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Working holiday visa and travel to other countries

Posted by (Australia) on

Hi, so my plan was to travel around Europe on a holiday for 6 months, starting in Ireland and ending in Spain. I have been researching if visas are necessary and came across the Schengen area and the 90 day rule. I'm an AUS citizen so it is visa free for those 90 days but obviously I was intending to stay for longer. I'm wondering if anyone has travelled around Europe recently and had a work around for this or something.

I am now looking at getting a working holiday visa for italy as that is where I spend the most amount of nights. I am wondering if this would allow me to still travel for longer and in different countries, however I'm concerned that this isn't the first place I go, I start in Ireland but the first Schengen country I enter is Norway, then Sweden is first EU Schengen country. Does anyone have advice? please help me I'm very confused and just wanted to have a gap year (6months) after finishing my degree.

Posted by
10211 posts

This is the rule for the country where I live; you need to verify for Italy.

A one-year visitor visa allows you to travel to other countries within the Schengen zone for 90 days. Otherwise, you are expected to be in the host country for the rest of the time.

Now, would you be able to combine 90 days of visa-free travel allowed Australians, visit a non-Schengen country (England, Morocco), fly to Italy to officially enter Italy and reenter Schengen and start your 1-year visitor visa with the accompanying bureaucratic hoopla? Does anyone out there know? I’ve read where students on study visas can combine the time periods.

What exactly the word « working » means in your title is potentially another can of worms.

Posted by
18014 posts

Tricky, isn't it. I'm in Hungary on a Residency permit and technically I am subject to Schengen rules outside of Hungary. But there are no Schengen passport checks so I imagine people cheat the system.

Apparently Denmark has a Schengen exemption https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/a-travel-quiz-for-the-new-year. You might check out.

Otherwise there are still a lot of beautiful countries out of Schengen .... go explore.

Posted by
32825 posts

if you went to Ireland in the middle instead of the beginning it might help with some of your day-count. Remember that any part of the day counts, even on arrival and departure days, so be sure to count those in.

Posted by
94 posts

depending on your age you can apply for a one year working visa as an Australian which is rarely if ever refused, as long as you dont have a massive criminal record

the conditions are as follows

Aged between 18-30 years old (inclusive) at the time of application
(exceptions: 18-26 for Czech Republic, 18-31 for Portugal, 18-35 for France, Ireland, Canada & Denmark)
Your primary reason for travelling is for a holiday, with any work or study being “incidental” to the holiday
Your passport will remain valid for at least 3-6 months after you plan to leave the destination country
You will not be accompanied by dependent children
You have not already completed a working holiday in the same country

if your over 35 you wont get one, unfortunately. i work in immigration and once you meet the above criteria you will be fine
ive seen on a number of posts that because ireland is not in the schegen area you can just hop over and extend your stay in the schegen area, this is fundamentally untrue as our visas closely mirror the schegen area and people do get caught out this way

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