How the 90/180-day rule works
If you don't need a Schengen visa for short trips (for example with a US, UK, Canadian or Australian passport), or you hold a short-stay Schengen visa, you can be in the Schengen Area for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
The 180-day period is not a calendar half-year. It is a moving window: on any day you are in the Schengen Area, look back over that day and the 179 days before it. If you were present on more than 90 of those days, you have overstayed. This calculator repeats that check for every day of every trip you enter, including planned ones.
- Entry and exit days both count as full days, even if you arrive at 11pm or leave at 6am.
- All Schengen countries share one 90-day allowance. Moving from France to Italy does not reset anything.
- Days drop out of the window on a rolling basis, so your allowance comes back gradually, not all at once.
- Time spent on a national long-stay visa or residence permit of a Schengen country usually does not count toward the 90 days.
Worked example
Say you spend 1 January to 31 March in Spain. That is exactly 90 days, so on 31 March your window is full. From 1 April, you cannot re-enter the Schengen Area until days begin to fall out of the 180-day window. If you re-enter on 30 June, the window for that day already excludes 1 January. You can then stay until 27 September, because an old day drops out of the window for each new day you add. In short: 90 days in, 90 days out gives you a fresh 90.
Most real trips are shorter and spread out, which is where mistakes happen. Two 50-day trips six weeks apart can quietly add up to an overstay. Use the calculator above rather than counting by hand.
Which countries are in the Schengen Area?
The Schengen Area has 29 member countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Not included: Ireland and Cyprus have their own rules, as do the UK and non-EU Balkan countries such as Albania and Serbia. Days spent there do not count toward your Schengen 90 days, but they have their own limits. Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City have open borders with Schengen neighbours and are generally treated as part of the area in practice.
What happens if you overstay?
Penalties vary by country. They can include fines, being refused entry on future trips, and an entry ban recorded in the Schengen Information System. The EU's Entry/Exit System (EES) started operating in October 2025. It records non-EU travellers' entries and exits digitally, so border officers can now see overstays automatically instead of counting passport stamps.
Tips for planning longer stays
- Use the Next entry date box to see the last day you can stay on your next trip before you book flights.
- Use Days you want to stay to find the earliest date you can come back for a trip of a given length.
- Keep boarding passes or passport stamps. If your records and the border system disagree, you'll need proof.
- Some countries have bilateral agreements with certain nationalities that can allow extra time in that one country. These are exceptions: check with the embassy first.