receipts) of how many days you spend in and out of the zone to prove how long you were there (or not).

"In any 180 day period you can only be in the area 90 of those days." I agree. But you don't start a new 180-day clock each time you enter. Your example works because your assumption (one week in Paris, one week in NYC) works out to 90 days in any 6 month period, no matter how you interpret the rules. But if you go to Paris Jan 1 and spend 90 days in a row, you don't get a new 180-day "clock" until July 1. I'm starting to understand why Schengen border agents don't stamp passports - the law is too complicated.

When I was putting together the posting concerning short stays and long stays in the Schengen zone, I think it was the official Schengen zone web site that pointed out that it is the visitor's responsibility to obtain an entry stamp when first entering the zone. However, they recognized that this is not always possible so the visitor must retain proof of date of entry which most likely would be your airline boarding pass or if driving gas receipts, hotels, etc. Not getting an entry stamp does not get your off the hook. I did not see anything that directly addressed the above questions and discussions. The constant reference was 90 days out of 180 days or sometimes the word semester was used.

Tom, your last example doesn't prove your point. If you use up your 90 days right off the bat, of course you don't get a new 180 days until July 1. That's because your days are used up. If you only use 30 of your days, though, and you reenter the zone June 1, you only have 30 days of your original 180 left (even though you still have 60 travel days). Your "new" 180 days start on June 1. You can then stay a maximum of 90 more days (30 of them "overlap" the last 30 of your first period). During the Jan 1-Jul 1 period, you only used 60 days. During the Jun 1 - Dec 1 period you can stay 90 days. You just can't go over 90 days in any group of 180 days.

"Your "new" 180 days start on June 1." Nancy - I understand what you're saying, and you might be right. But I believe that your "new" 180 days wouldn't start until your "old" 180 days are over - which would be July 1, not June 1. My understanding, with which many obviously disagree, is that you can't start a "new" 180-day period until your "old" 180-day period is over. In my way of thinking, you'd get a "new" 90 days on July 1 - regardless of how and when you used your days in the preceding 180-day period. You might be right, but I'm not sure I'm wrong. Maybe a Schengen expert - which I decidedly am not - will see this thread and clarify things for all of us.

"In my way of thinking, you'd get a "new" 90 days on July 1 - regardless of how and when you used your days in the preceding 180-day period." If we used your rule in my example, it would result in a total of 120 consecutive days, which isn't allowed (30 days beginning Jun 1, and a "new" 90 days beginning Jul 1). And "regardless of how and when" could result in, as Frank said in his first response, as many as 179 days in a row - not possible.

Get a one-year calender. Put a couple of hundred (or ninety-one) Xs all over the place. If any ninety-one Xs happen to fall into any one hundred eighty day consecutive period, you loose. That's it.

I think Ed said it best! It really isn't that complicated. If within any 180 day period you have stayed in the Schengen countries more than a total of 90 days, you have exceeded your stay. Period. There is no loophole to sneak in extra days or piggyback them.

All passengers leaving the Schengen zone via an airport have to pass through Immigration before arriving at their gate....even at CDG.

I agree that my interpretation was wrong. Thanks to everyone who corrected me. The phrase that led me astray was "from the date of first entry". I took this to mean that you can't start 180-day period #2 until 180-day period #1 is over. I found more on the issue of "Schengen counting" here: http://www.euro-dollar-currency.com/90_180_days_rule.htm A poster on the website above explained it thus: on any given day, look back at the preceding 180 days. If you've been in the Schengen zone under 90 days in that time frame, you're good.

"All that being said, I have no idea how they enforce this since (in my experience) many Schengen border agents don't scan or stamp your passport anymore when you enter." Machine-readable, RFID and biometric passports. They don't stamp it, but they read the date in the chip/barcode and store it.

