How Americans can stay in France beyond the EU's 90/180 days rule

Americans are the biggest beneficiaries of ‘extended’ stays in the EU, new data shows. We look at why this is, and how US visitors - and some other nationals - can benefit.

Americans, Britons and other nationals, such as Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, are all subject to the EU’s 90/180 days rule.

This limits their visa-free stays in the EU’s Schengen area if they are visitors as opposed to long-stay residents.

It is best understood by looking back – at any given point, you should not have spent more than 90 days in total in the Schengen area, including France.

The new EES digital border system aims partly at keeping better track of this and has ended the need for systematic physical passport stamps (see here for a new days calculation tool).

However, an EU report for the first quarter of 2026 showed how the system is used to log other border issues concerning the same travellers such as refusals of entry to the bloc and extensions of stay.

The data shows that Americans are the biggest beneficiaries of extensions, with 6,565 instances out of a total of 11,885.

This refers to where a national authority in a Schengen country gives someone permission to stay on for longer than 90 days in their national territory (not Schengen generally).

An example would be if a prefecture grants an autorisation provisoire de séjour in a medical emergency or family crisis, as we addressed in July’s edition (search provisoire at our website for more).

Bilateral deals

But the large number of Americans is almost certainly due to a different factor: rights under old pre-Schengen Agreement bilateral deals.

The 1985 Schengen agreement confirms that its rules do not affect countries’ rights to extend people’s stays on their territory in exceptional circumstances or due to existing bilateral deals made before it came into force.

In past years, The Connexion was told by lawyers and a relocation expert working with Americans that this rule was not commonly used by Americans and was likely to be little understood by border guards.

However, with the start of EES, its use has been clarified.

The US has an agreement with France dating from April 1, 1949, allowing US citizens to spend 90 days in mainland France and Corsica without a visa, regardless of previous stays in the Schengen area.

How it works

Americans can use up their 90/180 days in Schengen - including France - then start to use an ‘extension’ of up to 90 days in France.

It is intended to work this way round; for example, a US citizen should not stay a full 90 days in France then another 90 days in Spain or Italy.

It is unclear how border officials would distinguish between these if the traveller ultimately left from France to return home, as there are generally no internal Schengen area border controls. However, a person risking doing this 'the wrong way around' could also find themselves in difficulty if subject to police checks while overstaying in another Schengen state.

US citizens wanting to use this process should state to a border guard their wish to invoke the bilateral agreement when they cross the border into France from outside Schengen. The French Embassy in Washington confirmed to The Connexion that this should be done at the point of arriving in France. 

The guard can update their EES file to ensure the agreement is applied to their stay.

While this process is confirmed by sources including the French Embassy in the US, we do not know if all French border guards will be familiar with these rules and are interested to hear from Americans who have made use of this (feedback@connexionfrance.com). 

Several other countries have similar agreements also for an extra 90 days.

These include: Canada (agreement from 1/5/1950) and New Zealand (1/12/1947), as well as South Korea, Israel, Japan and Singapore. There is no such deal with the UK.

The EU report also gave details of reasons for entry refusal to the bloc, which included having already used up the 90/180 days entitlement, or guards being unconvinced of the reasons for a person coming, where they will stay and if they have sufficient funds. 

We note, however, that such questions are rarely asked of people who appear to be ordinary Western tourists arriving in holiday destinations.