Schengen Info

###Applicable Countries:

See here for the list, maintained by Wikipedia.

Official List as of 2013-07-01.

• Austria

• Belgium

• Czech Republic

• Denmark (excluding Greenland and the Faroe Islands)

• Estonia

• Finland

• France (excluding overseas departments and territories)

• Germany

• Greece

• Hungary

• Iceland

• Italy

• Latvia

• Liechtenstein

• Lithuania

• Luxembourg

• Malta

• Netherlands (excluding Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Caribbean Netherlands)

• Norway (excluding Svalbard)

• Poland

• Portugal

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Spain (with special provisions for Ceuta and Melilla)

• Sweden

• Switzerland

Visa Waiver

###How does the 90-day visa waiver for the Schengen Area work?

Official rules taken on 2015-06-01:

The date of entry shall be considered as the first day of stay on the territory of the Member States and

the date of exit shall be considered as the last day of stay on the territory of the Member

States. Periods of stay authorised under a residence permit or a long-stay visa shall not be

taken into account in the calculation of the duration of stay on the territory of the Member

States.

The notion of "any", implies the application of a "moving" 180-day reference period,

looking backwards at each day of the stay (be it at the entry or at the day of an actual

check), into the last 180-day period, in order to verify if the 90 days / 180-day

requirement continues to be fulfilled.

Among others, it means that an absence for an uninterrupted period of 90 days allows for a

new stay for up to 90 days.

Stays in Bulgaria, Croatia, Ireland, Romania, Cyprus and the United Kingdom shall not be

taken into account as they are not (yet) part of the Schengen area without internal borders. At

the same time, the non-EU Member States Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland

belong to the Schengen area; short stays in these countries count in when assessing the

compliance with the 90 days / 180-day rule.

###What does this mean?

In other words, in any 180 consecutive day window, you are only allowed to be in the Schengen (even partially) for 90 of those days. There is no date when the 180-day window "resets"; you have to look at any and all 180-day windows.

It is probably easiest to look at the 180-day window ending on your expected departure date: on your date of departure, look back 180 days (including the date of departure). If you have been/will be in Schengen for more than 90 days, that is an overstay. If you have been/will be in Schengen for less than or equal to 90 days, you are OK.

To check it for a specific 180-day window, say March 18th, 2015 to September 14th, 2015 - count for each day between March 18th and September 14th inclusive, that you are in the Schengen area.

If it does not exceed 90, then you are fine. Make sure this applies to all/any 180-day window.

If you are having trouble understanding, try the ELI5 below!

Try this short-stay calculator or this less official one.

ELI5

Imagine you have 90 Schengen tokens to spend - each one representing a day.

For each day you are in Schengen, you have to spend a token. But don't worry, you'll get one token back 180 days later.

If you do not want to break the rules, make sure you have at least one remaining token for the day you leave Schengen!