Aside from a broken link someone posted about "Dennis' daughter" having to pay a fine I haven't seen anything about anyone getting caught. After reading the confusion in this thread I am beginning to think this is all based on the honor system. I really doubt there is a problem or concern about tourists with money over staying their welcome, I can see this being applied to low wage foreign illegal workers but as is the case in our country, much of that enforcement is probably just for show. So unless you are stopped by police (which in our country don't enforce immigration laws) OR the airlines are turning people over to the authorities (which I highly doubt) this is an overblown issue except to keep the regulars in this forum busy.

Richard are you an anarchist? I have noticed in threads regarding following the laws of another country your advice is consistently just ignore the laws or legal issues as they are just overblown or irrelevant and nobody ever gets in trouble. This may be the way you live your life, but this practice when you travel gives all American a bad name. And is bad advice to give others. As a guest in other countries we have a responsibility to follow their laws. And even where enforcement is not consistent it is unwise to take the risk.

Richard, Dennis has posted on this site a few times to caution people against overstaying their visa in Europe, as he had firsthand experience of what happens because his daughter inadvertantly over-stayed by 3 days. This thread is one that I found where he recounts what happened: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=42779

Yes ed, I am looking to over throw the government??? I'm glad you can infer so much about me from two posts, this one and the other silly debate about DUI's. If you get off your moral high horse for a second you might realize that I haven't committed any offense and am only asking questions or bringing up points directly related to the discussion. Sorry if questioning the reality of a situation upsets you but all of the advice given here is plainly speculation on the part of various posters including yourself. There is the law, the interpretation of the law and then the application. I have yet to see two posters agree on all that stuff so how helpful is all this anyway? Does the reality of the situation enter into any of this or our we just having a debate on the law in theory?

Several have asked about the broken link to the post giving someone's personal knowledge of what happened when someone violated the Schengen rules. I've fixed the broken link in the post on the other thread, and am also pasting it in here, since this is where the most active discussion of this issue is at the moment. The link below is to Dennis' post re how a family member was sanctioned, at the airport while departing Europe, for violating the Schengen 90-day rule (it's the 4th post down on the topic thread linked to). http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/44403/5-months-in-europe-on-a-serious-budgetshould-i-buy-a-eurail-pass.html And the link that Angela posted (above) is a link to additional posts from Dennis.

Richard, I am pretty sure Zari's question was "what is legally permitted?" not "can I get away with breaking the law?"

Angela, Thanks for the link! It seems that Dennis' daughter was working illegally and waiting on a work visa. Since there isn't a complete story I can only assume that she had a few red flags on her record and we don't know that it was the airlines that tipped off the authorities, I highly doubt it.

His question actually is. "but what happens if you stay less than 90 days and then want to reenter before 180 days?" Not "is it legal?" just "what happens?". Why don't you go lecture Rick Steves on Marijuana?

Here is Dennis' post describing certain details of his daughter's Schengen violation: "Dennis here. My oldest daughter traveled 7 months alone right after high school, then finished 4 years at u in England. The two years getting Montessori certificate in England. The English visa rules are really tight for study and work. She got job in Switzerland where work visas are also tight and take long time. Aty end of travel visa, waiting for work visa, she had to leave and missed date by three extra days. Hence the fine; they nailed her at the airport leaving. Computers are really good in Europe! Don't overstay. My understanding is that for a big violation they can exclude you from schengen region for up to 10 years as a punishment, but I haven't confirmed that. Perhaps one of you can do some research. But yes, the rules do have teeth. Daughter in Berlin watches her visa renewals and times with great care, too, as result."

To the best of my knowledge Rick Steves has never advocating breaking the laws of any country regarding marijuana. He does support the changing of US law and does discuss its use where it is legal in other countries. He doesn't tell people to break or ignore the law. I would like to see marijuana legalized and the visa rules in Schengen zone liberalized to allow for an extending tourist visit lasting longer than 90 days. Supporting a change in the law is not the same as telling someone to break existing law.

Additional information on how Schengen violations are detected is given in Andre's post (above in this thread).

Kent, What's the thread title (they tend to move around).

