The 90/180 day rule - Page 9

If only, I'd give anything for an Irish passport, my wife is Danish but that doesn't really help, thanks for trying though.

We' are Irish Paul but of course we're not in Schengen. All I know is that I was ignorant of this 90/180 regulation until about a month ago. It was never mentioned when we set up a business here back in 2006 and it was only when I read about it on the forum that alarm bells rang. 

 I'm letting sleeping dogs lie until I get more information about what Spain is doing after Jan1st. We spend most of the year in Spain and have been doing so for many years and I think we're in good company judging from what I hear. 

With a bit of luck nothing will change but that's a fingers crossed scenario. Don't think we could get used to Irish weather again in the long term. I'm optimistic though because Spain is in bad economic trouble like a lot of countries as a result of Covid & logic tells me they won't want to lose any stream of income they can hold onto. It just all depends on whether they figure they'd get more from taxation than they do under the current circumstances. Keep the spirits up.

I'm sure you'll be fine, Ireland hasn't decided to give up this particular freedom and I don't see why anything would change for you, I think Spain would be happy to allow Brits to carry on as normal but that would give us access to everywhere within the Schengen zone, so they may well have to treat us like any other none EU nation.

It's going to be very interesting to see how it all plays out. It's possible Spain will not enforce any new rules and 'carry on regardless', sticking two fingers up to the EU as they often have done in the past.

One bizarre scenario which could come about is this - if Spain doesn't apply the new regulations but France does, it would mean the days of driving down to Spain for 6 months would be over, yet still possible to fly into Spain for eg 6 months. (you might say that Gavin Williamson is making this scenario more likely by the day!)

Interesting times...

Steve

True Paul but they may conclude that it is up to other countries in Schengen to monitor movement and allow them to carry on as they are. If so, happy days for everyone. 

Strikes me that Shengen is like a sieve when it comes to movement of people but they probably figure most people just want a quiet life and aren't members of the criminal/terrorist fraternity, therefore, let them move around, spend their money wherever they like and leave them free to track down the criminals.  Not a bad approach.

Hi Eureka,

"We' are Irish Paul but of course we're not in Schengen. All I know is that I was ignorant of this 90/180 regulation until about a month ago. It was never mentioned when we set up a business here back in 2006 and it was only when I read about it on the forum that alarm bells rang."

Schengen wasn't, and isn't, an issue for you because Ireland is a member of the EU, even though it isn't a member of Schengen.  Similarly, it wasn't an issue for UK citizens while we were also a member of the EU, but from 1 January 2021, when UK citizens become Third Country Nationals, the rules for us change, especially for "snowbirds" wanting to spend up to 6 months here, because the UK also isn't in Schengen.

This is nothing to do with Spain's requirement for foreigners to register in Spain within 3 months, if you intend to live here.  Spain hasn't enforced their residency laws for citizens from EU member states and I very much doubt that they have the bandwidth to do so any time soon.  

However, the Schengen travel zone systems that have been in place for the last 25 years (Spain was one of the founding countries), to monitor movements throughout the area, have been successfully applied to other TCNs, so I don't see why Spain would have any difficulty tracking UK citizens through those same systems.

Kind regards, 

Kim

We drove last year but skipped France and sailed into Bilbao, it was a wonderful journey, France also has a lot of British immigrants and it could be tricky for them, I just hope none of this becomes unpleasant, Gibraltar and fishing could be problematic areas going forward.

Thanks Kim, that's very helpful. Aren't these forums most enlightening, at least sometimes they are.

Apologies if this has been said earlier ( too lazy to read every post) but you might find the Schengen Calculator on Schengenvisainfo.com helpful.  You can type in all your intended visits over the next 12 months, say, and it will calculate how much time remaining you have left in the rolling 180 day period.

Hi Cathie,

The problem is that there's about 4 threads running concurrently on the same subject (if Jim was still regularly on the forum, he'd be giving members a hard time for not using the Search fields before starting a new thread!).  Anyway, here's the link again - I've looked at several calculators and this is by far the easiest to use:

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/visa-calculator/

Kind regards,

Kim