The 90 days rule explained and overstaying

The 90 days rule refers to not spending more than ‘90 days in any 180-day period’ in the Schengen area at a given time. It applies to visitors from non-EU countries whose nationals are exempt from short-term visitor visas.

The rule is long-standing and the EU says checking third-country (non-EU) nationals on entry is important as there are no internal border checks between countries once inside. Note that a new digital borders system, EES, has been introduced, replacing the need for passport stamping.

If you live in France and have a residency card, you should show this at the border.

The EU says the 90/180 rule should be best understood not by looking forward in time from the point of entry but by looking back. It should be imagined as a ‘moving’ period of 180 days.

At any time when you are in the Schengen area, you must not have spent more than 90 out of the last 180 days there. The entry date is the first day on which you spend any time in the area and the exit day is the last day you are in the area. If you are away for a full period of 90 days then you will have accrued the right to a stay of up to 90 days.

Note that, in theory, the 90 days rule also applies to foreign people staying in France with regard to visits to other parts of the Schengen border-free area, although this is not likely to be subject to passport stamping and checks.

Here are three examples of permitted 90-day stays:

1) Visit all of January (31 days), February (28), and March (31) = 90 days total.

2)Visit January (31), March (31), and then return in June, leaving by June 28.

3)Stay April (30), May (31), and part of June, leaving June 29 – in this case, you could not return before September 28.

Consult your EES record

Since the full rollout of the EES, there is an official EES days calculator, intended to show you how many days you have left according to data stored in the system. 

If you believe the information shown by this to be inaccurate, you are advised to contact national authorities of the EU state where you last entered or exited the Schengen area, providing evidence, to request rectification.

A short-stay calculator tool provided by the European Commission can also help you check and plan.

It has two options:

1: ‘Control’ is mainly to check you are complying with the 90/180-day rule during an ongoing stay and to see how long you can stay on. Put the last date you entered at the top under ‘date of entry/control’. Ignore the ‘passport’ button. Enter in the columns below your last trips, with entry and exit date in this format 01/06/26. Click ‘calculate’ and it will tell you what date you can stay until under the rules. 

2: The ‘Planning’ option is to check if a future trip will comply bearing in mind previous trips. Put the future trip’s entry date in the entry/control field and add in your previous entry and exit date/s in the fields below. Click ‘calculate’ to see if you could return then and for how many days before your entitlement runs out.

Overstaying

EU sources state that penalties can include being denied re-entry to the Schengen area next time you seek to visit and, depending on the country, fines. 

Border officials have sometimes been lenient especially if overstaying is not excessive but France’s police nationale and the Interior Ministry confirmed that there can be fines of €198 if you are found to have overstayed when you leave, and we have heard of cases of this being applied.

The fine is defined as being double the sum charged by consular services for a long-stay visa (€99). Note that any overstaying of the permitted 90/180 days will be tracked and flagged up by the automated calculator integrated in the EES system, as will previous entry refusals.

People concerned will be added to an ‘overstayer’ list and alerts will be sent to EU countries using EES. Passport control officers, immigration officers and staff issuing visas will have access to it.

The EU says that if people provide credible evidence to guards of unforeseeable or mitigating circumstances their data could be amended in the system, allowing them to be removed from the list.

Can the 90 days period be extended? 

As a general rule, you cannot apply to extend your stay in France beyond 90 days if you do not already have a visa or residency card, and you cannot apply for a visa from within France.

However, there are exceptions and cases where you can extend a stay, such as if you are the spouse of an EU (but not French) citizen. In such a case you can stay on longer by applying for a residency card.

Generally, you will not be penalised for unintentionally overstaying in limited circumstances, for example if you are under 18, or you cannot travel without a family member or carer because of illness or disability and this person cannot go with you. 

Another exception is if you apply to the prefecture of the area where you are staying to extend your stay because you are stuck in France for reasons out of your control. This is called autorisation provisoire de séjour and it cannot exceed 180 days. It may be granted in exceptional, unforeseen situations, for example if you are too ill to travel and need to stay for treatment. It could also be granted to people required to delay departure because of work-related or travel issues.

A small fee may be charged for this, though we have heard of this being waived. The prefecture of the Dordogne said you need documents including your passport and a copy of it, ID photographs, a copy of a return ticket, proof of address and if you were staying on due to health issues, for example, proof of health insurance – such as an Ehic or Ghic – and a doctor’s certificate.

An autorisation provisoire de séjour can be renewed in the case of a sick person needing medical treatment. To obtain the temporary right to remain for this purpose, you or your dependant must be seriously ill and/or urgently needing treatment which cannot be appropriately provided by your home country.

If you are staying with someone, you should also present a declaration from them as to their relationship with you and willingness to take financial responsibility for you if required, the Dordogne prefecture stated.

It is also possible to have a visit of more than 90 days by applying before travel for a temporary long-stay visa.

Using old pre-Schengen 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.

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. 

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.