Richard, There are 3 threads, it will be easiest for you to find them if I provide the URLs for each of the threads: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/44403/5-months-in-europe-on-a-serious-budgetshould-i-buy-a-eurail-pass.html http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=42779 http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/70708/more-shengen-rule-questions.html

Richard, the thread you are looking for is called Schengen Agreement. The most recent post, by which you would find it if you scroll back is 1/31/2010.

I appreciate everyone's imput and it seems that there is a lot of speculation out there, but it also seems that we strayed away from the original question. Is "piggy backing" your remaining allotment of 90 days allowed with your new allotment of 90 days? In other words, can I add my remaining 20 days at the end of my 180 day period with the new 90 days in the new 180 day period? Or, does one have to begin a new 180 day period before the original 180 day period has came to an end, loosing your remaining 20 days of the old 180 period? It seems that the Shengen rules are a bit unclear on this topic. Sorry if I caused such confusion.
Zari

Zari, you apparently aren't reading the responses! The short answer is NO, you cannot piggyback any remaining time onto a new 90 days. Read Ed from Pensacola's response for the shortcut way to explain it. Ninety days in ANY 180 days is the absolute limit, period. The very first answer you got answered the question perfectly and gave an example of how it works. You don't "lose" your remaining 20 days, you just start a new 90 days at the point when you reenter.

This website: http://www.euro-dollar-currency.com/overstaying_schengen_visa.htm has information about the various consequences and sanctions that can be imposed for violating the Schengen 90/180 day rule; and might make interesting reading for someone thinking about violating the rule.

Zari. No. No piggy backing. Very simple. If in the last 180 days you have been in the region 91 days you have been there too long.

It seems Dennis' daughter was applying for a work visa and that's how they discovered her overstay which makes a lot more sense than "being stopped at the airport on your way out". My advice is: 1)ask a lawyer, 2) Figure out a legal way around the restrictions before you go, 3) Don't count on the free advice here for legal issues. What I have learned from this thread so far is, even if you stay illegally as a tourist chances are you won't be found out. And just like the DUI discussion, whatever information you get ahead of time from whatever official source, chances are when it comes down to it things might be different in reality. We often see posts where someone was assured of something before their trip only to find out the reality of the situation was quite different.

From post immediately above: "which makes a lot more sense than being stopped at the airport on your way out." This site http://www.euro-dollar-currency.com/overstaying_schengen_visa.htm appears to have a different opinion: "How do you get caught overstaying Schengen visa? * * * Another very common situation is when leaving the Schengen zone by air. When leaving the Schengen zone, you have to go through passport control, and that is the point where you can get caught overstaying Schengen visa."

My last trip to Europe we entered at Munich, the guy at immigration control took great pains to inform me that I only had limited time still available, also insisted on checking my return ticket to be sure i would be out in time So dont believe these people who would like to believe they dont check

I don't recall "passport control" when I left from CDG. Anyone go through passport control?

Every time I have left Europe for the US, I have gone through passport check and security. Every time.

If you don't go through passport control, how will they know you're out of their hair? The only way I know to get around it at Roissy is to go to the men's room in T2E, take the hand dryer off the wall, and work your way down through the over-sized hole. This will bring you out in front of the nose wheel of the aircrat at jetway B4206-8, from where you'll have to board through the cargo hold in a ninja suit.

Richard may have just tipped his hand that he is not the experienced traveler he thinks he is.

This thread seems to have taken on a life of its own. And no wonder Zari is still confused, he needed to search deep to find the simple, straight forward answer. To Richard: It is highly irresponsible for anyone of this site to give advice contrary to the law. You may be right that it is not always strictly enforced and I know some of that from experience. But every situation is different and every passport control officer is different. They DO scan passports (coming AND going) and CAN track length of stays. The penalties for violating the law can be pretty severe so to simply tell people not to worry is very, very poor advice.

Frank,
I never claimed or considered myself an experienced traveler, that is your assumption. Besides how could I ever be as experienced as someone with your post count. Douglas, I have only been asking questions here and stating my observations, please point out where I gave anyone advice on this subject (other than ask a lawyer and don't take free legal advice here seriously).